Retail in Asia

Headline

Singapore launches ‘Retail Best Practices Masterclass Series’

Singapore Skyline - Retail in Asia

To help retailers boost productivity, Singapore Productivity Centre (SPC) and Boston Consulting Group (BCG) inked a memorandum of understanding on Wednesday (Aug 10), to launch a “Retail Best Practices Masterclass Series”.

This comes at a time when challenges such as labour and rental costs are hurting retailers, said Minister of State for Manpower Teo Ser Luck.

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Mr Teo, who was speaking at the launch of the masterclass series, added that while retail trends such as e-commerce are “exciting developments”, some businesses have been slow to adapt to ride on them. He said the retail sector is one that is in the category of “room for improvement”.

The masterclasses will help retailers adopt manpower-lean business models, he added.

Under the SPC-BCG Retail Best Practice Masterclass Series, three topics will be covered: Concept development and differentiation, outlet portfolio planning and maintenance and labour and performance management.

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SPC will conduct three runs of the topics over a two-year period which will benefit at least 225 participants. It will tap on BCG’s expertise and professional skills and knowledge to identify and develop best practices and processes.

The partnership between SPC and BCG will also see the development of productivity toolkits to help SMEs address critical issues. Research studies on productivity will also be conducted, including benchmarking, productivity assessments and identifying key productivity issues for SMEs.