In an increasingly competitive market, skilled retailers and suppliers are finding it easier to switch between jobs, says Fiona McLelland
Gone are the days when a young boy would leave school, join the co-op as a shelf-stacker and leave 50 years later with a director’s pension under his belt.
Competitive times call for competitive people - and competitive people want to climb the career ladder as fast as possible, whether it’s the one they started on or not.
It is now easier than ever for a retailer to jump ship midstream to work with a supplier and vice versa. Lawrence Hutter, head of European consumer business at Deloitte & Touche, says: “The retailers started to recruit people from the supply community for one principal reason. They were becoming brand owners in their own right and had to reach out to suppliers for their expertise.”
The first systematic movement was when retailers started recruiting marketing people from suppliers, he says. “The trend is likely to continue because the major retailers are not just brand owners - they have fantastic sub-brands to look after, such as Tesco’s Finest range and Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference.
“It was natural that retail would reach out to manufacturers for their brand marketing talents because the big fmcg companies had the most developed skills. Brand marketing grew up with the likes of Unilever and Procter & Gamble - they had the biggest marketing spend and were the most sophisticated of any industry.”
By hiring talented people from the supply chain, retailers have become highly respected brand owners and extremely sophisticated at what they do, says Hutter. He believes that transference of skills between retail and manufacturing can help build a better understanding between the two.
“I see the movement as very positive for the industry - retailers say manufacturers don’t understand them well enough and suppliers say the opposite. Cross-fertilisation can aid that understanding.”
However, says Richard Ash, recruitment consultant at Nigel Wright: “Movement may help build an understanding between manufacturers and retailers, but it could prove counter-productive. An individual will certainly benefit from moving from retail to manufacturing and vice versa by enhancing their skills set, but it will not necessarily help grow and develop the grocery trade because everyone will know each other’s secrets.”
Skills transfer is not just about retailers borrowing from suppliers, he argues. As a recruitment consultant, he has been placing many retail buyers into the supply chain. “Suppliers have to be better equipped with market research and know consumer trends inside out in order to persuade a buyer to list their product, or indeed increase shelf space. A buyer now finds that their traditional skills are in high demand with manufacturers.”
The highly competitive market place has created an environment where buyers, marketers and managers are all willing to move jobs, says Ash. “This generation has less loyalty than before. The marketplace is not enjoying as much growth as in the past, so cost savings have become hugely important for big retailers. That creates a degree of instability and a culture where people are more open-minded about where they work.”
Mark Sugden, United Biscuits head of category marketing and marketing services, has worked on both sides of the fence. After leaving university in 1989, he joined Tesco’s corporate marketing team and then became a local marketing manager to support store activity. After three years, he fancied a move into brand marketing. He approached various recruitment agencies and, five days later, had interviews lined up with top manufacturers.
“It was a very natural move to make,” says Sugden. “My role at Tesco was very commercial and I was always speaking about returns on investments, advertising and media spend. My skills were very transferable and everything was about the consumer.”
Sugden took up a job at Coca-Cola Schweppes, where he became an assistant brand manager for Lilt and Sprite. He progressed to head of customer marketing, grocer and impulse, but after eight years at Coca-Cola, he was ready for another change.
“It was a great place to work and the job was very challenging. But at the end of the day, I was only working on one category - albeit that the soft drinks category is enormous and worth £3bn in the UK.”
Having made the decision to return to retailing, Sugden again lined up interviews within days. He chose Sainsbury because it was moving into category management.
Last year he joined United Biscuits. “I was older and wiser when I moved to UB, so I was less reliant on agencies to find me work - it was more about networking and who I knew.”
Ben Frost, retail consultant at management consultancy Hay Group, says more retailers are moving to manufacturing companies for better pay levels. This applies particularly to buyers, he says, who are paid about 12% less than an equivalent on a supplier’s sales team.
“Buyers have traditionally moved jobs on the multiples’ merry-go-round every couple of years - the more changes, the more pay rises. But they are increasingly realising the transferability of skills and our fmcg clients are more than willing to bring them on board.”
This gives retailers a bit of a headache because a good buyer is hard to find - there is a shortfall of about 10%, says Frost. But retailers can hang on to staff by exploiting one of the great cards in their hand: flexibility.
“Retailers can shout about the scope of jobs at head office, whereas a manufacturer has the disadvantage that a sales job will always be a sales job, no matter how high up.”
Frost says package benefits are becoming an increasingly important tool to retain staff and that retailers have the edge here too. “A retailer and supplier may both offer a benefits package worth about £8,000 on top of a £40k salary, but for someone in sales most of that will go on the car. A retailer can build in a lot of extras, such as better healthcare and the ability to buy extra days of holiday.”
Case study
Mark Sugden
How Sugden went from retail to manufacturing and back again
1989: Tesco, corporate marketing
1990: Tesco local marketing manager, supporting stores
1992: Coca-Cola Schweppes, assistant brand manager, Lilt and Sprite
Grocery/ convenience customer marketing
Account manager; Account controller
Head of customer marketing, grocer and impulse at head office
2001: Sainsbury, head of category marketing and marketing services
2004: United Biscuits, head of category marketing and sales operations
Gone are the days when a young boy would leave school, join the co-op as a shelf-stacker and leave 50 years later with a director’s pension under his belt.
