The next wave: Retail schools

There'll be 220 million square feet of organised retail space in India by 2010, creating 2.5 million additional jobs in the sector in the next five years. Once the airline industry faced a similar manpower crunch, and training schools mushroomed to train cabin-crew.

But now retail is the new mantra, and Priyanka Khosla, managing director of the recently-launched Global Retail School, a subsidiary of Cosmo Aviation Training School (more popular by the Flying Cats brand-name), is making the leap from aviation to retail.

Located in six standalone centres, Global Retail School shares space with Flying Cats (operational in 30 cities) for now. Targetting 12,000-15,000 students in its first year, Khosla says, "We are looking at a turnover of Rs 50 crore at the end of the first year of operations." To achieve that, 60 schools are planned, with a little help from 'our franchisee arrangements in 30 cities'.

And with major growth emerging from tier-II and tier-III cities, this is where these schools will be located. Also, Khosla says job-aspirants from large metros aren't too keen on front-end sales, customer service or managing supply-chain.

It's something, says Asitava Sen, vice president, retail and consumer goods, Technopak,  that translates into better opportunities across the social spectrum - "The effect of modern trade will be most apparent at the bottom of the population pyramid."

Already, seminars to create awareness about opportunities in sales, customer service, and other areas, are being planned. "We ran a similar programme when we launched Flying Cats," Khosla points out.

Global Retail School will offer a one-year diploma in retail management in alliance with Annamalai University, as also six- and three-month certificate courses with Bharti Resources, a subsidiary of Bharti Enterprises.

These short-term courses will be on retail sales and marketing, visual merchandising, space planning, supply chain management, store operations and customer-relationship management.

Bharti Resources recruits for non-Bharti entities too but, with Global Retail School, will have the right of first refusal on placements. Aditi Srivastava, CEO, Global Retail School, emphasises, "The tie-up with Bharti Resources is exclusive."

While management institutes offer subject specialisation on retail management, only two other institutes -- Delhi's Indian School of Retail and Mumbai's Wellingkar School -- offer exclusive courses on retail.

How Global's tie-up with Bharti, which will soon be entering the Indian retail space in a big way, affects the industry will soon be known.