*Research paper

Addressing Skills Gaps in Wholesale and Retail:

Development and Successful Implementation of Structured Apprenticeship Model

Abstract

This article illustrates a structured apprenticeship model for wholesales and retails that was developed

and implemented across all business and management studies within Universiti Utara Malaysia. The

apprenticeship program provides four semesters of training and work placement for graduates of

business and management studies before they are employed by the enthusiastic wholesalers and

retailers. The purpose of this article is to describe the apprenticeship model, to investigate the benefits

of the program and to point out the areas of up-skilling graduates’ skills. Results based on key

performance indicators on the pilot study of this program in 2012 indicate that the program is very

successful in training graduates to become competent executives and managers in wholesales and

retails industry. Mentoring instructors and retailers also benefited from working and engaging in the

program.

Introduction

Extensive studies have been devoted to investigate the contribution of apprenticeship to

enhance intermediate skills among graduates, or participants and to reduce the unemployment (e.g.

Fersterer, Pischke & Winter-Ebmer, 2008; Kost, 2008; Backus, Keegan, Gluck & Gulick, 2010). Also,

the apprenticeship systems have been claimed to deliver relative low unemployment rates in Japan

(Madon, 1998) and other countries like Germany, Austria and Switzerland (Ryan, 2001). However,

there is evidence that industries find the apprenticeship program as unpopular where they prefer to

recruit skilled workers and have their own in-house upgrade training (Beckmann, 2002; Lewis, Ryan &

Gospel, 2008). These findings indicate that the successful of the apprenticeship program is

heterogeneous, influenced by the quality of the program and the strength of engagement between

government, industries and education institutions.

The wholesale and retail industry is today the fourth biggest contributor to the Malaysia gross

national income (GNI). The industry contributes about RM83 billion (USD27.3 billion) in 2010

(PEMANDU, 2011) and keeps on growing. It is projected that 595 thousand new jobs creation from the

industry by year 2020 (Malaysia Ministry of Higher Education, 2012). The industry has witnesses

considerable changes in recent years, influenced by the accessibility of internet and sophisticated

communication tools and new socialisation. Large wholesalers and retailers have undergone

considerable structural change, with traditional hierarchical systems of management being replaced by

dynamic structures and involve responsibility being devolved more widely through organisation.

Besides, official ministries have given serious attention and support to transform local wholesalers and

retailers under the along themes of “Modernise, Globalise and Revolutionalise”. Such changes require

for employees with higher skill levels to exploit such momentum. This need is said to have been

accentuated by the fact that workers must be able among others to work more flexibly, able to take a

broader variety of roles, able to communicate effectively and demonstrate good problem solving.

The launched of national economic transformation has driven the Ministry of Higher Education

to launch the Graduate Employability Blueprint for 2012-2017. The blueprint attempts to boost the

level of graduates’ marketability and to fulfil the needs of the professional and skilled manpower

especially towards the 12 National Key Economic Areas which includes wholesale and retail. The

blueprint among others highlights the needs to enhance technical skills and soft skills among graduates

which have been determined as crucial by employers. The list of skills includes poor command in

English, attitude or personality towards jobs, low demonstrate ability to solve problems, insufficient

job skills and general knowledge (Malaysia Ministry of Higher Education, 2012).

Studies report that universities incorporate both technical and soft skills into academic

curriculum which cover experience learn in workplace learning through internship or structured part-

time job, embed industry input into existing curriculum, supporting programs in students’ development

career management skill, laboratory experience and academicians experience in workplace (Bilkinsoy,

2007; Lewis et al., 2008). However, the implementations of the programs are rather in contested space

(red ocean) where some agencies, departments and universities competing each other to execute

“effective skills development” and enhancement apprenticeship programs. Meanwhile, few private or

government listed companies engage with the programs, hence there are some issues with manpower

supply-chain from university to industry.

This paper aims to discuss the refinement made on an apprenticeship program that was

developed based on blue ocean strategy. Under the support of some official ministries, Universiti Utara

Malaysia (UUM) take a lead to bring in other universities, employers and agencies to structure a

continuous teaching and learning process via apprenticeship program specifically for wholesale and

retail industry. The benefits of the program will be outlined and some areas of up-skilling graduates’

skills for meeting employers’ demand in wholesale and retail industry will be highlighted.

