My inspiration to write this article comes from wonderful response and feedback that my earlier article received which I had written on developing “Resilience” and how to decode “No” in your mind.
I would give credit to below line which would kick-start my article and would set the tone for my article.
“The Illiterate of 21st century will not be those who cannot read & write but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn” – Alvin Toffler.
My article is my attempt to provide few tips and guidelines as to how one needs to adapt to new challenges that technology would be posing to us especially in the Retail & service sectors.
With the advent of cashless economy and stores without any sales personnel, i.e. stores like “Amazon Go” which uses hi-tech Artificial Intelligence couple with facial recognition and cashless transaction which indirectly means following job profiles would be redundant in future definitely with advent of machine learning systems: Customer service personnel, Cashier & Merchandisers or promoters.
Above is just one example from the front end of the store, at the backend, various functions like merchandising planning & buying could also vanish since the computers/systems powered by AI would replenish the stocks by generating system LPO to the vendor which gets delivered to stores directly by the vendor.
Personally speaking, the overall future of Retail using AI-powered machine learning systems sounds scary but as there is a saying that when going gets tough it’s the tough who gets going.
The future belongs to those who are ready to LEARN, UNLEARN AND RELEARN.
My article is my sincere attempt to some useful insights
A) Hone your skills: Every Job function has technical skills and soft-skills requisite.
My advice would be to develop and polish your SOFT SKILLs which machine learning AI systems would never be able to adapt easily.
What are soft skills?
As per Wikipedia, Soft skills are a combination of people skills, social skills, communication skills, character traits, attitudes, career attributes, social intelligence and emotional intelligence quotients among others.
Always remember People love to do business with People and this premise would always remain relevant in future business as well.
B) Adapt yourself to changing work/ job requirements:
It’s not just the jobs in demand that are set to change, but also the way we work. As mentioned, organizations are facing skills gaps and employers are increasingly turning to temporary and contract employees in a bid to bridge these gaps.
Not only will you gain experience in this increasingly popular format of working, but you’ll help safeguard your future employability by broadening your range of skills and experience in a relatively short period of time.
C) Adopt a growth mindset and remain curious to learn new things/skills, even if it does not relate to your professional education or experience.
Mark Twain once quipped “I have never allowed schooling to come in way of my education” and I feel this line said by him is so relevant in coming times.
D) Cultivate Curiosity: Being curious make life more astonishing and would make you happy & more creative. It’s the creativity that would full proof your career as machine learning systems cannot cope with human superpower i.e. Brain.
E) Listen to your team & family and assume that anyone who disagrees with your opinion is partially right.
Listening to his kids helped industrialist Mukesh Ambani (chairman Reliance Industries Ltd) to launch “JIO” telecom service provider in India and captured over 10 million subscribers in less than 20 days.
They understood that future belongs not to “Voice” but to “Data” hence they launched 4G LTE technology wherein their competition were still trying to recover costs of their investments in 2G and 3G networks.
To sum up my article, I would like to emphasize on the fact that change is happening faster than ever before, it took 75 years to get 50 million telephone subscribers or users, It took a popular game “Angry Birds” to reach 50 million downloads in less than 40 days.
Most importantly, find your key strength “your MOJO or WHY” and work on it. Become the expert in your field by constant learning.
I would be more than happy to guide my readers and my connections on Linkedin who would need my cutting-edge advice & solutions for driving growth to their businesses. I can be reached at riteshmohan@yahoo.com
About the author:
Ritesh Mohan is a passionate retail professional with over 20 years in the retail sector, handling some of the biggest brands in beauty, fashion and fragrances retail & FMCG sector. He has been instrumental in the growth of some of the regional brands as well in Middle East region. He specializes in Retail management, Product development, Brand management, Retail Operations, Sales Management, Business Management & Empowering business owners with his wisdom & experience of around two decades in the industry.
Interesting read Ritesh!
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