Competitive times call for competitive people - and competitive people want to climb the career ladder as fast as possible, whether it’s the one they started on or not.
It is now easier than ever for a retailer to jump ship midstream to work with a supplier and vice versa. Lawrence Hutter, head of European consumer business at Deloitte & Touche, says: “The retailers started to recruit people from the supply community for one principal reason. They were becoming brand owners in their own right and had to reach out to suppliers for their expertise.”
The first systematic movement was when retailers started recruiting marketing people from suppliers, he says. “The trend is likely to continue because the major retailers are not just brand owners - they have fantastic sub-brands to look after, such as Tesco’s Finest range and Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference.
“It was natural that retail would reach out to manufacturers for their brand marketing talents because the big fmcg companies had the most developed skills. Brand marketing grew up with the likes of Unilever and Procter & Gamble - they had the biggest marketing spend and were the most sophisticated of any industry.”
By hiring talented people from the supply chain, retailers have become highly respected brand owners and extremely sophisticated at what they do, says Hutter. He believes that transference of skills between retail and manufacturing can help build a better understanding between the two.
“I see the movement as very positive for the industry - retailers say manufacturers don’t understand them well enough and suppliers say the opposite. Cross-fertilisation can aid that understanding.”
However, says Richard Ash, recruitment consultant at Nigel Wright: “Movement may help build an understanding between manufacturers and retailers, but it could prove counter-productive. An individual will certainly benefit from moving from retail to manufacturing and vice versa by enhancing their skills set, but it will not necessarily help grow and develop the grocery trade because everyone will know each other’s secrets.”
Skills transfer is not just about retailers borrowing from suppliers, he argues. As a recruitment consultant, he has been placing many retail buyers into the supply chain. “Suppliers have to be better equipped with market research and know consumer trends inside out in order to persuade a buyer to list their product, or indeed increase shelf space. A buyer now finds that their traditional skills are in high demand with manufacturers.”
The highly competitive market place has created an environment where buyers, marketers and managers are all willing to move jobs, says Ash. “This generation has less loyalty than before. The marketplace is not enjoying as much growth as in the past, so cost savings have become hugely important for big retailers. That creates a degree of instability and a culture where people are more open-minded about where they work.”
Mark Sugden, United Biscuits head of category marketing and marketing services, has worked on both sides of the fence. After leaving university in 1989, he joined Tesco’s corporate marketing team and then became a local marketing manager to support store activity. After three years, he fancied a move into brand marketing. He approached various recruitment agencies and, five days later, had interviews lined up with top manufacturers.
“It was a very natural move to make,” says Sugden. “My role at Tesco was very commercial and I was always speaking about returns on investments, advertising and media spend. My skills were very transferable and everything was about the consumer.”
Sugden took up a job at Coca-Cola Schweppes, where he became an assistant brand manager for Lilt and Sprite. He progressed to head of customer marketing, grocer and impulse, but after eight years at Coca-Cola, he was ready for another change.
“It was a great place to work and the job was very challenging. But at the end of the day, I was only working on one category - albeit that the soft drinks category is enormous and worth £3bn in the UK.”
Having made the decision to return to retailing, Sugden again lined up interviews within days. He chose Sainsbury because it was moving into category management.
Last year he joined United Biscuits. “I was older and wiser when I moved to UB, so I was less reliant on agencies to find me work - it was more about networking and who I knew.”
Ben Frost, retail consultant at management consultancy Hay Group, says more retailers are moving to manufacturing companies for better pay levels. This applies particularly to buyers, he says, who are paid about 12% less than an equivalent on a supplier’s sales team.
“Buyers have traditionally moved jobs on the multiples’ merry-go-round every couple of years - the more changes, the more pay rises. But they are increasingly realising the transferability of skills and our fmcg clients are more than willing to bring them on board.”
This gives retailers a bit of a headache because a good buyer is hard to find - there is a shortfall of about 10%, says Frost. But retailers can hang on to staff by exploiting one of the great cards in their hand: flexibility.
“Retailers can shout about the scope of jobs at head office, whereas a manufacturer has the disadvantage that a sales job will always be a sales job, no matter how high up.”
Frost says package benefits are becoming an increasingly important tool to retain staff and that retailers have the edge here too. “A retailer and supplier may both offer a benefits package worth about £8,000 on top of a £40k salary, but for someone in sales most of that will go on the car. A retailer can build in a lot of extras, such as better healthcare and the ability to buy extra days of holiday.”
Case study
Mark Sugden
How Sugden went from retail to manufacturing and back again
1989: Tesco, corporate marketing
1990: Tesco local marketing manager, supporting stores
1992: Coca-Cola Schweppes, assistant brand manager, Lilt and Sprite
Grocery/ convenience customer marketing
Account manager; Account controller
Head of customer marketing, grocer and impulse at head office
2001: Sainsbury, head of category marketing and marketing services
2004: United Biscuits, head of category marketing and sales operations
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