Methods

The goal of the apprenticeship program for wholesale and retail industry is to increase the

employability rate among the university graduates upon their 6-month completion of study. In practice,

the university have many skills enhancement programs, conducted by students affairs department,

centres, schools and sometimes with collaborated industries. These scenarios are rather in contested

space where each provider conducted similar programs and the up-skilling skills among graduates are

not properly addressed. Meanwhile, the government organised bridging the gap employability program

to accelerate the transition from education to employment, but graduates are re-train.

Through the concept of blue ocean strategy, we are able to develop an apprenticeship program

that (i) eliminates the duplication of programs among the skills providers and (ii) minimises the skills

gaps from university to industry. The program is championed by the UUM, the Ministry of Higher

Education and some enthusiastic employers in wholesale and retail industry in the country. This

collaboration teams creates Industry Centre of Excellence (ICoE) to focus on talent development via

technology and knowledge sharing. The program is driven by the needs of the enthusiastic employers

so that graduates are highly secured job, offered for scholarship and enhance in life-long learning.

However, we limit our discussion to the development phase that was made in the university, where the

development of apprenticeship program was based on an algorithmic approach to refine the existing

skills enhancement programs.

Figure 1. Development of apprenticeship program for wholesale and retail industry.

The development of the apprenticeship program for wholesale and retail industry is given in

Figure 1. The document problem phase (i) identifies problems faced by the employers towards skills of

employees and (ii) determines the available trainings in the university. In this phase, Centre of

University-Industry Collaboration (CUIC) in UUM acts as a window of communication to pull

information from both university and industries. A survey was conducted by the CUIC to determine the

important skills required by the employers upon the recruitment and a statistic on number of job

offered. Next, the list of skills enhancement or development programs which currently running in the

university was prepared.

Next, the formulate problem phase addresses some questions pertaining inability universities to

meet requirements from industries. We implemented the 5Ws and an H questions to determine the

“right” problem. The questions are

Document problem

Formulate problem

Prioritise problem Develop concept

Evaluation & Implementation

W1: Who has the problem?

W2: What does the problem seem to be?

W3: When does the problem occur?

W4: Where does the problem occur?

W5: How does the problem occur?

Then, we repeatedly asking whys until no answer were met. We refined the outcomes of this phase by

prioritising them according to the urgency. Once we were able to list the right problems, we developed

the concept of the apprenticeship program. A general structure of apprenticeship program was designed

instead of created a specific program for the industry. Such step allows the university to create several

solution concepts for the program. Later, specifications were made to tackle the specific skills

addressed by implementing the designed concept of the apprenticeship into the existing education

system. The designed apprenticeship program was tested on a pilot study to identify any pitfalls with

the program.

Development of Apprenticeship Program for Wholesale and Retail

In order to refine the existing skills enhancement program, a session with a retail association

was made to document the problems on hiring new graduates. Four soft skills and seven technical skills

have been determined as crucial by the sample (see Table 1). The technical skills require graduates to

not only grasp the knowledge, but recognise the process practices in real business. For example,

Malaysia consists of 61.4% Muslim where halal food (means lawful foods to consume under Islamic

dietary guidelines) is a compulsory. Therefore, employers expect that graduates should recognise the

process of obtaining the certification of halal. This includes the use of lawful ingredients, process of

production, supply-chain and much more.

Table 1: Specification of skills in wholesale and retail.

Soft skills Technical skills

� Communication and

listening

� Customer management

� Attitude and personality

� Teamwork

� Halal (management and

process)

� Retail chains management

� Food safety

� Merchandising

� Brand power

� Logistics and supply-chain

� Product innovation

Meanwhile, documentation of trainings in-house discovers some duplication of programs

among centres and departments in the university (see Table 2). Interestingly, most programs address

the enhancement of soft skills, only two centres address the experience at workplace.

Table 2: Some available trainings in the university.

Centre/Department Skills Mode

Students Affairs

Department (SAD)

Communication, listening, leadership, team

building, attitude and personality,

entrepreneurship, etc.

Workshop, camp, industry

visit, seminar, part-time

job

College Students

Affairs and Alumni

(CSAA)

Communication, listening, leadership, team

building, attitude and personality,

entrepreneurship, etc.

Workshop, camp, industry

visit, seminar.

College of Business

(COB)

Retails, merchandising, halal management,

strategic planning, business, supply chain,

entrepreneurship etc.

Class room

Co-curriculum Centre

(CC) Entrepreneurial skills

Lecture and outside door

activities

Centre for University-

Industry Collaboration

(CUIC)

Internship and trainings for employment

Training at workplace,

seminar, workshop,

industry visit. *This information does not count programs executed by university profit centres.

