S1E5 – The Retail Avengers & The Sea of Academia

Welcome to Season 1, Episode 5, the fifth ever episode of The Retail Razor Show!

I’m your host, Ricardo Belmar, a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Influencer for 2022 & 2021, RIS News Top Movers and Shakers in Retail for 2021, advisory council member at George Mason University’s Center for Retail Transformation, and lead partner marketing advisor for retail & consumer goods at Microsoft.

And I’m your co-host, Casey Golden, CEO of Luxlock and slayer of retail frankenstacks!

Together, we’re your guides on the retail transformation journey. Whether you're thinking digital and online, mobile, or brick & mortar stores, we’ll help you cut through the clutter!

For episode 5 we’re tackling an issue that doesn’t get as much attention as it should – the role of academics and universities in the retail industry!

We have two special guests joining us. Gautham Vadakkepatt, director of the Center for Retail Transformation at George Mason University’s School for Business. Plus fan favorite, Ron Thurston, author of the book, Retail Pride – The Guide to Celebrating Your Accidental Career.

Listen to our Clubhouse session with Gautham and Ron where we discuss how academia can change the perception of retail for students - our up-and-coming next generation of retailers! We also consider what contributions university centers can make to retail tech, particularly in the startup community as well as how research plays a role in furthering the spread of knowledge in the retail ecosystem.

You can learn more about the Center for Retail Transformation on their website. For more information about Ron’s book and his upcoming Retail in America tour, visit his website.

And big news! Our podcast has made it to the Feedspot Top 50 Retail podcasts list! We recently hit #20, so please do give us a 5-star review in Apple Podcasts or Spotify Podcasts if you like the show to help us grow! With your help, we’ll be a Top 10 podcast soon enough! 

Check it out here: https://blog.feedspot.com/retail_podcasts/

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TRANSCRIPT

S1E5 The Retail Avengers & The Sea of Academia

[00:00:20] Introduction

[00:00:20] Ricardo Belmar: Hello. Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening. No matter what time of day you're listening. Welcome. Welcome to the retail razor show. I'm your host Ricardo Belmar a RETHINK Retail top 100 retail influencer and lead partner marketing advisor for retail and consumer goods at Microsoft.

[00:00:35] Casey Golden: And I'm your co-host Casey Golden CEO of Luxe lock and been obsessed with the customer relationship between a brand and a consumer and slaying, Frankenstacks 

[00:00:44] Ricardo Belmar: I love hearing how many Frankenstacks you've slain every time, Casey, how many since the last episode?

[00:00:49] Casey Golden: Well, we're still working on three. It does take a minute.

[00:00:52] Ricardo Belmar: Well, yeah, I guess it does take a minute. That's not bad. Considering we had a holiday break in there too. Right? So not too bad, not too bad. I wonder how many listeners would have guessed. I keep waiting to see if there are any tweets they're going to start flying out to us with everybody guessing before the next episode, how many Franken stacks get slain?

[00:01:11] So do I, or do I, anybody listening or watching on YouTube will look out for the tweet storm of guesses and we'll give you a shout out if anybody comes close to the right number.

[00:01:19] Casey Golden: So last week, Ricardo, we had a special guest dedicated to celebrating retail ROI, probably one of the most moving podcast episodes in 2021. 

[00:01:29] Ricardo Belmar: . Without a doubt, anyone that missed that one definitely go back, give it a listen. I'm sure you'll be as moved and inspired as we were. 

[00:01:35] Casey Golden: Well at this time, we've got another hot topic.

[00:01:38] Don't we? And not one, but two special guests joined us on clubhouse to talk about our super cool, but often underrated subject, how academics support retail. 

[00:01:48] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. This session was a long time in the making, for our listeners out there, who aren't aware I'm on the advisory council to George Mason University's Center for Retail Transformation, along with a couple of our retail Avengers team members, Jeff Roster, and Shish Shridhar.

[00:02:03] And we invited the center's director, Gautham Vadakkepatt to join the show. So we could deep dive into how academics and university programs help the retail industry and not just retailers, but the whole ecosystem.. 

[00:02:15] Casey Golden: And back with us again. Fan favorite, Ron Thurston, author of retail pride. The guide to celebrating your accidental career also joined us because this iOS is a topic near and dear to our hearts too.

[00:02:29] Ricardo Belmar: So we zeroed in on three main topics for the discussion, preparing the next generation of retailers, also known as students supporting an environment for startups now, also near and dear to our hearts and for creating, a neutral ground for industry research. 

[00:02:42] Casey Golden: There's so much ground to cover in these areas.

[00:02:45] And I can't wait to share what Gautham and Ron had to say, let's get to it. 

[00:02:49] Ricardo Belmar: Absolutely. So without further delay, let's listen to the retail Avengers and the sea of academia.

The Retail Avengers and the Sea of Academia on Clubhouse

[00:03:02] Ricardo Belmar: Welcome everybody to the Retail Razor room. We're talking today about what we call the sea of academia, and we're going to be taking a deep dive into the role that universities and academics play in the future of retail.

[00:03:20] We're going to focus on three areas and we'll get to that in a moment, but we have a couple of guest speakers with us this week, who I want to first let them introduce themselves. And then we'll do quick intros for the usual team and jump right in. Gautham why don't you introduce yourself first. 

[00:03:34] Gautham Vadakkepatt: Thank you Ricardo for having me.

[00:03:36] My name is Gautham Vadakkepatt. I'm the associate professor in the school of business at George Mason University and the director for the Center for Retail Transformation at George Mason. 

[00:03:46] Ricardo Belmar: Great, thank you. And then we also have a returning special guest to our room here, Ron Thurston. Ron?

[00:03:51] Ron Thurston: Sure. Thanks Ricardo.. Really happy to be here and always love any of these conversations. My name is Ron Thurston. I'm the author of retail pride and a long time retail leader. And most recently as the vice president of stores of Intermix and head of stores for several brands prior.

[00:04:08] And I spend much of my time now consulting and speaking, and really celebrating the millions of people who do the hard work and stories every day. And in education may play a part in that, which is why I was so interested in joining this conversation. 

[00:04:23] So thanks, Ricardo. 

[00:04:25] Ricardo Belmar: Great. Thanks, Ron. And moving on to our regular Retail Avengers team, I'll start with what's on my screen at least is our ghost speaker. Jeff, because I can't see you on my screen for some reason. 

[00:04:37] Jeff Roster: Hi, jeff roster. Co-host of This Week In Innovation and serve on several advisory boards. Most, most proudly the center for retail transformation with George Mason University. And I'm so happy to have my boss there, here tonight.

[00:04:49] Looking forward to hearing what he has got to say. 

[00:04:51] Ricardo Belmar: Excellent and Casey. 

[00:04:53] Casey Golden: Hi, I'm Casey Golden. I'm the founder of Luxlock retail experience platform, a former fashion exec and supply chain management tech.

[00:05:03] Ricardo Belmar: Maybe Shish is having a little bit of an issue. We'll come back to him in a minute. And I'm Ricardo Belmar, the host of the room. I created the Retail Razor Club here on Clubhouse. I'm a lead partner marketing advisor for retail at Microsoft, and also proud to be on the advisory council at George Mason University's Center for Retail Transformation as is Jeff, and also equally happy to have Gautham here to talk to us about what I think is a tremendously interesting topic that probably doesn't get as much attention as it should.

[00:05:33] I think in this industry particularly around what I'm going to introduce as our first topic for discussion here and that's how we introduce fresh talent and skills into the retail workforce and what role universities have in that. So it's not a new concept, of course, that universities have had retail programs and curriculums in the past, there are number of universities that do.

