Career Viewpoint in Retail Industry: Trends, Skills, and Expertise

The report discusses the trends, skills, and expertise required for a successful career in the retail industry. It covers the impact of globalization, technology, personalized retail experience, and autonomous deliveries. It also highlights the essential skills like communication, customer service, ICT, teamwork, marketing, and planning. The report evaluates the job role of a marketing manager in the retail sector. Primary research with HR of Tesco and Marks and Spencer is conducted to identify the new trends and their effect on the retail sector.

MG410 CAREER
VIEWPOINT

INTRODUCTION
The aim of the report is to create an awareness of the knowledge, skills and experience in
retail industry. With the help of present study, general trend can be identified that affect the
chosen industry. The chosen industry for the study is retail which is one of the emerging sector
that provide range of opportunities to the people in order to improve the results. Further, report
will use both primary and secondary study in order to demonstrate the general trend of retail
industry and rationale for choosing this industry only.
ANALYSIS AND APPLICATION
Presenting the general trend that will impact on retail industry
Retail sector is consider one of the most emerging trend that quickly adapt the market
needs and helps to satisfy customers wants as well. Some of them are as mentioned below:
Globalization: It is one of the major factor that affect the business and retail industry in
negative or positive manner. Such that increasing globalization has led to market which is being
exposed to foreign markets and this in turn increases in rise of shopping experience (Anik, Gindi
and Habib, 2021). This emerge growth in multi-channel retailing which affect the business,
however businesses use range of promotional tool to improve the business which increases cost
of a company as well.
Technology: This trend provides a new dimension to the retail industry such that it
changes the process of payment, order everything and saves time of customers. This in turn
facilitate the management of large set-ups with ease and that is why, it does not affect the
business performance. For example, machine learning and virtual fitting rooms are considered
some of the latest trend that affect the business in positive manner like attracting range of
customers towards it.
Personalized retail experience: Now a days, customers wants personalized shopping
experience and this is also provided by companies like Tesco and Marks and Spencer (Mu,
2020). Retailers also create a personalized experience through a simple service and this also
include chat-bots which in turn increases the customer engagement and interactions so that
businesses can improve the business performance and generate best outcomes.

Autonomous deliveries: This trend is adopted by many companies where robots and
autonomous deliveries are used to deliver the product to customers without any higher cost.
Moreover, Robots are also used in the working place which helps to solve the customer queries
and also provide best customer experience to the customers as well. In addition to this, robots are
also used in inventory management that helps to lower down the business extra time and cost so
that effective results.
Skills/knowledge required for retail industry
In order to enter into retail industry, there is a need to possess strong skills and
knowledge which are as mentioned below:
Skills:
 Communication skills: It is one of most important skills which each and every
individual needed to share the opinion to each other. Also, it can be stated that individual
must possess both verbal and written communication so that effective results can be
generated (Noghabaei and et.al., 2020).
 Customer service skills: With the help of this skills, employees can easily increase the
customer service skills and provide best customer support to them as well. Moreover, it
can be stated that this skill assists them to sustain the brand image of a company in
market
 ICT skills: ICT skill also assist the employees to solve the problem immediately and this
in turn helps to present the findings in an effective manner. So, it can be stated that with
the help of ICT skills, employers can improve the results and attract customers.
 Team work skills: This skill help to attain the defined goal of a company immediately
because working in a team is far beneficial than working individually (Helm, Kim and
Van Riper, 2020). That is why, it can be stated that through team spirit, individual can
meet the defined aim of a company.
 Marketing skills: This skill assist to promote the products in market and that is why, it
helps to create a positive impact over the business by creating awareness among people.
 Planning and organizing skills: It can be stated that through this skills, individual make
effective planning and organize strategies that assists to generate the best outcome for

future. Also, it can be stated that there is a need to possess such skills which in turn
assists to create a positive impact upon business performance.
Areas of knowledge and expertise
 Product knowledge: It can be stated that through effective knowledge of products,
individual can let people know about the product and this in turn assists to attract
customers as well.
 problem solving: This assists to solve the problem, if they faced any and that is why, it
assists to create a sense of togetherness among people so that effective results can
generated.
Primary research:
To conduct the primary research, 2 interviewee of top firm has been chosen like HR of
Tesco, Marks and Spencer, that helps to generate the best outcomes. Through the primary
research, it can be stated that both interviewees are agreed that technology is considered one of
the best emerging trend that helps retail industry to improve the business performance. Also, it
can be stated that to choose the effective profession within retail industry, there is a need to
possess strong skills which includes communication and technological. One of the interviewee
stated that having effective product knowledge pertaining to chosen company must be helpful to
satisfy the need of customers (Shen, Chen and Wang, 2019). Thus, it can be stated that in future
when, any individual wants to enter into this profession then it will be more beneficial for them
to possess enough interpersonal skills which in turn causes positive impact upon their experience
as well. For example, enter into HR department, individual should possess enough
communication skills and an experience of more than 6 years that helps to understand the things
in more effective manner.
EVALUATION
The retail industry is consisting of all marketing activities specially the sale of good and
services from the company to the customer (Retail Industry definition., 2021). In other words, it
is the process of selling consumer product and services through various channel of distribution in
order to earn the revenue. There are various jobs that are available in the retail sector due to its
broad business. I have adopted for marketing manager for Home back company that bake and

