Retail Marketing In The UK: Challenges And Strategies For Nice Shop Ltd. - An Essay.

Challenges faced by the UK retail market

You are the recently appointed Human Resources Business Partner in the head office of a small independent group of 75 convenience grocery stores, NiceShop Ltd. You are responsible for ensuring effective recruitment, selection, induction, performance management and development of staff across the business. While most of these processes seem to be working relatively well, you judge that in the past recruitment and selection has not been carried out as effectively as it could have been. This judgement is based on a number of performance criteria from across the business.

Your industry is going through considerable upheaval, as technology changes the habits of consumers and the way shops are run, particularly in regard to stock control. It is your intention to create a more effective recruitment policy, in order to better align staff with the changing needs of the business. This task is becoming important for a number of reasons. 

With a 10% average annual growth of online retail sales in 2015 customers continue to demand rapid, reliable delivery of their goods. As such more sophisticated supply-chain management systems and logistics managers are needed.

The introduction of the National Living Wage (NLW) in April 2016 is currently affecting the retail industry. From April 2017 every retail worker aged 25 or over will now earn a minimum of £7.50 an hour. Retailers who do not currently pay the minimum wage for non-managerial roles will have to figure out how to meet the extra costs of the higher wage bill. This could mean increasing product prices or cutting costs from other areas of the business.

A report by the British Retail Consortium (BRC) Retail 2020 Fewer But Better Jobs has found that while the industry as a whole is supportive of the NLW, the effect on employment has been underestimated. The report predicts that the changing retail landscape and the NLW could lead to 900,000 fewer retail jobs by 2025, but those jobs that remain will be more
productive and higher earning.

Based on information from https://www.prospects.ac.uk/jobs-and-workexperience/job-sectors/retail/overview-of-the-retail-sector-in-the-uk

You are also provided with relevant labour market information which you need to incorporate into your long and short-term planning.

Write a short report for your Managing Director, with the following objectives.

1. Explain why conducting a labour market analysis is important to your organisation, in order to make effective employee planning decisions. Relate what you say to the information in the scenario.

2. Identify what performance criteria you are using, to measure the effectiveness of Nice-Shop Ltd’s induction, performance management and development of staff. Analyse their importance to the business.

Reflect on your experience of conducting the job interview exercise.

• How would your strategy serve the strategic goals of Nice-Shop Ltd?
• How did your strategy address current issues in people resourcing and talent management for Nice-Shop Ltd?
• What went well?
• What did not go well?
• What could you have done differently to improve the job interview?
• Don’t just describe your experience in general, this needs to be analysed together with the related literature. You should focus on the key issues experienced during the job interview meeting rather than just outlining what happened. 

The trend of retail marketing dates back to the times of antiquity. It is a process where the shopkeepers or the retailer's sale their goods and services via multiple channels of distribution. The retailers often have to use different marketing strategies in order to understand the existing marketing trends, the behavior of the consumers and the expected changes that might come up in their taste and preference pattern in the recent future (Wood and McCarthy 2014). In the past few years, the U.K retail market is, however, facing several challenges due to the rapidly advancing digitalized world. This, in turn, creates a change in the demands of the customers which the markets have to cater to. The retail market of U.K is the most attractive and the toughest place at the same time to operate with.

The Spring Fair has been serving the U.K retail market for over 65 years, bringing their best products together at the same place on a common platform( Hood, Clarke and Clarke 2016).It is a really becoming very tough to attract customers to buy new products; hence it is events that best suppliers are united with U.K’s retail purchasers.

Labor market analysis is indeed an integral part of the working of any business industry. (Green and Henseke 2014). As retail markets have always been one of the most lucrative as well as the tough sector to operate in, a thorough market research becomes even more essential to analyze the existing market conditions, the state of the market competitors, the need, and demands of the consumers etc (Vooren et al 2016).

As Nice shop limited is a chain of seventy-five small grocery shops, it becomes equally important to proceed by following the market research results. As the consumers of UK are now more inclined towards retail products than the branded manufactured products, it is indeed a plus point for this company since it will be dealing only in grocery product. The company must appoint proper labor or work force in order to understand and meet the demands of the consumers. Along with consumer satisfaction, it is also the sole duty of the organization to initiate labor satisfaction, to decrease the level of conflict and increase proper cooperation within the marketing channel (Wilkinson 2013).More and more emphasis should be given on consumer choice. As there will be a large number of competitors in the retail industry so in order to survive in the long run, it will be beneficial for the firm to offer good quality products at a much lower price and also with discounts. Increased sale allied with proper efficient management and investment is likely to attract more customers and increase the share of sales.

Strategies for Nice Shop Ltd.

 The company must also aim towards providing those kinds of goods and services which are actually needed by the customers. With this vast increase in the field of science and technology, there has been a sea change in the expectations of the customers. They are now much more concerned about health products. People have become much more health conscious. One of the important lines of grocery product is the organic food that includes fruits and vegetables. So, the company must aim at providing the fresh, unadulterated organic products to the customers. Apart from this, the company must also try to increase their sales in those groups of products for which there will be a major demand within all group of customers, starting right from the children to the older generation of people. As far as the organic food is concerned, it is something which has a high demand among the infants, the teenagers, adults and even the aged groups of people, since all the individual nowadays are thriving towards a healthy living.

As has been seen from the existing marketing reports, this company has been suffering through several ups and downs previously, because of its lack of maintaining parity with the rapidly advancing science and technology. It must start and use modern methods of customer interaction like online booking.