Preparing the next-gen of retailers - students!

[00:05:55] Ricardo Belmar: I claim that there's a bit of a misperception in what those programs are meant to do and that many people believe that they're really there just to produce more merchandisers and more buyers who are ultimately going to get hired perhaps by a department store brand and take on one of those roles, which at the end of the day, I think is really not what the industry is looking for from an academic environment.

[00:06:17] And I would argue that that's more a perception than it is a reality, but I'm going to, I'm going to stop there and ask Gautham to tell us about what you really think the reality of this situation is and why there is this perception.

[00:06:30] Gautham Vadakkepatt: Well, thank you, Ricardo, for giving me the chance to kick things off. Let me just quickly start by saying that, you know, the role of the university is to get students excited about a career in retail, B to kind of highlight the career opportunities that they have and C is to probably provide them with the skill sets that is most needed to manage the retail landscape as it is right now.

[00:06:58] To that extent, The job of academia is to address all three aspects, not just the last aspect of trying to create talent in a specific area and to bring them and give them skillsets. And generally, my perception to answer your question, Ricardo, is that where we have perhaps fumbled the ball slightly is that many of the students who work in retail really don't and in my class about 40% of them work in retail, don't understand what's the upward trajectory once they start working in retail, what the career paths that they have and what skills they have, and they don't have mentors to be blunt and honest, we are a minority-majority school, and I'm very proud of that fact. Many of them are first-generation students. And so they don't have people to guide them through that.

[00:07:51] Like, Hey, look, retail is a good paying job. What they see is just a store associate. Many of them start off a store associates, but they don't see that thing forward. And they don't know what skills that they need to kind of get to that next level. So I'll talk about the skills needed in a later time, but I'll pause here too.

[00:08:10] I'm sure Ron has, and others have things to add to this conversation.

[00:08:14] Ron Thurston: I would love to, to jump in, thank you, Gautham.And I had the pleasure of being a panelist on on a session that Gautham led with students. And I could not agree more with, with his statement because, when you think about the industry and whether it's you're coming to an education platform like George Mason or you are

[00:08:35] I'm coming into this from a, from a different angle or with no education at all. The opportunity that all of us have then in leadership roles is to provide that insight, to speak as loudly as possible to mentor, to find those chances, to, to share the unlimited opportunities there are available within the retail industry.

[00:08:59] And by unlimited, it's from all the different brands that you could potentially work for, the opportunities both in store from a career trajectory and to multi-store heads of stores into other corporate roles, marketing, finance, social, design, buying, the, the jobs are unlimited, but often the best candidates that come are ones that come from the store that really understand the customer and understand that the product category demand have really have a deep understanding of what's needed in the industry and have such expertise when you come from the field. And I just think we don't speak about that enough or give the language to retail teams to be able to say, this is, you know, I'm a store manager of a, of a million dollar business, and here are all the things that I do even on a small team today to run this million multimillion dollar business and the list of competencies and how that moves you forward and, and how the industry works.

[00:10:07] It's part of why we're in this situation today from a hiring perspective is because the industry doesn't see itself as one where careers are plentiful. And I know I personally love to change that in every way that we can.

[00:10:21] Ricardo Belmar: Thanks, Ron. Thanks Gautham. I think these are some good points about this. So let me ask then the question, how do we introduce the right, you know, whether it's particular courses or particular skill sets and training for that at a university level, and what's the right approach for that? Gautham you hinted at having a few thoughts around this as well.

[00:10:42] So maybe I'll turn this back to you for a moment and let you give us your thoughts on how you think that should be approached. 

[00:10:49] Gautham Vadakkepatt: Yeah. I'll just give you a case study of what I experienced at my university. Right? So I, I teach a introductory class to retail management. We have 22 students out of which about 40% of them actually work in retail.

[00:11:01] When I started the course, none of them wanted to have a carer on retail. I'm not joking, not a single one of them wanted to work in retail. And what we did and I kind of went in anticipating this problem and what I did was to get various speakers. Ron was one of them. Jeff was another, we had several , speakers come and talk about their careers in retail, showcasing what they did, how you made progress up retail, what opportunities and skills that they have.

[00:11:32] And as of last week, when I asked the same students, Hey, how many of you are going to work? You still think you don't want to work in retail. All six of them who said that, Hey, I did not want to work in retail said, I would like to pursue careers in retail. I just don't know how to get there. So at least we addressed the first problem that, okay, now we know that there is interest.

[00:11:54] It's just about providing them with information and it's thanks to people, leaders in the space who come and present their viewpoint to classrooms and give them real world experiences of what retailers that addresses the talent, the first step of the talent going into retail. And then of course, providing them with the skills to succeed in retail today that that's partly on us academics to make sure that they have the skills.

[00:12:23] Right. And so, while I take the first class on retail foundations, the second class I teach is emerging technologies in retail. So that once we get them interested in retail, then I tried to provide them the skills that they need to succeed in retail today, which is not just the people skills very critical, but it's also the technology aspect that they need to be able to do the science and the art behind these two things.

[00:12:48] So that's the way, that's the approach that the center has taken to educate students at Mason on retailing. Give them an opportunity to succeed in the retail landscape today.

A student's first exposure to retail

[00:13:00] Ricardo Belmar: Let me ask you a question on that note. Two things I want to get at. Because I'm wanting to dig a little deeper into what you were saying about the component of teaching, more about emerging technologies as what I would consider a valuable enticement to someone in that program to understand more about the art of the possible and what maybe the future looks like versus what has gone in the past that they may need to learn.

[00:13:22] But one of the comments I'm seeing in the back channel is that when we think about where does that first exposure coming from to retail for a lot of students, you know, by the time they get to you, for example, they may have had a summer job working as a frontline staff in a store, and that has formed their opinion coming in as to what working in retail is like.

[00:13:44] So is part of the solution here, in one sense, What are the right programs and how do you describe it? What do you teach in that program at the university level, but then going back a few steps. And I think Ron, maybe you might have a few thoughts here. It's so critical then what that experience for that... let's assume it's a high school student, for example, who takes that first summer job at a retail store, that experience is going to define their perception of retail as an industry and as a business. So is that as important as what they might see looking forward into college programs that talk about retail, and how do you weigh the difference here? 

[00:14:21] Ron Thurston: Yeah. Ricardo, I'd love to jump in because you're, you're exactly right. And I speak about this often to say again, when you are placed in a, any kind of leadership role, assistant manager, store manager, multi-store leader, all, you know, all of us that have had those roles. It becomes your responsibility to pay that forward to wherever possible.

[00:14:45] And I love this idea of you creating an environment where young people are learning what it means to function in the workforce and that they go home until their parents, you know, what their experience was at work, and you have the opportunity to create something that's really magical through a great onboarding, you know, an interview journey and onboarding an immersion in the brand.

[00:15:10] You're learning how to sell. You're learning how a business operates back of house, front of house, visual merchandising in a cash management. You're learning all these skills and a well led store provides that opportunity for someone to say, wow, I really love doing this, which may turn into a a change of heart in a career trajectory, or may say, you know, I'd really like to learn more about this part of the industry and start to study, but I, you know, the, the data shows a variety of things, but on average, one in three, one in four first jobs in this country are in retail. And so we have the opportunity. We have the big base of people to do this well. And the kind of desperation that I think some brands find themselves in today means those people may not be getting a great first experience.

[00:16:01] And that's, that's something we could certainly improve.

[00:16:03] Ricardo Belmar: Jeff. I want to give you a chance here. Do you have some thoughts on this point? 

