“Sponsored by Nuffnang”

Two times today I was reminded that the skills and experience that FMCG jobs provide, can open up many more options than you think.

The first came in the form of an email from one of my clients. They required me to start the search for a Marketing Manager to replace one of their employees who was leaving to start their own business.

Leaving a stable secure role with a Blue Chip employer to jump into the relative unknown world of managing cash flows, negotiating leases and trying to make a profit was the option they had decided to take.

The second was a call referring a candidate to a role I was looking after. The call was from another candidate “Harry”, whom I had been working with to secure a senior sales management role. I always welcome referrals and in this case it was a strong candidate with great experience so I immediately rang his number and booked him in for a chat.

So I asked “Harry” if he had secured a role since our previous discussions. He explained that he and few other senior FMCG experienced ex-colleagues had put a syndicate together to launch a retail concept. He was a bit secretive with the details and explained he couldn’t say much at the moment.

In the above two cases the people obviously had experience,  resources and the ability to take the leap of faith and start these businesses. But what if you are young, keen have the ability and desire but not the capital to make the dream of running your own business happen?

Well this opportunity is now being offered by Bakers Delight in the form of a new concept called MTO – Manage To Own targeted at young inspiring entrepreneurs.

The idea is for potential franchisees to get the training and management experience of running a Bakers Delight franchise and once they have successfully completed the program, which would take around 12 months, they are assisted by Bakers Delight to purchase their own franchise business.

The program overcomes many of the financial constraints for potential franchisees by paying them while they do the 5 month Franchise Training Program and also while they get the practical skills by managing a Bakers Delight for 6 months.

I think it is a great idea as takes out much of the risk associated with taking on a small business, not only because it is part of a franchise system, but also because you have the security of an income while getting the experience required to be successful.

It also gives you the opportunity see if you can cope with the early starts and if you can count to 13.

Tim

Bend Over

The money is being earmarked by the buyers as for “Store Refurbs”, and there is no negotiation, it is take it or leave it.

Have a read of The Age article and comment if you dare!

Tim

Request is probably not the correct word though is it?!

Any Comments, anonymous of course – use a  name like Idi Amin or Robert Mugabe.

Tim

So is January just going back to normal, just a slow start as people return to work and put out the fires and will start thinking about HR and recruitment in Feb/March?

I don’t have the answer, but I haven’t seen anything that points towards a great year for the job market. It will be much slower than last year and good candidates will still get good jobs and average candidates will have to work harder and wait longer to secure their next role.

We have seen more companies trying to recruit themselves through SEEK and print advertising in the past 3 months. This may continue but you need resources to do this and the success is more hit and miss than you would think. Remember to do those reference check guys.

Any feedback is most welcome.

Tim

Given that the employees are probably pretty loyal, it is questionable if this will boost sales by very much. It is a nice gesture at Christmas time however. I think that the money being dished out by Rudd over the next fortnight is going to give a bigger boost to sales, particularly in Big W.

Tim

• Woolworths cheapest on total grocery basket in 59 of 61 regions (up from 21 last month)
• Nationally, the price difference between Coles, Woolworths and Independents has narrowed
• ALDI cheapest on basic staple products

By the way this is what they do;(from the web site)

“Price information is obtained from an independent monthly survey of approximately 500 products from 600 supermarket outlets across Australia. The results of each monthly survey will be made available on the GROCERY choice website on the first business day of the following month.”

So lets examine the news from this month.

Woolworths Cheapest in 59 of 61 regions

This is a massive turnaround from last month where they were cheaper in only 21 of the total regions. Does it mean anything though? Coles won the first two surveys and now Woolworths has won this one.

The flaws in the survey are many, and not limited to the points below;

• No individual supermarket is measured
• The data is not dated so it might be 3-4 weeks old even on the day it is released and by the end of the month it could be 8-9 weeks old.
• Promotional price points change week to week and have a massive impact on the basket price
• Like for like product comparison are difficult to make with retailers ranging exclusive products and increasing numbers of Home brands.

Nationally the price difference has narrowed

It is nice of the ACCC web site to tell us this analysis on the front page headline, but there is no link through to the detail or the comparison number, just the Headline.

We may believe them, but;

• We don’t know how much it has narrowed by
• Was it uniform across the states
• How does each state as a total vary

Unless you printed off the results for each region for the past two months you can’t do any analysis. The website just shows the current data. How hard would it be for them to do that, not very.

The government is trying to push Unit Pricing to make the supermarkets more transparent with their pricing, but the governments own website on pricing isn’t even being transparent and doesn’t give access to the history. Bit of a double standard here.

ALDI cheapest on basic staple products

Well blow me down with a feather. Was it an economic guru at the ACCC that came up with this revelation. I thought this was rule number one on the ALDI business model, but no we needed the insight from the ACCC to let us into this secret.

I personally don’t hold out much hope for the future of Grocery Watch in its current format, but have a read of these headlines and decide yourself;

Grocery Choice a big flop – SKY NEWS Oct 1, 2008

Grocery Choice still a farce: Expert – Smartcompany.com.au Sept 3, 2008

Rural consumers not helped by grocery choice site – ABC.net.au Sept 4, 2008

Grocery Choice website does nothing – Channel Seven News Oct 1, 2008

Any one using it, or any other comments?

Tim

Mitre 10 has been struggling for the past decade to have an impact in the Hardware channel, particularly in metropolitan areas. The Australian Financial Review has reported that Mitre 10 and Woolworths are in discussions regarding a capital injection or outright purchase of entity.

The AFR also indicates that Mitre 10 will be holding a shareholders meeting during its National Convention next week on the Gold Coast. With the vast majority of shareholders in attendance this is an ideal opportunity to present a restructure or buyout proposal.

Hardware should not pose any ACCC issues for Woolworths as this is one of the few areas that WOW do not participate in in the Australian market.

Tim