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A retail manager (or store manager) is the person ultimately responsible for the day-to-day operations (or management) of a retail store. All employees working in the store report to the retail/store manager. A store manager reports to a district/area or general manager.
Responsibilities of a store manager include:
A store manager must meet the monthly, quarterly, or annual sales goals, depending on the company's fiscal cycle. This involves setting individual sales goals (quotas), holding contests for employees, or offering sales promotions. The manager may also find ways to make employees more productive to meet the goals. Thus, the store manager may be forced to reduce payroll expenditures by decreasing employees' hours, or otherwise reducing operating cost. A store manager should motivate their team to achieve the target set for the store. A store manager should set an example for their subordinates to follow.
The Store manager is the store's primary key-holder and may be called to the store before, during, or after business hours in the event of an emergency. They are also responsible for the safety of all customers and employees on store premises. Store managers may be required to hold safety meetings, especially as dictated by union practices in cases where store employees belong to a union.
A store manager may have several subordinates who have management-level responsibility. These employees may be called deputy managers, assistant managers, department managers, supervisors, key holders, shift leads, or leads. Sometimes members of the management team may be several grades below the store manager. One example would be store manager - deputy manager - department manager - department leads. A store manager has over-all responsibility for all day-to-day activity of the store. Managing & controlling staff, and planning are essential points of the store manager.
The store manager is responsible for hiring, training, and in some cases, development of employees. The manager must ensure staffing levels are adequate to effectively operate the store, and ensure employees receive training necessary for their job responsibilities. Managers may be responsible for developing employees so the company can promote employees from within and develop future leaders, potentially for employment at other locations. Store managers also have the fire powers to any under-performing or misbehaving employees. The role of store managers with regards to the other employees varies from company to company and each respective company's operating methods but in general a store manager will be required to deal with and try to solve any and all problems that may occur at any given time
Sales are activities related to selling or the number of goods sold in a given targeted time period. The delivery of a service for a cost is also considered a sale. A period during which goods are sold for a reduced price may also be referred to as a "sale".
Marketing research is the systematic gathering, recording, and analysis of qualitative and quantitative data about issues relating to marketing products and services. The goal is to identify and assess how changing elements of the marketing mix impacts customer behavior.
Career development refers to the process an individual may undergo to evolve their occupational status. It is the process of making decisions for long term learning, to align personal needs of physical or psychological fulfillment with career advancement opportunities. Career Development can also refer to the total encompassment of an individual's work-related experiences, leading up to the occupational role they may hold within an organization.
Product management is the business process of planning, developing, launching, and managing a product or service. It includes the entire lifecycle of a product, from ideation to development to go to market. Product managers are responsible for ensuring that a product meets the needs of its target market and contributes to the business strategy, while managing a product or products at all stages of the product lifecycle. Software product management adapts the fundamentals of product management for digital products.
Middle management is the intermediate management level of a hierarchical organization that is subordinate to the executive management and responsible for "team leading" line managers and/or "specialist" line managers. Middle management is indirectly responsible for junior staff performance and productivity.
A general manager (GM) is an executive who has overall responsibility for managing both the revenue and cost elements of a company's income statement, known as profit & loss (P&L) responsibility. A general manager usually oversees most or all of the firm's marketing and sales functions as well as the day-to-day operations of the business. Frequently, the general manager is responsible for effective planning, delegating, coordinating, staffing, organizing, and decision making to attain desirable profit making results for an organization.
Departmentalization refers to the process of grouping activities into departments. Division of labour creates specialists who need coordination. This coordination is facilitated by grouping specialists together in departments.
Technical support, also known as tech support, is a call centre type customer service provided by companies to advise and assist registered users with issues concerning their technical products. Traditionally done on the phone, technical support can now be conducted online or through chat. At present, most large and mid-size companies have outsourced their tech support operations. Many companies provide discussion boards for users of their products to interact; such forums allow companies to reduce their support costs without losing the benefit of customer feedback.
Personal selling occurs when a sales representative meets with a potential client for the purpose of transacting a sale. Many sales representatives rely on a sequential sales process that typically includes nine steps. Some sales representatives develop scripts for all or part of the sales process. The sales process can be used in face-to-face encounters and in telemarketing.
The Genius Bar is a technical support service provided by Apple Inc. inside Apple Stores to support the use of its products and services. The locations provide concierge-style, face-to-face support for customers from "Geniuses" who are specially trained and certified by Apple, with multiple levels of certification depending on the products serviced. Many of the services are provided for free, regardless of the product's warranty status. For problems that require repairs to hardware, most of the work can be completed on-site, while customers wait.
Organizing or organising is the establishment of effective authority-relationships among selected works, which often improves efficiency.
Competence is the set of demonstrable characteristics and skills that enable and improve the efficiency or performance of a job. Competency is a series of knowledge, abilities, skills, experiences and behaviors, which leads to effective performance in an individual's activities. Competency is measurable and can be developed through training.
Office management is a profession involving the design, implementation, evaluation, and maintenance of the process of work within an office or other organization, in order to sustain and improve efficiency and productivity.
A hotel manager, hotelier, or lodging manager is a person who manages the operation of a hotel, motel, resort, or other lodging-related establishment. Management of a hotel operation includes, but is not limited to management of hotel staff, business management, upkeep and sanitary standards of hotel facilities, guest satisfaction and customer service, marketing management, sales management, revenue management, financial accounting, purchasing, and other functions. The title "hotel manager" or "hotelier" often refers to the hotel's general manager who serves as a hotel's head executive, though their duties and responsibilities vary depending on the hotel's size, purpose, and expectations from ownership. The hotel's general manager is often supported by subordinate department managers that are responsible for individual departments and key functions of the hotel operations.
Account executive is a role in sales, advertising, marketing, and finance involving intimate understanding of a client company's objectives and products and a professional capability to provide effective advice toward creation of successful promotional activities and strategies. The account executive (AE) directly works with, and provides services to, one or more delegate officers or executives of the client company.
Organizational conflict, or workplace conflict, is a state of discord caused by the actual or perceived opposition of needs, values and interests between people working together. Conflict takes many forms in organizations. There is the inevitable clash between formal authority and power and those individuals and groups affected. There are disputes over how revenues should be divided, how the work should be done, and how long and hard people should work. There are jurisdictional disagreements among individuals, departments, and between unions and management. There are subtler forms of conflict involving rivalries, jealousies, personality clashes, role definitions, and struggles for power and favor. There is also conflict within individuals – between competing needs and demands – to which individuals respond in different ways.
A functional manager is a person who has management authority over an organizational unit—such as a department—within a business, company, or other organization. Functional managers have ongoing responsibilities, and are not usually directly affiliated with project teams, other than ensuring that goals and objectives align with the organization's overall strategy and vision.
Fashion merchandising can be defined as the planning and promotion of sales by presenting a product to the right market at the proper time, by carrying out organized, skillful advertising, using attractive displays, etc. Merchandising, within fashion retail, refers specifically to the stock planning, management, and control process. Fashion Merchandising is a job that is done world- wide. This position requires well-developed quantitative skills, and natural ability to discover trends, meaning relationships and interrelationships among standard sales and stock figures. In the fashion industry, there are two different merchandising teams: the visual merchandising team, and the fashion merchandising team.
Staff management is the management of subordinates in an organization. Often, large organizations have many of these functions performed by a specialist department, such as personnel or human resources, but all line managers are still required to supervise and administer the activities and ensure the well-being of the staff that report to them.
The term director is a title given to the senior management staff of businesses and other large organizations.