[00:16:07] Jeff Roster: Yeah. My first thought is I wish I could've worked for, for Ron!

[00:16:14] I started off with my dad. 

[00:16:16] Probably the toughest spot I've ever had in my entire life. And then was it another retailer and Ron, what's interesting how you said that, just how you phrased it. I mean, it was, you know, I just, the onboarding, the onboarding journey. I mean, what a, what a fantastic way to say that when I started at Mervyn's, I mean, it wasn't a journey. It was a very mechanical process and everything about that was a mechanical process. And I think the thing that was the roughest about that particular organization is the leaders, the senior leaders, didn't at least on the selection side didn't encourage their people to be successful away from under their direction .

[00:16:54] So in other words, I don't wanna, I don't wanna I don't want my junior manager to be successful because then I'm gonna have to replace that person. And that is a cancer that hopefully we get away from. Both my kids work in tech, shockingly, they work in tech and their management. I won't say the organizations, although, you know, the organization be proud of it.

[00:17:14] Their organization's leadership wants these kids to be successful. And they're rewarding their managers for making them successful, even if, even if it means moving out of their teams. And that is such a difference in, unfortunately I think how a chunk of folks in retail still operate. And that's, that's something that we, as a whole have to say, we, you can't do that.

[00:17:33] You gotta, you gotta promote, you gotta encourage, you got to let these people grow and you know, it, it's just a different mindset. So, Ron, I just want to celebrate you. I want you to be amazingly successful and I want you to carry that message far and wide, because that we have to get to that point.

[00:17:50] Gautham Vadakkepatt: If I could just echo what Jeff said. If, if there are more Ron's people who could actually create that amazing first experience, For people who get into college, that would be awesome because just frankly, in the past 10 years I've been teaching very few times have students actually come in saying that, Hey look, I've had a great experience.

[00:18:16] And so most of the effort I put in, in that first course is always towards trying to reframe what their experiences are and how Ron said it. Right? Like you can frame being a store manager, working in the store in so many different ways and so many useful skills that you develop, but they don't get to see it that way.

[00:18:38] And until we can actually change that, none of the rest of the point is difficult to address. You got to change that initial perception that people have.

[00:18:49] Ron Thurston: Yeah. And I think thank you for those compliments. That's really nice. And I'll tell you a funny side story and then I'll make a comment that there was, I was, a general manager for Banana Republic in 1996 in the Houston Galleria. And I just know that because I had moved from LA to Houston for Gap, Inc., and I was running that store and there was a young woman who was 16 at the time and who I hired, who was an absolute rock star.

[00:19:16] Her name was Sarah. And she went on to become the vice president of planning and allocation for Neiman Marcus because Texas based and through her journey we had stayed in contact. So today she's a mom of two kids and I was listening to a podcast and she was talking about me and learning those skills early in her career and kind of mentorship and inspiration.

[00:19:43] And it isn't as if I been a mentor for her for the last 20 years. But the impact that we can make early in someone's career is it's, it's like parenting. It's like every decision that you make has an influence on someone, how someone engages in the workforce. And I don't ever take that lightly. And I, I encourage others to do the same, but this is a really good example of investing in store level leadership.

[00:20:14] And we put so much emphasis in our industry on senior leadership and, how brands set the stage around culture and vision, but it is only done well and executed at the store level. And the whole thing can either be extraordinary and executed at the average store in average place. And Jeff I'm from California.

[00:20:38] So I know Mervyn's really well. And that's where I also grew up. But the idea of how does that trickle down, but what does that investment from the ground up versus top down and how we can make a huge difference and just the future of the workforce. And we are in desperate times right now, we see exactly what is happening.

[00:21:00] If we don't fix this, we are going to be in a very difficult situation. And for me, this is a fire that we have to fix right now. 

Priming students for a career in retail

[00:21:09] Ricardo Belmar: It is a crisis mode from that perspective. And what I usually talk about is it's years of neglect and just paying lip service to wanting to make conditions better creating career paths that, that are more meaningful.

[00:21:21] And it now it's all coming to the surface and, becoming a much more visible problem as workers have realized they have, other options that they can pursue. 

[00:21:29] I would argue it starts with the industry itself. Right. And I think Ron, this is some of the things that you were pointing out as well, that it has to come from within. Do you have the ability to present what are those career paths that might entice someone.

[00:21:42] Walk that path and pursue it as they go into a college setting. So I want to come back on that note then to something else Gautham that you said , back to the point you made about the emerging technologies class that you're doing, what, what are your thoughts on how broad of a retail focused program at a university need?

[00:22:01] How much breadth does it need to cover? So things like, the basics of a retail business, for example, but then also, you know, you're, you're talking about emerging technologies, which I would view as one of those more enticing things that might get people who would not consider a career in the retail industry, but maybe is very interested in one of those emerging technologies as a way to learn how that applies in this industry.

[00:22:22] But beyond that, even what are some of the other areas that you look to either introduce in your program or that you think, universities are best positioned to really enable that s 

[00:22:32] Gautham Vadakkepatt: That's a great question. So my own perspective, and look, there are lots of universities that have retail programs, right? So there's always, you got to get what I think we can be safe to say is that you got to get the fundamentals of retail, correct. Before you can build on to things, right. Which would be managing the stores, which would be managing the merchandise and so forth.

[00:22:56] And then you got to get to prepare yourself for the future, which is where the emerging technologies. So from my perspective, you need to have a combination of both typically where I see some of the programming lack is that later aspect, being able to react to those waves of destruction that are coming through or create a destruction, right.

[00:23:19] And being able to prime the students. To be ready and to be able to respond to those changes. What I always tell my students is a very simple thing. Look, retail is a sector, anything and everything that is cool and current, you can learn and apply in retail. Right? So I've always said this to my students and many of them are computer science students.

[00:23:44] They always say, Hey, I don't want to work in retail. And then a year of working with me, then they are actually working in retail. Right. And so there is something for everyone. That's the really awesome part about retail and my job as an academic and most of our academic institutions jobs is to expose students to that options, the variety of options.

[00:24:04] And today the cool thing is technology, right? And it's, it's just, it's the cool thing. And many of the, the talent deficit when it comes to that is how do you apply these technologies into re. And most of the students who have the skills and technology don't want to go into retail. So by trying to build these bridging classes, that applied technology into retail, the hope is to get them excited and to keep that pipeline going.

[00:24:29] If that makes sense. So I hope I answered the question because it's not one or the other, right. It's talk to get the fundamentals. The merchandising aspect is critical. If you are a retailer, you have to get that right. But you also have to get it right. To understand what's that future of retail look like.

[00:24:45] And that's where things like people are doing a really amazing, right. You need to know how do you apply NFT. How do you apply things like blockchain and how do you apply AI into retail? Those are things that you need to understand so that you can do better moving forward.

[00:25:00] Ricardo Belmar: I think that's a critical aspect is to really cover that wide variety of things and to kind of create an awareness that says, you know, retail is not just about one thing. You can do all of these other things in this industry as a way to really you know, get those students excited about it and interested in wanting to pursue that career path.

[00:25:18] So let's go on to another topic that I think is another significant area that universities can contribute in retail. And that's what I'm going to call community building, which is creating this environment where in addition to students and that young talent pool that you're developing, you're also connecting retailers with other parts of the ecosystem in really a neutral environment, right? It's, you know, you might be connecting other technology providers and vendors. You should be connecting startups even connecting VCs with those startups because you have this kind of neutral platform. I'd like to hear everyone's thoughts around, what would you expect universities to be doing in this area where you're creating that community within the retail ecosystem?