Involvement of the employees in decision making is also one of the major aspects. The company must make the employees feel wanted within the organization. It helps the employees to know that they are valued by their superiors and their decisions are very much important regarding the proper working of the company. The employees are able to make better day to day decisions because it is they who have the proper and clear knowledge regarding the details of the company, so it is the first and foremost duty of the company to involve the employees in each and every big or small decisions of the company. In this way, the associates will also feel an increased amount of energy and a stronger motivation ( Noe et al 2014)They will try to work on themselves and will try to develop their problem-solving capacity and will also try to develop a more sound and efficient management system. This will also help in giving a boost to the morale and spirit of the employees.

This also will free up much of the time of the managers and the other superiors, because if the associates are self-sufficient enough to take wise decisions regarding the working of the company, then the other superiors like the managers and the deputy managers will have more time to think about the long term goals of the company or the various measures that the company must adopt to increase their sales in the long run.

Importance of employee involvement and developmental strategies

During the recruitment of the employees, it is to be taken into account that all the employees feel welcome within the company and they must not be hesitant towards anything. Their skills must be properly developed and they should be given thorough training in the beginning of their job so as to ensure that their key functions and job roles are clearly explained to them ( Jehanzeb and Bashir 2013) The company must also develop a good work environment within the company and must direct their employees to do well and to thrive to attain their goals.

Other methods like skills audit can also be used which can turn out to be very beneficial. This tool is useful in assessing the skills of the employees (Bal and de Jong 2017). In other words, it enables the employers to know regarding the particular kind of know how the employee has currently and the kind of knowledge that he needs to have in future and train him accordingly. What are the existing gaps and what measures are to be adopted in order to fulfill those gaps in near future?

 Several developmental strategies can also be used in order to train the employees and nurture their knowledge. Strategies like conducting some seminars or workshops and making the employees attend them; the reworks can be of both types, either academic or vocational. Apart from this, there must be thorough coaching and mentoring sessions and the employees must always be given this feeling that they are very much a part of this organization and so they must never feel hesitant about clearing their doubts regarding anything, they must also be encouraged for e-learning, seeking advice from their peers, and they must be given new

There can be several strategies used for the smooth functioning of the Nice Shop LTD. The first and the foremost important strategy that was used as part of the marketing strategy was building up the website. In the case of a grocery store, a sound, well-built website is indeed very much important and beneficial as well. It is a place where the company updates all its details regarding the offers, shopping coupons, price increase or decrease etc. In order to keep the customers updated with the various details of the products, brands, varieties etc, maintaining a proper website has really become essential (Pantano and Viassone 2014). In this age of rapid scientific development, the customers always want to stay updated with detailed information of the store; they are also looking forward to the user-friendly methods of transactions at the market. They usually are unwilling to avail the complicated methods of shopping; they are usually much more attracted towards the user easier methods.

Conclusion

As The Nice Shop Ltd. also incorporated these customer friendly methods within their market strategies that have really proved to be essential for attracting more number of customers, because the customers will naturally get attracted there where their needs and demands are satisfied with less complicated, user-friendly methods.

The different strategies that were scheduled to be followed during the recruitment of new staffs were many; one among them was adding value. As it is the main objective of this people resourcing is adding something extra and useful to the already existing resources of the company. The main objective was to appoint the right number of people with the right kind of skill and placing them at the right place. The recruitment was done according to the demand for the skills that existed within the company; the recruited employees were then asked to undergo training in order to nourish their skills further.  The recruit of new employees was also scheduled to be done through online job portals and internet recruitment, online career sites etc and all these methods were thought to be highly effective for the proper.

As was planned, the people resourcing and talent management went well more or less. The employees that were appointed had the proper zeal to work for the proposed position. There was the appointment of the right person at the right job, which proved to be beneficial both for the organization as well as for the employee ( Gillison, Northington and Beatty 2014).

There was better hiring. In other words, the talent of a company can be maximized only when there is the recruitment of quality workforce. Another important achievement was retaining the top talent (Ralph 2016).There were several strategies that were made in order to retain the top talent that is, there was employee charting retention programs and strategies to recruit, train, retain and also engage the best quality employees and to give them sufficient opportunities to carry on within this organization rather than switching over onto other organizations. Just as the company aims towards giving a tough fight to the competitors similarly they must also never overlook the interests of the employees. It is the sole duty of the company to retain their best employees as long as possible.

Another aim was to understand the employees better (Dipboye and Johnson 2013). Soon after the recruitment, it was the primary duty of the company to know and understand their employees better, in other words, the company must find out regarding the needs, goals, career aspirations, strengths, weaknesses of the employees in order to know how to motivate whom.

Not every employee had a thorough knowledge of the existing conditions of the U.K retail market ( Gillison, Northington and Beatty 2014). Not all were aware of the strategies that are to be followed in order to initiate the maximum customer satisfaction. Apart from this, as there is a sharp increase in the field of science and technology, the entire system of recruitment is online, as a result of which many employees were hesitant in sharing their details over the internet (Stein and Ramaseshan 2016).

Several measures could have been adopted in order to make the interview process more orderly and effective, like planning out the entire interview process before hand in order to avoid misconception. It was a duty on the part of the interviewer to do a more in depth job market study and internal specifications of the company.

Conclusion

Thus, from this paper, it is understood that the retail market is the most lucrative and the most competitive area to operate in. There must also be a thorough research done before recruiting the employees for the retail market. While recruiting, it is the sole duty of the recruiter to make an in depth analysis of the market conditions, appoint the right person at the right task and it is also the sole duty of the company superiors to include the associates in all the decisions of the company.

Reference List

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