Introduction to Career Prospects in the Retail Industry
Arthur, et. al (1989) defines a career as an evolving sequence of a person’s working experience over time. I have always had a passion towards healthy lifestyles and incorporating fashion into that scenario. Therefore, I started on my career path by setting up a tracksuit and exercise gear brand, over two years ago. It was an idea from a passion for healthy lifestyles and fashionable gear, to motivate people to live that lifestyle in a fashion forward kind of way. After graduating, the aim is to further develop my current bespoke tracksuit brand and exercise gear, into a renowned brand that is trendy in the modern urban community within the next five years. Another aim is to build up the brand loyalty, grow and increase sales by 7% a year for the next two years and increase that to 9% in three years, 14% percent in year four and 20% in the fifth year. The vision of the company is to offer a retailing experience for the consumers by getting the customers to be involved as possible in the whole design, to creating and making of the tracksuits which includes decision making around the material, design choices and add-ons. The aim is to end up with bespoke pieces that aren’t available anywhere else. As of now, funds have been raised for the website development and hosting of launch events.
Brand awareness will be achieved through social media and various products launching events. The company will keep up with the end user and prospective clients through direct customer feedback on the website, data collection tools and digital platforms. As a bespoke clothing brand, the company will be operating in the retail industry. According to Highflier’s report on the Graduate Market in 2017, the market is healthy. Graduates for the top 100 graduate employers increased by 1.6% in 2016. Graduate recruitment in the retail sector rose to 5.4% in 2016 (The Graduate Market in 2017, Highfliers.co.uk). There are various career management theories that can assist in career building and this report would look at how they can benefit the career choice I have made.
There are limitless metaphors used by theorists, practitioners and workers as Inkson (2007) alludes to. They are seemingly important in conceptualization of one’s career. In a career like athleisure wear where there is so much competition from reputable and upcoming brands, gaining views through the variety available is important. This implements alternative metaphors, and the creation of new ones, as opposed to constraining one’s mind with them. Metaphors enable growth for the company and incorporates soft skills like communication and teamwork skills amongst others. This makes the company relatable and consumer friendly (Gary, 2015).
Entrepreneurship in Athleisure and Sports Wear Brands
Change is crucial and inevitable for any organization that seeks growth in a highly competitive environment and thus theories of change describe best the effective process, and strategy for any organization. The 9-key metaphor for careers considered, include taking a career as inheritance, construction, cycle, matching, journey, encounters and relationships, roles, resources, and story. Taking a look into the sport gear and in the retailing aspect, there are issues that come from the career. Among them include competition and avoidance of redundancy, and more so growing the brand through new innovative careers. The use of metaphors like encounters and relationships is mostly vividly present in people involved in social and political encounters for development of long-term relationships and pursuits of advantages in the career. This helps in reaching out to social media consumers and gaining their preferences in sports gear. This frames the career and its degree of complexity (Inkson, 2004). The sports gear brand development involves a period of dormancy in the development of organizational strategies, implementable ideas and formulation of the ideas to reality like web development. This offers constructive organizational management skills through adoption of models to implement and analyze it (Hussain, 2016).
For any company to grow, change is crucial for the organization. Change describes how effective an organization is in meeting consumer needs. My company has taken keen interest being that marketing strategies have shifted into the e-market. Lewin’s model of unfreeze, movement and refreezing apply mostly to my retail company. Through global technology, the bridge of global trade in reaching out products to an even bigger and different market, has been crossed. Organizations have overtime embraced change in stages which facilitates smoother implementation process. With over a hundred social media outlets, the process of studying the market consumers is important in implementing their needs from behavioral studies. This fulfills Lewis granulates change model, using acquired knowledge to change the implementation process, analyze the employees’ willingness to change and also how leadership affects the process of change in an organization.
One of the other key theories is the Laswell’s communication model. This model was developed by theorist Harold, D. Laswell (1902-1978) in 1948. It has been referred to as action model, linear model or one-way model of communication. It’s the most influential communication model to date as it analyses the sender of the message and interprets the message through the medium the message was offered. It also analyzes the receiver and the effect the message has on him or her. It also predicts the feedback. This model is important in tracksuit and sports gear company as there is a lot of competition in the sports fashion industry. Therefore, consumer feedback is important for a leader, for purposes of improvement and control of stakes. Therefore, analysis tools such as control, content media, audience and effect, affect business alliances moving forward. However, the Laswell’s model may not be fully adoptable as an analysis tool as it doesn’t accommodate or allow for customer feedback on products (Businesstopia, 2017).
Career Management Theories and Strategies
Even with so much preparation done towards the onset of a project, there is still the fear of wrongful choices made and how they can affect many lives, especially for the consumer. For this reason, work takes up the most time for many leaders and entrepreneurs, myself included. This is due to the fact that human beings center so much effort into their work. Therefore, constant, abrupt and unthought of ideas can affect many people’s future. Transitions can be simple and achievable or bad and still considered for safety reasons (Bynner, 2008). The data has the capacity to save a company and the leadership with it while it’s still under development. This is possible integration of psychological analysis through programs, in order to make greater career dreams (Gary, 2015).
With the onset of healthy lifestyle and achievable quality in fashionable light, there is a lot of expectation for the sports company. There is a rise in retail shops for sports wear and also at the same time, sport gears. This is enabled through social media which is what most business and most especially athleisure has taken to in marketing. It’s a new generation and the needs are far from what they were in 1950s. There has been a lot of innovation experienced in terms of technological development, and this has redefined creativity. Its no longer about hardwork but more so smart work that exceeds the opponents’ expectations, dreams and also rumors. This means that there is less manual work needed, and more for a machine to achieve. This also redefines the working environment from one where memos were handwritten to where a computer can do and direct everything. Laborers and staff have to constantly redefine themselves for the machine not to outdo them. More to that, there is high dependency on electronic gadgets among many consumers whether phones, laptops and also tablets.
Social media platforms have helped to reach out to the masses of online community members, and to increase awareness on the cons that the electronic gadgets have brought into the work environment. Many have increased on dependency and reduced on personal connection to the consumer and also creativity. This has and can affect the staff in terms of creating an environment where one’s working future doesn’t feel threatened but more so feel motivated, to work more towards growing the organization from few workers, to many workers. However, even with the threats social media remains the top most platform to reaching out products to the consumers. Therefore, its important to learn about marketing tools like SEOs and even more so promotion to increase sales and also fit in today’s market.
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