 Arabian Centres
Shopping Malls
Arabian Centres (Fawaz Alhokair Real Estate)
www.arabiancentres.com
Senior Executive Recruitment - Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA)
As the mall management arm of Fawaz Alhokair Real Estate, Arabian Centres is responsible for the Alhokair shopping mall network. Arabian Centres owns and operates a network of 11 malls, equating to almost 5m. ft² of prime retail real estate, a combined GLA in excess of 650,000 m², which accounts for approximately 30% of total mall GLA in Saudi Arabia. A further 3 additional malls are scheduled for development over the next five years.
Saudi Arabia's retail sector is young and there is a pronounced skills-gap at all levels and across most operational disciplines. In this context, developing and managing effective operational teams is not at all straightforward and demands exceptionally strong leadership and direction of senior executives. Identifying senior executives with the technical, commercial, and managerial skills to succeed in this environment was large part of the challenge handed to RMC.
The issue of retaining talent in fast-growing economies is also an issue, and is a major challenge for companies in Saudi Arabia. Candidates arriving from the west are frequently under-prepared for the major cultural differences they face on arrival, and subsequently sudden resignations can be frustratingly common. Preparing candidates for the true realities of living and working in Saudi Arabia was identified as key to improving retention levels, and so became a critical part or RMC's brief.
RMC invested in a series of visits to Saudi Arabia and the region to spend time within the Alhokair business, carefully learning its culture and values whilst experiencing at first hand those of the Kingdom itself. By doing so, RMC was able to effectively ensure that candidates had realistic expectations of the opportunity, the company and the environmental issues they would face on the ground. We ensured that they went in with their eyes wide open and retention of key senior talent became less challenging as a result.
RMC has successfully placed a significant number of senior European executives into the ranks at Arabian Centres. Appointments successfully closed include the General Manager of the Kingdom's largest retail destination with GLA of 115,000 m² (1,237,849 ft²). Also, most recently, RMC made the key appointment of Deputy COO to jointly deliver ambitious growth and development targets.
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 Olsen
Fashion
Olsen
www.olsenfashion.com
Senior Management Recruitment - UK
The Olsen story can be traced back to 1959, with original roots as a Hamburg-based importer of high quality knitwear. Today, Olsen is a major international signature brand, sold through more than 3,000 boutiques and leading fashion stores worldwide. The company has an enviable brand heritage, but still remains contemporary and on-trend, and has become synonymous with stylish, high quality contemporary Womenswear collections.
The company's ambitious strategic plan envisaged significant investment to enhance their UK retail store and brand development programme, with the key objective of firmly establishing Olsen as a major player on the UK High Street.
In 2009 RMC was retained by the newly-installed UK Managing Director to help build the new team to lead and support this growth. Our first challenge was to recruit a new Trading Director - unlike a conventional Retail Operations role, this was a bold attempt to find a rare "merchant trader" capable of influencing every area of the retail business, including product selection, marketing, CRM and store development.
It was also vital that the new Trading Director should be capable of building effective relationships with host-store groups, external business partners as well as colleagues within the European Head Office and Wholesale division.
We identified and recruited a very talented individual with the essential cross-functional skills to succeed in this complex and challenging role, and moreover someone who was able to "champion" the retail division and act as the Olsen brand ambassador within the UK retail marketplace.
RMC has subsequently developed a very productive ongoing business relationship with Olsen UK, and have been active in the recruitment of additional new talent within the Store Operations, Buying and Merchandising functions. |
 Debenhams
Department Stores
Debenhams
www.debenhams.com
New Market Entry - Azerbaijan
UK Department Store group Debenhams have a successful international division that currently operate 54 Debenhams stores in 21 countries outside the UK and Ireland. Working with a small number of dedicated regional franchise and joint-venture partners, their success is built on tailoring the core Debenhams proposition to the needs of the local market whilst introducing new customers to new brands in an exciting retail environment.
