BS Nagesh’s school for salesmen is a unique idea, finds B Dasarath Reddy, and not just because it is housed in a discarded shipping container.
The Taj Lands End hotel in suburban Mumbai held an unusual awards ceremony on December 12. Seated in the auditorium were employees from retail stores across the country, vying for the country’s first award for excellence in customer service. The chief guest was KV Kamath, the non-executive chairman of ICICI Bank as well as chairman of Infosys. Three people (one each from Big Bazaar, Tanishq and Gold Plus) got the retail employee of the year national award (gold, silver and bronze), while 12 others got regional awards. Amongst those who gave away the awards were Hindustan Unilever Managing Director & CEO Nitin Paranjpe and Marico Chairman Harsh Mariwala. At the function, 12 CEOs also walked the ramp in a fashion show by Kimaya.
This was the brainchild of former Shoppers Stop CEO BS Nagesh, who had painstakingly collected 2,700 “wow” stories from the sector over the last few months; a jury further narrowed it down to 20. The final winners were chosen from these 20. Nagesh has launched Trust for Retailers and Retail Associates of India (Trrain) to upgrade the skills of retail associates or salesmen, help in their education, get them insurance and fill them with a sense of pride. “First I thought it was just half a day’s work, now I am working seven days a week on these programmes,” says he. He is lobbying hard with retailers to observe December 12 every year as Retail Employees’ Day.
Nagesh’s website gives some insight into what made him float Trrain: in 1994, a retail associate resigned his job because his prospective father-in-law didn’t want to marry his daughter to a salesman; in 1996, a tragedy brought to light the fact that most salesmen don’t make enough to buy insurance or save for the future. That is when the idea of Trrain was seeded. “I chose this sector because I only know this industry,” he says. Nagesh says that life is very hard for retail associates, not only in terms of salaries but also because “standing in a store for four hours at a stretch is not an easy thing.” A believer in the philosophy of 25 years of learning, 25 years of earning and 25 years of giving, Nagesh floated Trrain recently when he turned 50. Trrain offers courses for retail associates in English, etiquette training and personality development, retail selling skills and customer grievance handling, financial planning, and life skills. Nagesh has appointed IL&FS Trust Company as the corporate trustee of Trrain. His advisory board of 11 includes Jones Land LaSalle Chairman Aditya Puri, Tata Sky Managing Director Harit Nagpal and Ernst & Young partner Pinakiranjan Mishra.
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To start the training programmes, Nagesh has purchased an old shipping container and converted it into an 18-seat air-conditioned mobile classroom that can be parked at the basement of a mall. The improvised classroom cost him about Rs 550,000. The fee charged from a retail associate is Rs 49, and the training module is devised by Aptech. The pilot was held in Mumbai on October 13. The classes were held from 8 am to 7 pm — the retail associate could choose his class. In all, 27 people took the course that day. Nagesh wants to develop 20 more such container classrooms to train at least 20,000 people every year. He is prepared to fund these programmes from his own resources for the first three years, which is how long he thinks it will take to attract donors and partners. “Also, my personal resources will last only for three years,” he says. In 2007, when the stock markets were at their peak, a Business Standard Research Bureau report had valued Nagesh’s stock options in Shoppers Stop at over Rs 10 crore. The markets have since come off their peaks.
The Trrain website says it is a “not for profit” organisation. But Nagesh will need investors because the task he has undertaken is huge. There are 33 million people working in the retail sector in the country; Nagesh says that he will be happy even if he reaches out to just 1 per cent of them through these initiatives in the next 20 to 25 years.
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Several people have tried to set up training and finishing schools for the retail sector. Some airhostess academies and hotel schools also feed the sector. But these institutes have found few takers for these courses. One reason is that only modern stores look for trained people, not the traditional stores that still account for a large part of the market. Two, modern retail chains work on wafer-thin margins and so are reluctant to spend money on training and retraining their staff. As a result, salaries in the sector are very low. The large army of unemployed ensures the supply remains strong and the wages low. Nagesh doesn’t elaborate how Trrain will be different. Maybe he knows the demands of the sector better than others, and will therefore be able to provide better solutions. Before Shoppers Stop, Nagesh had worked with companies such as Blow Plast, Orson and Carona. (He serves on the boards of Shoppers Stop and Marico.)
Skill upgrade is one part of Trrain’s agenda. Nagesh has also designed life insurance and health coverage products that would cost the retail associate just Rs 100 a month, including the training fee. “We have already launched a life insurance product in association with (state-owned) Life Insurance Corporation of India that ensures Rs 100,000 to the person’s family in case of death. I am in dialogue with another equally reputed health insurance company to introduce health cover with cashless treatment facilities with a little help from the employer,” he adds. According to Nagesh, 99 per cent retail associates in traditional stores and 50 per cent in modern stores do not have an adequate security net.
Another part is the Trrain Education Fund which aims to provide financial assistance to employees who want to study further or want to educate their children. The minimum qualification required to receive help from this fund is 10th standard for boys and 12th standard for girls. This money can be used to study basic courses in natural and social sciences, and commerce, professional courses like medicine and engineering, and vocational training. Only those families that earn less than Rs 180,000 a year (Rs 200,000 for single mothers) are eligible for help.
Research has shown, Trrain’s website says, that in traditional as well as modern retail, retail associates are looking for employers who “extend care and concern. Currently, most of the employees believe that there is a huge imbalance between what they give to the profession and what they get in return.” “Imagine a salesman who gets Rs 5,000 a month and sells a single piece of jeans priced at double his salary. He needs more than just a salary to stay in this profession; he needs respect, recognition and dignity for his role in the work place,” says Nagesh.
Still, he feels that there are several inspirational stories around. So he is planning to bring out a book with 100 best stories of retail employees. “Why should we always quote Harvard studies to cite examples of individual success in retail when we have our own to narrate,” he asks.
