Comment: Skills needed for retailing would be valued in other sectors

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I was telling a colleague the other day about some work I was thinking of doing for a non-retail business. “Sounds really interesting,” was the reaction. “We retailers only ever move in our own little world.”

It is indeed remarkable how few senior people do move in or out of retailing, and how so many retail businesses are led by long-term, often lifelong, retailers.

I came into retailing as an exec from a financial background, and there’s no doubt it took me a good while to catch up on my missing experience in the sector. I was lucky to have a couple of benign trading years to learn the ropes.

Maybe because of this background I have never felt 100% a ‘retailer’, but rather more like a businessman who has worked extensively in the retail sector.

It has also made it easier for me to work in other sectors and I have done this as both an executive and a non-exec.

By doing this I have learnt how we in the retail sector have developed skills and knowledge that are rare elsewhere in business.

This may seem like a statement of the obvious, but: retailers have unequalled breadth and quality of direct contact with customers; we have to learn how to spot and adapt rapidly to changing customer behaviour or taste; we operate in intensely competitive markets where we have to look everywhere for trading advantage; we understand the power of a differentiated offer…I could go on, but you get the idea.

These things are everyday necessities for us, but they are also greatly valued by other organisations that
may not have the opportunity to learn them, despite being in the consumer world or dealing in some way with the general public. I have witnessed this myself in areas as diverse as hospitality, wholesale, media and museums.

I often hear how retail is undervalued in both the commercial world - where suppliers see us as mere ‘dealers’ or as bullying traders who add little value - and in the political arena, where the economic and other contributions we make are not recognised.

Our sector does not have the profile or reputation it deserves. Few people see the depth of effort and thinking that goes into forming a successful retail offer.

But I find that once people hear what we have to say about customers and building a compelling proposition for them, they are hooked.

Many organisations have a real need - whether they realise it or not - for the kind of skills and knowledge we take for granted, and there are too few retailers venturing outside our own world to show what we can do. In particular, government and public organisations desperately need the retail touch.

It would be so good for our profession if more of our talented people found their way into the wider commercial world, and in particular into the public sector. We should promote the idea as a powerful initiative for retailing.