Talent Acquisition Of Trendy Textiles
Introduction
The India Retail Industry is the largest among all the industries, accounting for over 10 per cent of the country GDP and around 8 per cent of the employment. The Retail Industry in India has come forth as one of the most dynamic and fast paced industries with several players entering the market. But all of them have not yet tasted success because of the heavy initial investments that are required to break even with other companies and compete with them. The India Retail Industry is gradually inching its way towards becoming the next boom industry. With respect to retail in textile in India it is growing at more rapid pace as compared to other industry products though the margins are lesser than the other industry products in textile.
The Indian retail market is expected to demonstrate a promising year-on-year growth of 6% to reach USD 865 billion, by 2023, from the current USD 490 billion. The share of apparel in India’s retail market is 8%, corresponding to a value of USD 40 billion. In addition to fashion apparel, the growing demand for fashion accessories makes the Indian fashion market both interesting and lucrative.
The Indian fashion retail market has witnessed several fascinating changes and challenges in recent years, which are indicators of the country’s evolving fashion retail market. The challenges associated with these changes need to be addressed in the most efficient and prudent manner in order to harness the concomitant benefits.
The Challenges
Human Resource
Human Resource Management is the most important aspect in any Industry. To provide best quality and providing the best services human capital need to managed quite efficiently. Mostly Organised Retail Textile Industry have upper hand in acquiring the right talent. Whereas unorganised sector face issues in acquisition of right talent due to financial constrains or the organization structure followed by them.
Aligning organizational structures to consumer needs, designing employee compensation policies keeping in mind their roles, implementing effective training and development programs, recruiting and retaining talent, etc. are some of the key challenges that fashion retail players have to address.
One of the critical aspects of human resource management will be the development of an organizational culture as this will have a direct impact on employee morale and their attitude towards customers.
Forgotten Four Pillars
Integrity: Interiority is a state of being where the person is committed to its word what has been given. If you complete your commitment with integrity then people around will pay respect which lead to raising your value in the community.
Relationship: People around you are the real resource of the life. It is very important to build strong relationship and keep that relationship intact with integrity. The relationship makes any person powerful. Without power in life none of tasks can be completed with integrity.
Existence: By existence it does not mean that we exist but it really means that we are in this world where there are many opportunities are there and we need to explore them and move forward. Any entity is there because people are there.
Enrolment: Enrolment is creating new possibilities to be present for another such that they are touched and inspired. On can have right result once you have done enrolment with integrity.
Evolving Customer Needs
Evolving customer needs are a challenge for Indian retailer as these require rediscovering the customer within a short time span and then rearrange the organization’s structure, retail formats, and product portfolios accordingly. Unlike a mature retail market, the retail market in India has to continuously focus on the process of learning, unlearning, and relearning. Again, this alone is not sufficient; the insights gained in the process must be translated into actionable business decisions.
Rising Real Estate Rentals
Though overall there is slump in Real Estate but when it comes to setting up retail outlet it constitute the major cost to the business. One of the difficulty faced by the textile retail is that they need to find the right market where there are players of the same product but also they have look for players who are into trading other accessories in the particular market before setting up outlet in that market. If textile retailer identify the right market then due to high demand in that area the rentals in that area so high it becomes very competitive to sustain itself.
Online Aggregators
In recent years many online and other start-ups have established themselves in the textile retail and fashion providing customer larger choices at high discounted rates. They are able to provide at high discounted rates as they do not have to maintain inventory themselves. But the down side for them is the Indian customer like to feel and touch the product before making any decision for purchase.
But new generation of Indian market are moving towards the online stores as they behaviour is lazy and want the products at their doorsteps. Few of online aggregators provide services like easy returns and trial at home services which makes lucrative for business for online aggregators.
There are many other challenges faced by Textile Retail and Fashion Industry which is endless and one can list end number of challenges but most importantly is how the entrepreneur is able to deal with the challenges.
Talent Acquisition
As retail and Fashion Industry is fast pace growing Industry it is important to create right talent pool and that also keeping with the growth pace of the industry. Matching resume with job profiles will not really help as stated earlier Human Resource is the key factor in any industry. Unlike the traditional textile industry the process of recruitment need to be quicker as the retail market most completive market. If you not quick in the providing right services then it may happen you will miss out on the right opportunity.
There are few important factors one must look into while acquiring right talent in Textile Retail & Fashion Industry.
Product Knowledge
Every Textile Retail or Fashion House before they acquire talent they must draft down what kind of talent they want. It is really important that the entrepreneur should have good product knowledge about his product and what it’s USP. Hence while enrolling any talent in his retail outlet the entrepreneur should make sure the candidate has full product knowledge what he or she is merchandizing. A garment merchandiser has to analyse customers and consumers as well as to follow their behaviour to sell the garments merchandise.
Industry Experience
As the Retail Textile & Fashion deals with B2B and B2C kind of customers where customers can be end user or trader or business user hence a candidates need to have variable experience which should be mix of technical operations etc. Apart from the mix profiles while setting up textile outlet some specialized profiles are also required. Which are listed as follows:-
Few Job Profiles Must Have
- Associate Designer
- Designer
- Design Director
- Technical Designer
- CAD Designer
- Production Manager
- Textile Buyer
- Fashion Forecaster
- Assistant Merchandiser
- Associate Merchandiser
- Product Specialist
- Visual Merchandiser/ Display Director
There are scarcity of specialized professional in Retail Textile industry this is due there are only very few textile institutes which carter to specialized courses. Though these courses are affordable but very few candidate prefer to take up as their career as it is not very rewarding but in Industry demand for these candidates are quite high. Due to scarce specialized manpower the cost of manpower is quite high which adds up to the cost of manufacturer and making the end product quite expensive for end user.
Personal Behaviour
This is the most important aspect while selecting right talent for the Fashion and Retail Textile Industry. Personal Behaviour plays a very important role more than the product knowledge and Industry Experience. As the candidate has to not only have to deal within the organization but also external entities outside the organization.
For example: If a trader want 100 Slim Fit Blue jeans the merchandiser or the marketing personnel should have good patience in listening and understanding the trader needs. He should able explain politely and educate the trader about trends and demand and supply of market. If the merchandiser fails to do so no matter he may be qualified the order may not go through.
Hence from the above example we understand the importance of personal Behaviour. A candidate has to remember four pillar of life which mentioned earlier in this article. Which help the candidate to flourish his or her career in this industry.
Conclusion
We can conclude that Retail Textile & Fashion industry is growing at a rapid pace this is due to increase in per capita income among the young generation and people are more & more conscious about fashion and brand. Most of Indian population specially the rural India are more brand conscious and spend more than the urban area people. But recruitment in this industry is not a child’s play. As there are very few specialist available in this Industry. A specialized consultant in this Industry can be wise option for acquiring these kind of talent.