[00:26:02] Gautham Vadakkepatt: I'll be the student and I'll listen to all the comments, because this is, 

[00:26:05] Ricardo Belmar: yeah. I'd like to hear you. Yeah. I'd like to hear your thoughts Gautham at the end. And in fact, I'm going to put Jeff on the spot and ask Jeff to start 

[00:26:12] Jeff Roster: let's see. What would I like to see? Given that retail is such a large employer and given universities are looking for connections, I would like to see universities that want to engage in retail to have to reach out to the retail industry, set up mentorship programs, set up online conversations set up a clubhouse room to bring in, you know, retail executives and invite students to come and engage.

[00:26:35] You know, all of the above, reach out to the industry and say, who wants to, you know, who wants to help transform everything? I mean, you know, Ron, Ron set it up perfectly. W w you know, it's a, what's a five alarm fire going on right now. So let's start, let's start figuring out how to fix it.

[00:26:49] Let's open up conversations. Let's, let's think about what university needs to do, you know, in 2023, not what it did in 1980 .

[00:26:56] Ricardo Belmar: That's a great point. You got a long list of good suggestions there. Ron, I'll ask you, what, what are some of your thoughts on this point? 

[00:27:02] Ron Thurston: Yeah, I agree with it all the Jeff said that and, and I think what we can do is make it even less complicated. So when we think about how we, how the industry can insert itself into the, into the education system to make it a a lunch and learn, make it a quick conversation, make it a zoom call with your class.

[00:27:26] I know the other night I was on the phone with Ricardo and Casey and then jumped onto a class at NYU of students who were studying law with a focus on retail. And interestingly enough, they had a lot of questions about how the industry actually works. How do retail executives engage with the legal community, how like good experiences I may have had how was the org how are organization set up? It's like they had almost no knowledge of the industry yet they were studying it and choosing a specialty of retail and you know, so fine. It's an hour for me. And that's an easy ask for any of us to just jump in and share our experience, share the brands, share a careers talk about the power of the industry.

[00:28:16] And I personally like would like to be asked more. And then I have a large set of peers who would say the same. It's a pleasure because when we were growing up, whether it's Jeff at Mervyn's or, you know, myself at, at Broadway department store to start, and then many years at gap, I would have loved to have heard from other people about how to navigate this industry, that no one's going to teach you how to do, you either figure it out yourself, or you have people around you that you can ask great questions. And so I think ask more and and make it easy for us to do.

[00:28:53] Ricardo Belmar: Want to introduce Mia Lupo, who just joined us on stage. I think Mia, you have some thoughts you wanted to share on this topic.

Retail Curriculum Example 

[00:28:58] Mia Lupo: Yeah, sure. Thanks Ricardo. And thanks everyone for being here. I'm gonna share my experience coming from a small liberal arts university, I graduated from Salve Regina university. It's based in Newport, Rhode Island, beautiful school. That's what everyone seems to just test has to say about it, but we do have other things besides being beautiful school.

[00:29:19] So one thing I think it depends. It's like the, it's the commitment of higher education to recognize retail is vital and relevant, which we, of course we know that, but you know, having the commitment, having retail integrated in the curriculum. So for example business is the business degrees.

[00:29:41] They're a strong arm at Salve Regina's campus. And so one of the professors doctor app grab, she does have a semester course dedicated to retail. And not only does that include, kind of the ins and outs of how retail business works, but it also includes kind of hands-on interactions with alumni who are in retail, working retail currently.

[00:30:05] And on top of that, it building upon a depends on the university's commitment to exploring retail, you know, the alumni network. I think that's a huge, under utilized, simple, easy way. For example, Ron was talking about, these meet and greets for like an hour to, talk about who they are, for alumni to talk about who they are, what they do.

[00:30:26] And so. For example, for me, I was invited to virtually visit campus and discuss, my career journey and retail, which is, will be nine years, like next year. And a lot of students I believe are curious, but it's like being able to provide those opportunities. And I think, being able to utilize our networks accordingly to, help get the word out.

[00:30:51] So that's my 2 cents on that.

[00:30:53] Ricardo Belmar: Thanks for sharing that Mia. I appreciate it. So let me pause here at this moment, Gautham you've been listening to everybody's comments so far is anything standing out to you or do you have any strong thoughts either about what everyone has suggested?

[00:31:05] Or maybe there are things that we didn't suggest yet? 

[00:31:09] Gautham Vadakkepatt: No, I love all the suggestions and it, you know, I love it, particularly both Ron and Mia had to say one Ron saying like, it's an hours commitment, right? That the simple, low lying fruit that can actually transform. I can say this personally, like I got about eight speakers in my class, and that was one small comment that one of the speakers made that literally brought one of the students to tears.

[00:31:35] And they connected, and then they had some further conversation. So it's a very limited ask, but it can have the potential to transform literally students' life. And so all these simple opportunities, the one that we have said, right. To getting people and talking to the alumni base and so forth, we're trying to do all those things.

[00:31:54] But any other thoughts to make students more excited about retail in general would be greatly appreciated. 

[00:32:02] Mia Lupo: I do have one other thing I can offer. Salve Regina, we do have a center dedicated to connecting small businesses. So for business majors, their final project for the year is to do like the business plan and they are connected with a number of small businesses or small to medium-sized businesses throughout Rhode Island.

[00:32:27] And to come up with suggestions and ideas. And I think that something like that, like a hands-on opportunity, connecting with the community is a really interesting way to, you know, kind of give them that real life experience to really fully analyze what it really takes to, be in retail and, the, the opportunity of it now, again, that's, for, a small liberal arts university.

[00:32:51] That's just, an example of a smaller scope, but, it's still all the more reason it could be something that's, very important to get students involved. I mean, plenty, plenty of colleges and universities use students, as you know, mini think tanks to, think of so many great ideas and to push their business forward.

[00:33:11] So maybe that's something that, larger retailers could invite, could invite students to new, do more projects to submit things. It could be very interesting

[00:33:21] Gautham Vadakkepatt: if I could just make one comment on that. I would love the larger retailers to do that, but I will say this on behalf of the small re, like our school does this with the small retailers and there's a lot of it and they give students a great opportunity to make their resume look different. And it also exposes them to the opportunities in retail.

[00:33:41] So that'd be a really great opportunity to have. And if there are retailers in the room, please do reach out.

[00:33:47] Ricardo Belmar: I do think that is a wonderful idea of, or any kind of project work like that, that you can connect with a retailer that just would provide so much valuable experience for the students to really understand the business and understand the impact of the problem they're trying to solve. But with that project, I think that's just a wonderful, wonderful way to go.

Retail vs Commerce - a misperception?

[00:34:06] Casey Golden: I think there's also something that I've found is the difference of perception between retail and commerce. The commerce seems to be cooler. And go figure. But what retail means to a lot of people is very different. And everybody seems to understand what commerce is whether or not it's omni-channel or bricks or clicks or, or whatever that is, whether or not it's it's travel or fashion or home goods.

[00:34:33] It's kind of just not it's not as, as, as pigeonholed by perception, I'm finding. So I do find that that might be something that is interesting. I find it, I find your program to be so impactful the way that you've, you've designed. As somebody who, I mean, I've got my second bachelor's in apparel design and merchandise planning, and it was still very much designed around the fact and marketed that I was going to be a designer.

[00:35:03] And granted, I thought I was going to be a designer till I learned production, but it was never brought up to go into the tech side to go into supply chain management, managing production was never a conversation about an ERP system. And I feel like a lot of the, the more that changes that you can be in tech and be in commerce or retail.

