The e-commerce industry is growing at a rapid pace in the country. This means that there will be several job opportunities at various positions. But it also means that the candidates need to have the necessary skills and knowledge, says Dr Savita Mohan
The buzz around e-commerce is continuously increasing in India. leave aside regular online shopping, the adaptation of various other online purchases including movie tickets, travel plans, bus, trains and airlines tickets, hotel bookings, insurance policies, and discount deals, is attracting many start-ups. The success of Flipkart, Ebay, Amazon, Makemytrip and matrimonial sites has played a big role is changing market scenario. According to eMarketer, a research source for worldwide business to consumer (B2C) marketing, e-commerce sales will soon increase by 20.1 per cent and may reach up to $1,500 trillion. The popular social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, linkedIn have also contributed a lot towards uplifting social commerce and digital marketing.
Emergence of so many social platforms and e-commerce companies is sure to come up with various job opportunities. The shifting sands from brick and mortar to virtual clouds are demanding management resources with specialised skills and domain knowledge for a plethora of job positions.
Career progression
Students look for jobs and careers, whereas companies look for skilled resources. The demand and supply gap is primarily due to mismatch between skilled and non-skilled workforce coming out of institutes. Students who can map this slight difference are not only certain to have well-paying jobs but they can also attract angel investors for their own venture funding.
In general, a fresher’s journey starts as a trainee, and gradually moves towards responsibility taking positions. The positions then grow from executive levels, to senior executives, team leads, managers, unit heads, associate vice presidents, vice presidents, and can scale up to CXO levels. The responsibilities grow in tandem with job positions and pay checks.
Job Responsibility
After graduating a management course, when one enters a corporate organisation, the learning begins horizontally and one grows vertically irrespective of various operational functions or departments that one may be in. The tip of the iceberg in an e-commerce venture is an online IT portal allowing people to buy or sell products or services. However, the larger arena invisible to the outside world is huge in terms of managing assets, stock units, warehousing, supply chain, distribution networks, vendors, marketing, finance, HR. Job responsibilities in general are to manage these operational functions well. For those who look to excel rapidly will need to identify process and efficiency improvement opportunities and bring in innovations to stay a step ahead of competition.
Skills required
Applying knowledge is important than knowledge itself. Identifying continuous process improvement opportunities, or Kaizen as Japanese call, are very crucial. Documents, spread sheets, or presentations are taken for granted; you need to have observations and analytical skills too. Your pressure handling efficiency is usually noticed in the way you handle a crisis situation. Communication skills both written and oral need to be at par. Handling a reporting structure or communicating with a colleague is an art.
Eligibility
For taking admission in MBA, regular mode, student needs to be at least a graduate from any stream of commerce, art or science from a recognised college or university. Student having good percentile in national level management aptitude tests like MAT, CAT, CMAT, XMAT, GMAT are considered by regular MBA colleges. After considering the percentile, the intake procedure is followed by group discussions and personal interviews. It would be good to start an MBA entrance preparation with focus on English — grammar, comprehension, reading and writing— and Mathematics.
Selection
It should consider a vital set of aspects like authorisations, affiliations, fees structure, placements, specialisations offered, reputation of college, additional certifications, foreign exposure facilities, industry link up, exchange programmes, faculty experience and infrastructure. New methodologies like interactive classrooms, case methodology, class participation, student exchange programmes, guest lectures by industry specialist, and live projects during the course are some of the new upcoming trends.
Where to study
(The writer is director, GNIOT MBA Institute, Greater Noida)