Identifying prospective partners that combine the required technical, professional and managerial competencies with the necessary depth of local market knowledge and know-how is a constant challenge. Getting it wrong is simply not an option, and RMC has helped Debenhams to engage with new markets and prospective partners for a number of years now.
Building on our experiences working within Azerbaijan's fast-developing retail sector, RMC was instrumental in introducing Debenhams to the market and, ultimately, to identifying and securing a local partner. By leveraging our international market intelligence and unique network of retail industry contacts, RMC facilitated an exclusive brand partnership between Debenhams and a leading local business house. The first Debenhams store opened in the capital city of Baku in early 2010 with further stores scheduled for 2011.
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 M&S Outlet
Fashion &
Homewares
Marks and Spencer Outlet
www.marksandspencer.com
Management Recruitment - Pan-UK
In 2000, Marks and Spencer embarked upon a series of new trading ventures to broaden their offer beyond the main-chain core store format. One of the most successful and enduring initiatives from that time is the Marks and Spencer Outlet division.
The Marks and Spencer Outlet concept offers first-quality M&S products, but discounted by at least 30% from the original selling price. The new stores were a smaller, more compact format, set with Designer Outlet Village destinations, Retail Parks and secondary High Street / Shopping centre locations.
The Marks and Spencer Outlet division was a radical departure from their core High Street operation, featuring a very dynamic and much more fluid merchandise assortment than the main-chain. Consequently, it needed an operational style which reflected the "trader" ethos, and Marks and Spencer decided to seek additional management talent from external as well as internal sources.
RMC became the first-choice recruitment partner for Marks and Spencer Outlet, based partly due to our UK-wide geographic reach, but also our intimate knowledge and familiarity with the unique dynamics of the Factory / Designer Outlet sector. Our role was to source and identify talented people from leading chain, fashion or department store businesses who could deliver the required standards of operational excellence, work effectively within the Outlet environment, as well as being able to adapt successfully to the unique management ethos and business culture at M&S.
To date, RMC has successfully recruited over 65 store management appointments at Marks and Spencer Outlet, and we continue to enjoy a very productive and mutually rewarding business relationship.
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 Future Group
Supply Chain
Future Group
www.futuregroup.in
Senior Executive Recruitment - India
Future Group, India's largest multi-channel, multi-product retail group, had grown rapidly as India's economy took off. The strategic decision was taken to combine the fragmented supply chain and logistics resources and operations into one India-wide division with its own CEO and senior management team.
It was recognised very early that the scale, complexity and geographic spread of the supply chain could not be met from existing physical, human and IT resources and that the whole structure would need to be rapidly brought up to world-class standards in order to meet the demands of the retail business that was going through a period of explosive growth.
An operation of this scale and complexity was unknown in India and the Future Group looked to Europe as being the area where these issues had been tackled and overcome in the recent past. However their contacts in Europe were few and far between and they approached RMC to help them identify and recruit an experienced logistics professional from Europe to lead the period of innovation. This new appointment would be to introduce European best practices into existing operations, develop a strategy for the growth of the resources and introduce modern IT systems into supply chain management and warehouse operations.
Using RMC's network of industry contacts and targeted advertising, candidates were identified and initial face-to-face discussions arranged. It was important to ensure that the candidates had the technical knowledge, business experience and personal qualities to meet the demands of this role, and it was essential that they were fully briefed on all aspects of working in India - its opportunities and its unique problems. RMC were able to use its own experience of being in India to provide down to earth insights into the day-to-day issues of living and working there.
The CEO of Future Group visited the UK, met the candidates and eventually invited the preferred candidate to visit India to familiarise himself with the company and the business environment. He was subsequently appointed as COO and has made a profound impact on every aspect of their merchandise supply chain. Raising warehouse efficiency and staff productivity, reducing operating costs and shrinkage whilst, improving product availability and subsequently boosting sales and profitability. New regional logistics centres have now been built which boast world-class technology and merchandise handling systems putting Future Group at the forefront of logistics operations on the sub-continent.