Such documentations allowed this study to formulate and prioritise the problem related to the

existing programs: (i) duplication of programs and (ii) reliability of the programs. The former reflects

the execution of similar programs by different centres or departments, while the latter indicates that the

existing programs do not satisfy with the needs of industry.

Through several round table discussions between CUIC and the mentioned centres/departments

as in Table 2, we developed a general concept of the apprenticeship program. Our actions include a

process of eliminating duplicate programs and realigning programs among departments and centres in

an attempt to have a continuous up-skilling and knowledge expansion. Then, the developed

apprenticeship program is designed as in Table 3.

Table 3: The general concept on apprenticeship program.

Semester Academic weeks Break between semesters

Program Provider Program Provider

1 Wholesale & retail co-curriculum (7 weeks)

Main: � CC Supporter: � CUIC � CSAA � SAD

� Part-time job I-II, or

� Soft skills development, or

� Pre-technical I-II

� Industry

� CSAA & SAD

� Industry 2

3 Wholesale & retail co-curriculum (7 weeks)

Main: � CC Supporter: � CUIC � CSAA � SAD

� Part-time job III-IV, or

� Soft skills development, or

� Pre-technical III-IV

� Industry

� CSAA & SAD

� Industry 4

5 Soft skill enhancement CSAA & SAD

� Part-time job III-IV, or

� Technical (up-skilling)

� Industry

� Industry 6

Internship 6-month attachment to industry through structured training (provider: Industry)

A Pilot Study

An example of up-skilling apprenticeship program is given in Table 4. We specified the training

following the needs of a participation of an established hypermarket A which aim to recruit graduates

whom are able to control food suppliers in terms of halal and safe to be consumed.

Table 4: Apprenticeship program for food suppliers controllers – Hypermarket A.

Semester Academic weeks Break between semesters

Program Provider Program Provider

1

Entrepreneurship Co-curriculum

Main: � CC Supporter: � CUIC � CSAA � SAD

� Part-time job: store management, or

� Communication skill, or

� Halal process

� Hypermarket A

� CSAA & SAD

� JAKIM

2

3

Entrepreneurship Co-curriculum

Main: � CC Supporter: � CUIC � CSAA � SAD

� Part-time job: operation floor, or

� Customer management, or

� Food safety

� Hypermarket A

� CSAA & SAD

� Ministry of Health

4

5 Leadership & teamwork CSAA & SAD

� Part-time job: front line services, or

� Audit food safety & halal (certificate)

� Hypermarket A

� JAKIM & Ministry of Health

6

Internship 6-month attachment to industry through structured training (provider: Hypermarket A)

Prior to the training of graduates, selected lecturers were trained via train of trainers (TOT)

program to ensure that they are capable to mentor the graduates. The mentoring system plays as a

platform for graduate-mentor to exchange their knowledge, opinion and experience in the program.

Besides, both graduate and mentor will accelerate the exchange of information between university and

industry, so that other requirements or amendments can be addressed wisely through the program.

The pilot study was conducted on a batch of students that consists of 17 graduates whom

volunteered for the program. In reality, it is not practical for the study to conduct a pilot study for three

years, to exactly tag on the outlined apprenticeship program as in Table 4. So, we conducted an express

track program to verify for any missing links in the program. In terms of employability of the

graduates, 8 of them were recruited as early as 2 months of their training in the internship. Whilst, other

graduates were employed within 6 months upon completion of their 6-month internship.

Conclusion

The present discussion implements the practice of blue ocean strategy to fully utilise resources

in the university. Then, the refinements on the existing skills enhancement programs allocate each

centre/department to focus on their speciality. These arrangements promise for continuous talent

development, where at the bottom line, graduates meet the specifications required by the enthusiastic

employer for employability. The engagement between CUIC-industry is important as change of

information is always take place.

The main results are: first, the proposed apprenticeship program minimises the duplication of

work between centres or departments in the university. Second, The knowledge and skill development

are proper addressed in semester academic and semester break towards meeting the job specification of

the employers. Finally, the model may be not much different from other existing apprenticeship

models, but this study addresses the (i) information of manpower supply-chain between university-

industry, (ii) responsibility of each provider in creating a strong consortium to execute the program.

Paper quality

This paper promotes the practice of blue ocean strategy in creating a good manpower supply-chain

between university-industry.

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