[00:35:26] There's a lot of other jobs out there that do pay better than what they may have that preconceived notion of. So I think it's, I think it's all very interesting as we kind of build out these new curriculums and Gautham, I think you're just doing a really great job. 

[00:35:42] Gautham Vadakkepatt: Thank you. 

[00:35:43] Ricardo Belmar: That's a really fascinating point you made there Casey about how the perception is different if you frame it in terms of commerce versus retail. And I wonder if, if there's some of that have to do with I guess you were saying right, that the production side of things, or, you know, if you're looking at fascia and it's because you're looking at the design side of it, or is it because in recent years, we've, we've had so much more build up from a media perspective of direct to consumer brands and digitally native brands that somehow that appears different to students than what they might think of as a traditional retailer.

[00:36:14] Gautham does that ever come up, but with your students, is there a variation in that perception.

[00:36:19] Gautham Vadakkepatt: Absolutely. There is don't, please don't take this the wrong way, but there is a negative perception around retail and that's why I applaud Ron for what he does in changing that initial experience. And it's, it's part of that, right? When you take that frame out of their thinking and you juxta position a different framework, they seem to have a different mindset.

[00:36:46] Very, very different mindset. And I'll say it, it is just a mindset issue because through the length of the program, what students have come to realize is that commerce and retail are the same thing, and retail and have for negative connotation. This was one of the students who actually said that they'd like, yeah, I didn't think about all these other things that you had.

[00:37:11] The speakers have highlighted as far as being retail. I was like, yeah, but I thought that was all commerce. So that's part of just the mindset mentality that is driven by past lived experiences. And this is where, those first impactful moments are crucial to ensure that the supply of talent into retail continues to be of high quality and addresses the new skills that's needed.

[00:37:37] Ricardo Belmar: Perception it's really, it's such an important point an issue to overcome, right? Because it all comes back to that perception of, is this, or is this not an interesting career path for me as a graduating student? And where is it going to lead? I want to kind of connect the dots with this on the, the question of community building, because, we're bringing up a lot of interesting facts around what makes it interesting to that student into that graduating student to stay in the, in the retail industry.

[00:38:04] So when I look at community, I'm also thinking about how the university as that kind of neutral environment. And I like to think of it as a neutral environment, because in that sense, the university doesn't have an agenda other than to educate students at this point. So it is neutral from the perspective I believe of the retailer and technology providers.

[00:38:24] If we look at this from a perspective of what if the university brought together some of those key technology providers that are doing these new emerging things for retailers and some of the startups that are coming around who are probably also looking for young talent, that they can bring into their startup organization with a fresh perspective and with an ability and understanding of what retailers need to have, because they've been through this program. What can universities do as they pull those together that not just makes it useful and enticing for the students, but then in turn makes it valuable for those organizations.

[00:39:00] You know, what's going to make it valuable for the startups to be interested in coming to this neutral environment at the university to meet the students as well as any of the other technology providers. So I want to spend a few minutes on this point and Shish, I think you've got your audio issues sorted out, right?

[00:39:15] Shish Shridhar: Yep. 

[00:39:15] Ricardo Belmar: Really curious to give you a chance to comment on this part. 

Building an ecosystem for startups

[00:39:19] Shish Shridhar: Well, so one of the areas that Gotham and I have been working on figuring out is really trying to build that ecosystem where one, I think the point that he made that that universities are really that neutral place where retailers could go to one of the challenges I find, when working for tech vendor is there is potential perception of bias there and where, there's multiple tech vendors and, and each one will come in with the buyers for their technology. And universities are in a position to kind of work across all of these tech vendors and be able to pick the best of the, startups out there and make recommendations based on that.

[00:40:08] So I kind of think from that perspective, there is a possibility for us to bring together identify what are the top innovations happening? What's the emerging technologies happening and a respective of what tech vendor they are affiliated to, to have that unbiased rating and capabilities being listed out.

[00:40:31] So that's one aspect of it. And what you pointed out is, you know students and engaging students is an important element for, for startups. And that ecosystem could be beneficial for startups as well where they could engage, collaborate with startups, with the students. The other aspect of it that Gautham and I have been talking about is really building GMU to be the place where startups could be born.

[00:41:00] One. Really reaching out to retailers to determine what are the big business challenges that retailers are trying to solve today that we don't have solutions for. And then building out potentially maybe a hackathon around that and bringing together students, bringing together startups to help address those challenges, providing the resources for that, and then building an ecosystem that will create startups, innovative startups that are trying to solve the top problems in retail.

[00:41:37] And that's again, another aspect that Gautham and I have been talking about as well. 

[00:41:42] Casey Golden: Yeah, I think that's really great. I just spoke to Northwestern. And they have a, program of, they call them company cohorts and companies come in and it's almost like a job fair at the beginning of a term. And you literally, the students go in there and they sign up for a cohort with a company and they spend the next 16 weeks working for the company as their class.

[00:42:12] I find it incredibly interesting. And the person I was speaking to mentioned that there's a huge interest in fashion and retail and retail tech and direct to consumer brands and people who want to open up their own or work in that field. But there was no brands or retailers or fashion companies that are part of the cohort.

[00:42:34] And so, you know, JP Morgan's there, Bain is there, there's, there's all these other companies, but there wasn't any brands or retailers. So I think that that's a really good way as just reaching out even and putting ourselves with the universities to, to build it so that we can also, you know, start developing that talent early and these students get a chance to participate.

[00:43:00] They even have a venture program, which I found really interesting. Ron and I both met this gal Gabby when we were in Dominican Republic , and they have a, a venture analyst team there and they work with the alumni for deal flow so that these people, these students are able to start understanding venture capital.

[00:43:23] And they're just, they're just helping startups. To get experience,

[00:43:30] you know, so I think more practical ways that, and it's, it's considered a cohort and it's a 16 week class. Just like if you were going in to taking a class for biology, but you're actually working for companies, 

[00:43:41] Ricardo Belmar: what a great experience. 

[00:43:43] Gautham Vadakkepatt: I was going to say, I love that idea. And you know, Casey to your point generally, what academics, what is common across all academia is that there is a gap, right?

[00:43:54] Like once you get into a company takes my statistics, are it takes two years to kind of bring them on board or that's the statistics that I've been provided. So doing these kinds of cohorts stuff, actually sharpens that. Right. And so they get hit the ground running. I hadn't thought about that. So it'd be wonderful to get retail involved in something like that.

[00:44:16] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, I think that would be a fantastic experience for everyone involved that would be producing really amazing outcomes too. I think that would be fascinating. 

[00:44:24] Casey Golden: Yeah. I mean, a lot of times these new grads, they they're not ready for the job. 

[00:44:28] Ricardo Belmar: And I think that's a great way to kind of give them that early exposure, right?

[00:44:31] Casey Golden: Yeah. Really getting that early exposure. And you know, we have a history of wooing people into the fashion industry about trips to Paris and living in New York. And we never, there's no TV show that ever mentions that you're spending, you know, nine hours a day in an Excel file. 

[00:44:55] Ricardo Belmar: I think that part gets edited out of each episode.

[00:44:59] Casey Golden: And then you don't realize how much math you. The amount of math that you do in retail would make any person's head spin that they didn't realize you could do math like that. And I think that that's, that's something that's definitely underlooked or overlooked. Right. You know, like it's heavy math.

[00:45:19] Gautham Vadakkepatt: It's true. I will support that point even to this day when I, my classes is always numbers heavy. And they're like, this is retail. I'm like, yeah, it does retail. That's what you got to do fully agree with that last 

[00:45:36] Casey Golden: No, you get marketing and go into fashion is like pretty much what is that? That, that commentary? I wouldn't have ever really learned math if it wasn't for Polo University. I started out Ralph Lauren, I got handed a $30 million business and they put me into retail math classes every Friday.