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 Colin's
Fashion
Colin's Jeanswear (Eroğlu Holding)
www.colinsjeans.com
Senior Management Recruitment - Turkey
Colin's retail men's and women's fashions through 512 stores and approximately 3,000 retail points throughout Eastern Europe and Western Asia. Colin's is the retail arm of Eroğlu Holding, the major textile manufacturing company which produces approximately 20,000,000 units of sportswear each year.
A major strategic review of Eroğlu Holding identified the need to reduce reliance on textile manufacturing and to diversify into appropriate non-manufacturing sectors. Retail, in which they were already active, was selected as a key focus area. However, making the cultural, intellectual and professional shift from production to retailing is a major and potentially hazardous undertaking.
Having learned of previous work supporting Turkish retailers/manufacturers, Eroğlu asked RMC to work with them to develop a talent-needs profile suited to their business. RMC Consultants conducted an extensive on-site needs analysis and gained valuable insights into the culture of the company and, importantly, of the country.
There were evident skills gaps in functions critical to the smooth integration of the retail and manufacturing businesses. Furthermore, it was clear that navigating the migration from one business model to another would require a steady and experienced hand, particularly in the area of merchandise management.
RMC subsequently conducted a pan-European search for executives capable of delivering against their ambitious plans. The appointment of a Head of Retail Merchandising had the immediate effect of establishing the retail division's status in the overall business. It also instilled leadership and direction to the retail business which has since gone from strength to strength in all domestic and overseas markets. Colin's has since embarked on a highly successful programme of international expansion.
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 Shoppers Stop
Department Stores
Shoppers Stop
www.shoppersstop.com
Senior Management Recruitment - India
In 1999, India's retail sector was a very different proposition to the present day with its variety of luxury to everyday and value brands catering and competing for consumers of every taste and income. Back then only a few intrepid and far sighted individuals could begin to imagine how much change would occur in barely a decade. One such company had the vision and belief that it could and would establish its retail brand as India's premier department store business, this was Shoppers Stop.
RMC was tasked by Shoppers Stop's CEO to source a talented and dynamic VP Buying & Merchandising to establish and thereafter maintain international best-in-class standards of performance. The new VP's key objective was to provide Shoppers Stop's talented young B&M team with the skills, knowledge and expertise needed to profitably expand and develop the company.
Ten years later, this spectacularly successful recruitment project continues to pay healthy dividends. Shoppers Stop now trades from over 30 department stores, and still continues to employ some of the very best retail talent in India, and is about to embark upon a further new store opening programme.
More recently, Shoppers Stop's leadership identified the need to further improve the standard of visual merchandising and presentation within all of its stores. This challenging task demanded the recruitment of a really top class international VM executive. Their key objective would be to devise and implement an imaginative and distinctive VM strategy that fully supported Shoppers Stop's ambitious business strategy. RMC was invited to undertake this senior recruitment project at a time which happened to coincide with the opening of our new office in Mumbai. Using its extensive international network of professional contacts, RMC successfully filled the Head of VM vacancy within 6 weeks of commission.
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 PDSA
Not-For-Profit
Charity Retail
PDSA (People's Dispensary for Sick Animals)
www.pdsa.org.uk
Management Recruitment - Pan-UK
PDSA was founded in 1917 to provide free veterinary care for the sick and injured animals of people in need. Today it is the UK's leading veterinary charity, and will carry out more than 2.2 million free treatments this year. It is also one of the largest private employers of fully qualified veterinary surgeons and veterinary nurses in the UK.
The not-for-profit retail sector is a challenging landscape. Unlike some of its direct competitors, PDSA has a proportion of salaried retail employees who manage and work alongside a large voluntary supporter base. Over 4,500 volunteers assist in PDSA's network of more than 180 retail stores UK-wide. PDSA provides professional levels of customer service and high quality store visual presentation and merchandise processing.
To date, we have successfully recruited a number of field-based Area Managers, Store Managers, Retail Standards Manager as well as a key appointment in Logistics/Supply Chain transformation at Head Office.
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