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RPG, Xavier Institute tie up for retailing course

Sankar Radhakrishnan

CHENNAI, Sept. 6

IN an effort to increase interest in retailing as a management discipline and also as a career option, the retail business sector of RPG Enterprises has entered into a collaboration with the Xavier Institute of Management (XIM), Bhubaneshwar, to conduct a course on retail management.

The course, which is for students in the second year of the masters programme, will be inaugurated on September 7.

Mr. P. K. Mohapatra, President & CEO, Retail Business Sector, RPG Enterprises, told Business Line that the six-day course is the first of its kind in the country.

He added that the impetus for developing this programme came from the need to increase awareness about the retailing concept among the country's future managers. ``Retailing ought to be getting into the B-schools in India,'' he said.

Mr. Mohapatra said the RPG group had been discussing with several business schools in the country the possibility of cooperating on such a training module. He added that XIM-Bhubaneshwar had shown a great deal of interest in developing such a course and this resulted in the current collaboration.

He said this time around, all the faculty for the course were from RPG, but added that in time he hoped that more faculty from the academic world would get involved in conducting the programme. The course structure and the course material have been devel oped by RPG.

Another aspect of the venture is that XIM's faculty can conduct research projects dealing with retailing at RPG's various retail businesses. This is in addition to the existing arrangement, through which some students from the institute do their summer p rojects with the group.

According to Ms. Mala Morris, Head-Customer Service & Development, FoodWorld, who is one of the faculty members, the 30-hour, one credit course has generated a great deal of interest among XIM's students. She said over 50 per cent of the second-year clas s had opted to attend the course. She added that this was particularly heartening as the programme was being held during the institute's mid-term break.

The programme will cover a range of issues, including e-tailing and its future prospects, the use of information technology in retail, logistics and supply chain management, and several cases that have been drawn from RPG's own retail experiences.