Traditional retail staffers rush to join online bandwagon

Calvin Klein India Chief Executive Rishi Vasudev is joining e-commerce major Flipkart next week, after spending more than 15 years in the traditional retail segment -- many of those years at Aditya Birla Group's Madura Fashion and Lifestyle. At Flipkart, he will be vice-president for fashion.

Vasudev is one of many senior and mid-level employees at brick-and-mortar retail companies looking to join the e-commerce sector. Sources at recruitment firms say that they are flooded with resumes of people in retail companies -- some of them top-level employees of the country's largest retail firms -- who are applying for opportunities at e-commerce companies.

Among the large brick-and-mortar retailers in India are Pantaloons, Future Group, Reliance Retail, Mahindra Retail, Infiniti Retail (part of Tata Group) and Landmark Group.

"In the traditional retail industry, growth rates have slowed and competition is extremely intense.

"In such an environment, a professional's growth also takes a hit. Among other things, employees might see their increments getting slower.

"By comparison, if you look at technology-enabled consumer businesses, such as e-commerce, these are offering what one might call jobs of the future.

"It is a far more futuristic space to be in," says C K Guruprasad, principal at Heidrick & Struggles, a global technology & services practice and headhunting firm.
"Earlier, e-commerce companies were reaching out to retail employees. Now, we are seeing that people from traditional retail are exploring openings at online firms or approaching us to find openings," he says.

According to sources, Flipkart has interviewed many senior employees of major retail brands to fill several vice-president-level positions.

hile the Bengaluru-based company did not reply to an emailed query, human resource heads at other e-commerce majors like Snapdeal and Amazon India confirmed they were seeing an "overwhelming interest" from retail employees.

Flipkart had earlier said it was planning to hire 12,000 employees in 2014-15 to increase its staff strength to 25,000 by March next year (from 13,000 in March 2014).

"A lot of top talent from brick-and-mortar retail companies are applying for openings with us," says Snapdeal Vice-President (human resource) Saurabh Nigam.

"There is a 100 per cent willingness among traditional retail employees to work for e-commerce.

"This is reflected in the fact that we have hired many senior and mid-level executives over the past six months -- a lot of them from the retail industry.

"Not once have we had a situation where a person is not interested in talking to us."

Snapdeal had earlier said it wanted to double its headcount during 2014-15 from 1,300 employees in June this year.

Among key executives Snapdeal has recruited from traditional retail companies are Chief Financial Officer Aakash Moondhra, who has earlier worked with V-Mart Retail and Bharti Retail.

Amazon India Director (human resource) Raj Raghavan also says his company is seeing great interest from employees of retail companies, along with other sectors like shipping and logistics. "We have witnessed an overwhelming interest among candidates to join Amazon India," Raghavan said.

The trend seems to be growing, even as Future Group CEO Kishore Biyani has said the euphoria over e-commerce will last only for about 18 months in India.

Snapdeal's Nigam says the interest in working with e-commerce companies is high because of the rapid growth and major funding the large players in the segment have received.

"The way the e-commerce industry is moving, especially the two or three large players, big investments are coming in.

"That is, obviously, leading to the massive interest in the industry," Nigam says.

"We are attracting top management from several industries; retail is the obvious choice, given the direct linkages in areas like operations, marketing, supply chain management, finance, merchandise and category management."