decorate cakes and sell the decoration items. The organization has given the advertisement for
the vacancy on newspaper and social sites. I am interested in this job because I want to peruse
my career in this field as well as I have also done a course of digital marketing that is very
suitable for this job. Along with this, my future plans are to open a retail business this job
experience will give me the practical knowledge about running a business in a competitive
environment. Moreover, I have strong communication and management skills that I have develop
while doing my Bachelor degree in Business Management (Di Gregorio and et.al., 2019).
Furthermore, this job is suitable for retail sector as the marketing manager helps the organization
with market insights such as taste and preferences of the customer, new marketing trends that has
been adopted by the competitors. This benefits the company in making the product according to
the needs of customer that contributes in increasing the sales of the organization.
In addition to this, the major advantage of hiring the marketing manager is promoting the
products with help of direct and indirect methods. That result in increasing the brand reputation
of the firm in the competitive market. Moreover, this job is an emerging role in the retails sector
because of the needs of promoting the business is very essential for the company in order to
expands their business.
CONCLUSION
From the above report it has been concluded that retail sector is one of the most emerging
business as it sells their products and services to customer by using various channels of
marketing. Along with this, the study has summarized about the major trends that are affecting
this sector such as globalization, technology, personnel retail and autonomy delivery that has
both positive and negative effect on this sector.
Furthermore, the report has also depicted on the knowledge and skills that are required
in retail sector such as communication, marketing, ITC and customer care skills are majorly
required in order to run the business more efficiently and effectively. Lastly, the study has
conducted primary research for identifying the new trends and their effect on retail sector as
well as evaluation of marketing manager job role.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Anik, M. A. H., Gindi, E. R. and Habib, M. A., 2021, September. Examining the Impacts of
COVID-19 on Retail Industry and E-shopping. In 2021 Transportation Association of
Canada Conference & Exhibition.
Di Gregorio, A. and et.al., 2019. Employability skills for future marketing
professionals. European management journal. 37(3). pp.251-258.
Helm, S., Kim, S. H. and Van Riper, S., 2020. Navigating the ‘retail apocalypse’: A framework
of consumer evaluations of the new retail landscape. Journal of Retailing and Consumer
Services. 54. p.101683.
Mu, H., 2020. Research on the Exploration and Development Countermeasures of New Retail
Business Model. Academic Journal of Business & Management. 2(5).
Noghabaei, M. and et.al., 2020. Trend analysis on adoption of virtual and augmented reality in
the architecture, engineering, and construction industry. Data. 5(1). p.26.
Shen, C. W., Chen, M. and Wang, C. C., 2019. Analyzing the trend of O2O commerce by
bilingual text mining on social media. Computers in Human Behavior. 101. pp.474-483.
Online
Retail Industry definition., 2021. [Online] Available through <
https://www.doxee.com/blog/customer-experience/retail-industry-definition-distinctions-
between-brick-and-digital/>.

APPENDIX
Primary research: Interview
Q1: How long you are working in a respective company?
Q2: According to you, which skills are essential for entering into this profession?
Q3: What are the areas of expertise you think is essential for an individual within retail industry?
Q4: Can you please explain the skills required to enter in this industry?
Advertisement for job
REQUIRED MARKETING MANAGER
Home Bake Bakery is looking for
“Marketing manage”
For their upcoming new products. We are developing a winning team for the future and we wish for
candidates that goes restlessly after perfection and success.
Eligibility criteria
 The candidate should have experience of at least 1 year in 360 degree of marketing in an
FMGC.
 Marketing degree from recognized university.
 Maximum age limit of candidate is 40 year.
 The candidate should have knowledge about operating computer.
 Strong in communication, stakeholder’s management and working collaboratively with cross
functional team.
Interested candidate should send their resume along with photographs on the following email address
or email on.
[e-mail] by 23.12.2021.
BAKE HOME COMPANY