Industry needs new leaders as it faces consumers who are spending less money
By Joe Pangburn
Inside Tucson Business
Among BusinessWeek magazine’s 95 best places to
launch a career, there are only three retailers: Macy’s, Kohl’s and Walgreens.
"This needs to change," says Terry Lundgren,
president, chairman and CEO of Macy’s, in his
opening remarks in the opening address April 10
of the 13th annual Global Retailing Conference
2008 at Loews Ventana Canyon Resort. The
conference is put on by the University of
Arizona’s Terry J. Lundgren Center for Retailing.
This year’s focus was on how new leaders have
reinvented strategies for success and sustainability.
Lundgren said retailers used to focus a lot of
energy on training, and the programs were very good.
"These retail training programs were so good,
all the best students of the best schools wanted
to be a part of it," Lundgren said. "But somewhere we got away from that."
As the dot com boom took the nation by storm,
and technology grew every day, Lundgren said a lot of talent left retail.
Lundgren told the audience, made up of both
business people and students, that an employment
recruiter should be the company’s best foot
forward. Retail companies need to make certain that is the case.
"If you aren’t impressed with your recruiter,
don’t go to that company," he said.
Lundgren focused much of his talk on changethe
need for change in retail, and how change requires focus and innovation.
One change he said he is implementing at Macy’s
to try to keep talent in retail is spending at
least 30 minutes every week with some of the younger employees.
"That is the best 30 minutes of my week," he
said. "Obviously, with 185,000 employees, I
can’t spend time with each one, but I am getting
a lot out of it. They have really helped me get
focused on sustainability, because it is a big issue to them."
After his presentation, Lundgren said he enjoys
coming to the Global Retailing conference each
year to listen to the perspectives of the industry from various places.
"It is good to hear of the perspective
challenges and opportunities from these people,"
he said. But even more than that, "I love the
interaction with the students. They are great to be around."
The conference, which concluded on Friday,
brought in executive presenters from such major
firms as Deloitte – BusinessWeek’s No. 1 place
to launch a career – Inovis, Microsoft, Google, Polo Ralph Lauren and Wal-Mart.
As a word of warning to retailers, Carl
Steidtmann, chief economist for Deloitte
Research, said consumers have less money to
spend. He said he expects consumers will try to
curtail debt and begin spending less money than they are making.
Also, higher food, commodity, oil prices and
inflation are all eating at the consumer’s dollar.
"Keep in mind that with every penny increase on
the price of gas, that takes away $200 million
from onsumers’ pockets," Steidtmann said.
He said his view is the country went into recession in December.
"Many people look at this as only a bad thing,
but there is a cleansing process that comes out
of a recession and we will move through it," he said.
Steidtmann said the retail industry was actually
well positioned heading into this recession
because it has spent the last several years
cutting costs and working on efficiency.
Contact Joe Pangburn at
jpangburn@azbiz.com
or (520) 295-4259.
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