[00:45:57] So I think it, I think it's really important that students know really what's expected of these jobs and especially the senior positions on what it's going to take to get you there. And if, if you're prepared you don't have to be that coordinator for that long. 

[00:46:17] Ricardo Belmar: That's a great, great point.

[00:46:18] And also speaks to an opportunity where the retailers that don't have that kind of Polo University, they should be working with universities to create those professional programs and make them available for both, you know, any existing executives or anyone who's wants to go down that path and get to those positions and have that available to them.

[00:46:37] So they don't research it and feel like they have to do that in house, right. They have access to other education institutions that can help them with that. And then would love to see more of that happening. 

[00:46:47] I have one last topic to throw out for everyone. And I'm going to direct this one to Jeff first as who we all collectively always refer to as "the analyst."

Universities drive neutral research 

[00:46:55] Ricardo Belmar: And this point is really about how university can contribute as a, again, focusing on the neutrality aspect of it, but as a neutral research platform that, and be able to research and contribute to the different projects in that way, in a way that, you know, you can't expect other vendors or technology provider sources to do, to do things that retailers are trying to solve. So, Jeff, what's your, what are some of your thoughts on that research perspective? 

[00:47:19] Jeff Roster: Well, I mean, you got it. You got it exactly right. The only neutral platform out there is universities and could maybe make the case. They, you know, a vendor might have some influence there, but no, no one else is neutral.

[00:47:31] Literally. No one else's neutral and no one has as many scientists and engineers and want to be scientists and want to be engineers. So to me, It's just such a natural marriage. I just love, love what Casey said. What gosh, how could I, how could I get into that training program for venture? What if I could fake, like I'm a kid again?

[00:47:51] It just, it's such a logical place to go. We're all trying to figure out the next iteration of, of the consumer. And guess who's sitting, sitting, you know, in a giant sea of these consumers, it's the university who is who, who is paid to research universities. You know, it's just such a perfect venue that I don't think we in retail have really even begun to scratch the surface of.

[00:48:14] And that's why, I love what Gautham is doing now. He's stepping out and not just talking about supply chain or not just talking about merchandising, but, but really if you look at a lot of the work it's it's AI, which I'm obviously a huge fan of it's low code it's, it's blockchain, it's all of these emerging technologies that these kids are going to get exposed to.

[00:48:33] And whether they stay in retail or not, they're going to be literally working with 21st century technologies. And I just, I just think this is a fantastic opportunity for, for literally everyone involved, including the executives that'll get involved, they'll gain five X more than they'll ever give. You cannot out-give generosity.

[00:48:50] It always, it always comes back fivefold. 

[00:48:53] Casey Golden: Well, that's it. These are our customers, you know, like crazy. They are our customers. We want them about to get jobs.

[00:49:02] They are our customers. I worked at Abercrombie and Fitch back when that was super cool to do. And I was always very impressed. At the time I was there in order to get a job at corporate or move into corporate, you had to be a store manager. Unless you were like probably some very senior executive that got transferred in.

[00:49:24] Otherwise you had to be a store manager for at least one year before you could take a job at corporate. And I fought, I felt that that was such a great way to bring everybody in with. Real experience managing the stores. And they too did all of their recruiting. At high schools and colleges, they had a huge footprint on campus.

[00:49:48] I mean, I went to games like I was at football games. I was at basketball games with like five to 10 people on my staff, recruiting employees to come work at the store, but there was such a presence on campus and the brand was on, was there and coming to games and starting to make that impact. And, you know, at that every single what, two days a week, we had a minimum of 50 people wanting to interview twice a week.

[00:50:19] And there was huge amounts of people that wanted to work at the company because. You know, one of the reasons is we showed up.

[00:50:26] So I think that, you know, there's a lot of opportunity there to get involved with, with more campuses and, and get the brand presence involved with the culture so that people are aware and, and they've known for a long time and, and they got to work for the company. They got to intern for the company.

[00:50:44] And that's the beginning of brand equity. I feel in a lot of places. 

[00:50:48] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, that becomes a much more collaborative environment and in much more inclusive that way. And I think you're absolutely right in calling it a brand equity, because it really just creates an affinity for not just that brand, but even for the industry as a whole.

[00:51:02] Gautham, I know you have a specific point of view on contributions that universities can make on the research perspective. So I wanted to hear your thoughts 

[00:51:10] Gautham Vadakkepatt: Yeah, my job is correlated with my research productivity, right? Teaching is a required aspect, but I get evaluated mostly on my research.

[00:51:20] And so there is a large opportunity for universities to get involved in research that addresses industry specific problems. Right? All universities are trying to do these things, right. So it is, it is a shared responsibility. It's a shared dance. It can't be that one person comes to the table. It has to be everyone.

[00:51:41] And by that, I mean, the retailers, as well as the vendors all have to come together to do research that actually helps advance industry, but really are, we get paid to do research, right? Why not leverage us and our students, actually, many of us students crave to do research as well. And so this is a good training ground to get the future prepared for what it is, it hones their thinking ability, it hones their ability to do research.

[00:52:12] It also gives them a deeper dive into specific industries. So for me, I get most excited about the opportunity to do research and the, the possibility of the center and full disclosure, every center, and most institutions try to do. Right. The opportunity to partner with retailers or retail associations to address industry specific problems excites me.

[00:52:38] The challenge is trying to figure out how to do the dance, right? How do we how do we do the research that helps both the university as well as a retailer, while still maintaining the critical aspect that Jeff said neutrality to be the neutral ground. We don't have an option. We cannot pick sides. And so we have to be neutral and that requires more detail, more thoughtful and careful research.

[00:53:04] Ricardo Belmar: I hear what you're saying. I think you're absolutely right. And it's one of these things that's so overlooked, I think by the industry when there's so much opportunity here, because as you pointed out, one of your primary roles is to do research. And as, as every university is doing, and the students have a very big role to play in, in many cases, in that research. So it's just something that the industry and I think Jeff said this as well, just doesn't take enough advantage of and, and leveraging to really understand how they could solve so many different problems by just looking at this research. And, and again, from that neutral point of view, because the university is not doing this from a perspective that some vendors are going to be perceived as yes, we'll help you figure out that problem because we hope to sell you something at the end.

[00:53:48] And sometimes that's true. Sometimes that's not. But from the university's perspective, that's not even in anyone's head, right. It's not a goal that anyone has is just do the research to see what the outcome is. And then what can we learn from that? And how can that be applied? And that's something that would be a benefit to any retailer.

[00:54:04] When you look at it, what can be done in that kind of outcome? 

[00:54:07] Gautham Vadakkepatt: Yeah. And if I may add, right, there's also the opportunity that each retailer or solution provider, whatever we'll house specific problems that are particular to them, right. And they might not have the bandwidth or the resources to dedicate time and effort to do it.

[00:54:23] These might not be high priority, obviously should not be high priority problems. But these could be problems that are important to their operations. And this could be another chance to partner with universities and faculty and students to kind of get those problems addressed, get some insights from there and, you know, move from there.

[00:54:41] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, that's another excellent point on the research component to this. And just for me, more, more reasons why that should be leveraged more often and in so many more ways that are just a missed opportunity and the way it's looked at today. 

Closing thoughts

[00:54:56] Ricardo Belmar: I think we could probably talk for even another hour on this topic. I think, you know, Gautham, I think I probably won the bet on that one about how much interest there would be in how long this conversation would go. But we, we were kind of curious what to everyone would want to contribute to this discussion, but I think we've actually touched on a lot of different areas.

