St Francis Institute of Management and Research (SFIMAR) in association with Retailers Association of India (rai) have successfully completed the first Certificate Program in Retail (CPR). The program comprised of week end classes and was conducted from 16th Oct 2010 to 16th Jan 2011 for duration of 4 months.

This program was designed for all those who are interested in a retail career and is ideal as an introduction to the concepts of retailing or as a refresher for those who would benefit from being reminded of the key principles. The first batch of participants has successfully completed the program with good results.

During the course of the program, the participants were provided with sound enhancement of retail knowledge in the specific course curriculum which was designed and developed by rai through their well experienced and practical knowledge rich team of personnel in the field of Retail. The curriculum comprises of the following:

• Retail Environment including Mall Management
• Store Operations
• Buying & Merchandising
• Visual Merchandising & Store Planning
• Supply Chain, Distribution & Logistics
• Customer Service management
• Retail Marketing
• IT in Retail

In order to impart professional training to the participants, the above mentioned subjects were covered by a team of experts from the Academics and Retail Industry. A total of approximately 200 hours was spent by the team in making the concepts and reality reach the participants in an effective manner under a well established infrastructure of SFIMAR.

The expert team comprises Prof G Ramesh, Prof P S Francis, Prof Vaishali Kulkarni and Prof Simmi Prasad from the Academics and Mr. Ashish Sanyal MD, AMP Retail Services Limited, Mr. Anish Varghese of Reliance Retail, Mr. Rajesh Sawant of Metro Retail and Mr. Lawrence of Retail Learning, rai

The responses received from the first batch of participants were overwhelming. A few testimonials from the participants are placed here as samples for reference which proves the point beyond doubt.