%% The keynote address at the seminar was provided by H.H.S.A.R. PV Chaturvedi Swami. %% Mr Nitin Parab, ACI’s behavioural scientist and human coach, said, “People are crucial to an enterprise. After extensive research, we found that all employees can be classified into four broad categories, authoritarian, genial, pensive and laidback and various inter-combinations of these. A laidback employee can never make a good sales person, a job that requires initiative. Our research found that in most of the jewellery businesses in this industry, only four per cent of the employees have leadership potential while 62 per cent do not want to take leadership. How will the business work?” %% There are estimated to be around 3.5 lakh retail jewellery outlets in India, mainly run by small family owned businesses, employing less than five employees. Add to this the problem of insensible employment practices, where relatives are randomly employed by businesses. T “We expect a severe shortage of nearly five million skilled people in the jewellery trade by 2022,” informed Ms. Gauri Gupta of National Skills Development Corporation (NSDC), one of the speakers at the seminar. On the other hand, going by current growth figures, the domestic jewellery industry, the fastest growing in the Indian economy, is slated for a 50 per cent rise in retail turnover at Rs. 112,000 crore in 2013, and many folds thereafter. Although organised retail currently accounts for a tiny proportion of the jewellery industry, mainly in metro cities, this is expected to change. %% “Given the character of the gem and jewellery industry where 95 per cent of the industry is fragmented and unorganised consisting of small family businesses, where operations are labour intensive, export oriented, demanding high working capital with the raw material subject to volatility in prices, it shall inevitably be hit by corporates, better managed with deeper financial resources and muscle power,” pointed out Dr Srini Srinivasan, ACI’s Advisor and Research scholar and Retail specialist. %% “However, it is possible for you to co-exist, provided you professionalise,” he said, seriously advising the smaller industry players to streamline all retail processes and professionalise the business if they wanted to survive in a challenging market and withstand competition from well endowed business houses that could afford higher risk and lower returns, as their well-established core business was most probably in another sector. The advantage for the smaller players was that 80 per cent of business in the jewellery industry happened within a two kilometre radius and they could choose to be close to their customers provided they invested in their people who became the expression to carry their brand forward." he added. %% “Also, you have to detach. Instead of becoming emotional in business and taking whimsical decisions, the challenge was to put into place the right systems and processes to professionalise the business,” advised Mr Shanti Barmecha, CMD, the man behind the Amore brand and ACI. %% “Give customers more. Especially youngsters, who will drive the retail business and demand value for money. Also consider collaboration with other small shops to create bigness of brands in retail,” Dr Srinivasan advised. %% After this, it would not take long for each piece of jewellery to be rightfully treated as a work of art instead of being ripped apart by the average Indian customer into its gold content, stones, average weight, etc for computation of price. %%

%% To achieve this, Amore Crosslink Inc offers vocational training and educational programs for front line staff including short term courses on Introduction to Retail, Creating the Retail Sales Personality for the sales team to sharpen their skills, a Basic and Advanced Retail Management Program for students who wanting to make a career in Modern Trade Retail and for professionals already in the trade. The courses have been especially designed to increase product understanding, learn customer requirements and trends in jewellery retail, sharpen selling skills and polish the ability to push customers towards higher purchase values, besides being based on scientific methods of predicting human behaviour. %% Amore Crosslink Inc offers four types of service verticals including training links that provides various training programs; Human Resource Links for providing HR services including manpower sourcing and selection, employee audit, setting up Human resource policies and procedures besides appraisal management; Corporate Links, that provides services for businesses besides Institutional Links, that would help to set up world class institutes, mentor and counsel students and help with final work placements. %% Each sector of services, especially initiated for the jewellery industry, would help transform family run entrepreneurs to modern trade retailers. %%