[00:55:12] I want to give Gautham, Ron, both of you as our special guests this week. Any, any last thoughts you have before we close?

[00:55:19] Ron Thurston: Thanks. Thank you, Ricardo. It's so interesting because we all, we all can be involved in this. And I think that the conversation from the brand side to find new ways to develop and hire and train and bring people into this industry is at a point where new ideas have to come forward and, and capitalizing on some of this university partnership.

[00:55:45] Could 2022 could be the year where this actually gets much better. And that's what I'm hearing tonight is, we, some of us have had great experiences when it was really good and in some earlier years and we have to get back to that place. That's how people came into this industry. Many of us did, we have to get back there and now is the time to do that well, and it's, it's actually really exciting, as hard as it is right now.

[00:56:12] I find the opportunity to be really thrilling what the future is going to look like. So thank you for having me tonight. 

[00:56:18] Ricardo Belmar: Thank you, Ron. I think you're spot on the fact that this is a subject area where everyone has an ability to help move things forward and contribute for the better of the industry.

[00:56:29] And I think it just requires that everyone participate at the end of the day and in whatever ways those are you know, and I think universities and academics have a really great ability to help lead us on this path. Gautham, any final thoughts. 

[00:56:42] Gautham Vadakkepatt: Yeah. I think you hit the nail on the head Ricardo and Ron.

[00:56:44] First, Ron, thank you for all the mentorship. Right? We need mentors. We need people who will step up and thanks to everyone who does that. And we need more of that. We can change the dialogue if more people step up and thank you for everyone who's doing it. The second aspect is that, the George Mason university is just one of the centers that's trying to change retail, right? There are lots of schools just connect with academia in general, and to try and make those moments, those contact points with the students to help and our faculty to help change the conversation. And it could be an hour long.

[00:57:23] Most schools, at least Mason has a program where you tell me how many hours you want to engage with our institution and we'll get you into the right type of program for that. And it could be from a research perspective, it would be from a teaching perspective, it could be from a mentorship perspective.

[00:57:42] So this is a call for anyone and everyone to kind of come support the centers, as well as all academic institutions. We're trying to change the conversation.

[00:57:52] Ricardo Belmar: thanks Gautham. I appreciate you and Ron joining us today. I think this was probably one of my favorite topics that we've done in the room and in recent memory. Kind of feel like we came to the end here with, with very significantly more positive vibe maybe then we came into it because we had so many constructive and useful suggestions that everyone offered.

[00:58:10] I'm really pleasantly surprised that we had such wonderful contributions to a topic that doesn't really get enough attention for the betterment of the retail industry. So again, I want to thank everybody for having joined us today in the Retail Razor room and everybody have a great weekend. 

Gautham Vadakkepatt Interview

[00:58:24] Ricardo Belmar: Welcome back everybody. We are fortunate to have one of our special guests with us, Gautham Vadakkepatt, director of the Center for Retail Transformation at George Mason University. 

[00:58:33] Casey Golden: Welcome to the show. Gautham, glad to have you with us today. 

[00:58:36] Gautham Vadakkepatt: Thank you for having me. 

[00:58:38] Ricardo Belmar: So Gotham one area, we didn't get a chance to dig into very much in the clubhouse session is a bit related to what Shish brought up in relation to startups.

[00:58:47] And that's building an ecosystem of technology innovation and thought leadership around retail operations, and retail tech topics that all have different things retailers are challenged with today. And in fact, you have some pretty interesting plans for the center to address those needs starting this year, don't you?. 

[00:59:05] Gautham Vadakkepatt: Yeah, we do. So let me just begin by setting the stage by talking about the idea that academic centers are really neutral convening points, right? Our job is to advance the discipline and to help build new knowledge and disseminate new knowledge. And if you think about retail, the fundamentals of retail are critical for retailers to succeed, but how they get those fundamentals, how they arrive at the right mix of the fundamentals is largely predicated on technology, data and so forth. And so what we're trying to do here at the center is trying to help showcase how those elements are able to help retailers succeed and to share that knowledge with a larger audience, but providing that neutral platform. So you asked me, how are we going to do this? So first and foremost is that we're going to build a sequence of thought leadership events.

[01:00:03] So I'm happy to say that in 2022, we'll be having a five-part transforming retail webcast series, where we talk about different aspects of retail that help retailers succeed. Particularly for the first session, we're going to talk about frictionless checkout customer data with regards to how companies can utilize it to do better.

[01:00:26] And enhance the customer experience in-store experiences that retailers can kind of engage in talking about sustainable retail returns. And then finally, everyone has to talk about this these days, talk about Metaverse and how retailers can incorporate web 3.0 largely speaking into their portfolio of tools to help enable a better customer experience. So that's largely one step that we got going with regards to thought leadership and sharing knowledge that has been generated by a lot of startups. The intent of these webcast series is to bring startups in conjunction with retailers to showcase the critical problems and to provide a unifying framework, to think about these problems.

[01:01:14] The second aspect that we have intended is to kind of help to research, right? So a lot of startups want research to showcase the value of their products to showcase how they are different and where else to go. But to, in my opinion, obviously there's a bias here, but where else to go but an academic center where we are bound to be neutral, to kind of help build some of the research that supports these various entities.

[01:01:43] We have students who are eager to do research. And so this is a pairing in some ways made in heaven, like no pun intended. And we have faculty who want to engage with a lot of the startups to understand what's at the cutting edge. So we launched this brown bag series where we bring, start ups to talk to our faculty.

[01:02:07] It's a close room. Everything that happens in that room stays in that room. We discuss the problem and they walk away with ideas. It's just a one hour session, but we've been doing this for a while now, and it's been very successful. To the extent that it's allowed startups to generate ideas, understand what's been done in research before, walk away with some ideas to leverage to their own context and allows faculty to know what's going on in the retail startup space.

[01:02:37] And the last point, Ricardo that we're trying to do with regards to efforts to support the retail ecosystem. It's projects for students and trying to get startups to work with these students who eventually will work with some of these startups to get them in early, get them excited about these startups and to help them solve the problems that the startups have, go to market strategy building databases or doing analytics for the startups and are being creative problem solvers for problems that startups have. So broadly speaking, that's the three different domains in which we have efforts going in 2022 thought leadership, research, and getting students to work with these companies.

[01:03:23] Casey Golden: That's great. There's no shortage of challenges to solve in retail. 

[01:03:28] Gautham Vadakkepatt: I hope so we've been getting some good traction there with people saying, Hey, you know, help me with the go-to-market strategy or help me figure it out really what's our value proposition and the students love it. The faculty love it because now we don't have to preach.

[01:03:43] In some ways we get students to work on real projects and it helps build a CV and it helps us to showcase the relevance of what we're educating them on with real world examples.

[01:03:56] Ricardo Belmar: Sounds like such a great set of activities. 

[01:03:58] I remember a little bit about that in the clubhouse session too. And with different ways you get students to engage. I'm sure that goes a long way too, towards getting the students to understand why they might want to go into the retail industry. Because they're seeing it from that technology angle that I think so often we don't see , other places just don't put an emphasis on that.

[01:04:16] I think that's just a great uniqueness to what you're doing to really bring a different perspective for the students. So they get a much broader view of what's happening in the industry.

[01:04:24] Casey Golden: Yeah. It is its own animal. You know, you can go to school for marketing or communications or, or business, but retail is really it's own segment. And it's not really something that you go and get a degree in. So I think it's great being able to open that up and, and expose what types of opportunities are available because it's very diverse.

[01:04:48] There's so many different pieces that they can build a career from that they didn't even know that it existed as a job. So Gautham given all of these amazing activities and resources that you've planned at the center, can you tell us more about the objectives and mission and how you see it differentiating from other universities.

[01:05:06] Gautham Vadakkepatt: So, there are a lot of centers that focus on retail and the objective is to have all the centers have the same unifying objective, which is to support retail and to provide talent to that retail ecosystem. And everyone has, their own unique take to it where our take is that retail is transforming .

[01:05:27] The way things are being executed in retail is changing. And it's mostly driven by innovation and understanding the changing needs of customers. And to do that, the center believes that there are four pillars. And that's customer analytics and data insights. It's technology, it's rethinking the supply chain.

[01:05:51] And we came over these four pillars prior to COVID. So let me just be clear on that. It's to rethink the supply chain so that we are more efficient and allows the supply chain to deliver growth, which is a primary objective of the supply chain. And the last aspect is to get the talent equipped with what the retailers need.

[01:06:11] And so those are our four pillars. And so we try as a center, to be the center that is the foremost academic institution that leads the transformation in retail. And we build off of these pillars of innovation and changing customer needs, which require the retailers to do the fundamentals of retail very well.

[01:06:31] But those fundamentals are delivered on the wings of technology and the wings of data on the wings of reimagining certain fundamentals of retail, like supply chain and the sustainability aspect. And of course the talent, right. We are living in a world where retailers are finding it super hard to find talent.

[01:06:50] And we're trying to showcase that. So that's broadly speaking the objectives of the center and our focus largely is on where we you'd ask Casey, how we differ from other centers. So we stated this publicly many, a time.

[01:07:07] We are focused on startups in a small and medium retail, which is probably 90% of all retail. The transformation that's facing retail applies to all retailers. The big companies can manage those transitions well, lot of the unique aspects are being generated by the startups. And so what we're trying to do is to try and help the startups, showcase what they're doing and bring it to light to the smallest retailers, and we're not talking just about the mom and pop stores. You're talking about tier two, tier three. I'm trying to expose them to all the innovation that's happening in retail and retail tech is one of the fastest growing sectors, startups, tech sectors right now. And there's a whole other,

[01:07:58] I shouldn't be preaching to the choir here.

[01:08:02] Oh, to keep abreast of the number of startups in the space and the unique aspects that we're doing. And we're just trying to use that platform that an academic institution has to showcase like, Hey, these are the amazing things the guys are doing and letting the retailers pick what solution matters to them.

[01:08:22] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, that's such a great emphasis that you have in that area is I, have not seen that before in other centers or other associations. There's a lot of attention given to all the large retailers, who, of course they have the resources typically to investigate these different technologies to support startups themselves directly, but it leaves a big gap.

[01:08:41] You know, from tier two, tier three, all the way down to the small mom and pop shops or so many retailers that are maybe five stores, right. That's not 500 and they're kind of left out. And I think so often in other industries anyway, that when you see new technologies come out, that technology tends to be an equalizer.

[01:08:59] It tends to equalize the capability for the smaller operators versus the larger ones, but in retail, I think it's been a little bit more challenging because the technology gets I don't want to say complicated because a lot of technologies, the better ones try to simplify things, but just being able to deploy is a skill in and of itself. And being able to scale a deployment across a retail chain is another skill that you have to have, and not every retailer is as skilled at that as they could be and they need help. And I think the kind of resources and activities that you're leading with the center are really going to go a long way to help that segment of retail 

[01:09:33] Gautham Vadakkepatt: and Ricardo, it's not just about deployment, right?

[01:09:36] Like for, in many cases with many retailers, it's even discovery, that's rough, the solutions, 

[01:09:42] right?

[01:09:42] It stops. If you think about the one. 

[01:09:44] It starts with that discovery. And we have a problem with regards to discovering what there are solutions. There is a right solution for the retailer. Discovering those solutions is the first step before you can move them down.

[01:10:00] And I also want to say one thing is that not all academic centers have the same goal, which is to support the retail ecosystem. And we are all partners in that crime of trying to get students to get into retail and actually be excited about what retail has to offer. And to that, they're all, we all support each other efforts and we learn from each other as best practices and so forth.

[01:10:26] Ricardo Belmar: That, of course that makes complete sense. And again, going back to, I think the first topic we had in the clubhouse session, which was how do you get students excited about the industry, where, especially when there's so much happening in retail and particularly in retail tech, which is what we're all focused on in this show.

[01:10:43] So yeah, it just makes all the sense in the world to be doing. So Gautham, this has been great having you join us here on the podcast and our, we could keep talking about these subjects for hours as I think you and I often do outside of this forum. So we will absolutely have to ask you to come back and visit us.

[01:10:59] Gautham Vadakkepatt: I would love that opportunity. Thank you for having me. And yes, I could talk forever on this issue. When I, when I started on this journey, you know, I hadn't learned the depth and breadth of retail that I have now become a big evangelist of the role of retail startups and what they bring to the whole startup ecosystem in itself.

[01:11:21] Ricardo Belmar: Yep. 

[01:11:21] Absolutely. 

[01:11:22] Casey Golden: Thank you for all your support on my end as well. 

[01:11:24] Ricardo Belmar: So before we wrap up Gautham, can you tell our listeners how they can reach out to you if they're interested in getting involved with the center's programs or how they can follow you and the centers activities? 

[01:11:35] Gautham Vadakkepatt: Yes. So you can find me on LinkedIn. Gautham Vadakkepatt importantly for the center we'll be launching our new website and it's fairly easy to follow GMU retail.org will be the website. We also have a LinkedIn page. If you type in GMU center for retail transformation you should be able to find us there.

[01:11:58] Give us a follow if you are. Thank you for giving me this last second opportunity, but if any of you. Be at a startup be a small retailer or the bigger retailers or solution providers. If you want engage with the center, please feel free to reach out. We have a lot of opportunities to connect. We see our role as being a connector and trying to help build bridges.

[01:12:19] And so if anyone wants to be in involved with the center, feel free to reach out. 

Clubhouse Thank You

[01:12:27] Casey Golden: We'd like to take a moment to just thank everyone who joined us on stage for this clubhouse sash and ask Ron and Gautham questions and a special shout out 

[01:12:38] Ricardo Belmar: to Mia Lupo, no stranger to the retail razor room on clubhouse. Thank you Mia for sharing your nine years of retail experience with us and with our guest speakers.

[01:12:46] Casey Golden: Thank you Mia. So Ricardo, that's a wrap . 

[01:12:49] Ricardo Belmar: Yes, indeed. It is. Thank you everyone for listening. 

Show Close

[01:12:54] Casey Golden: If you enjoyed the show, please consider giving us a five-star rating and review on apple podcast. Remember to smash that subscribe button in your favorite podcast player. So you don't miss a minute. Want to know more about what we talked about? Take a look at our show notes for handy links and more deets.

[01:13:11] I'm your cohost Casey Golden. 

[01:13:12] Ricardo Belmar: If you'd like to connect with us, follow us on Twitter at Casey C golden and Ricardo underscore Belmar, or find us on LinkedIn. Be sure and follow the show on Twitter at RetailRazor, on LinkedIn, and on our YouTube channel for video versions of each episode and bonus content. I'm your host, Ricardo Belmar.

[01:13:29] Casey Golden: Thanks for joining us.

[01:13:34] Ricardo Belmar: And remember, there's never been a better time to be in retail. If you cut through the clutter. Until next time, this is the retail razor show!