College of Business and Economics | Annual Report 2022 94 Wholesale and Retail Seta Leadership Chair (Gauteng)(WRSLC) Dr Beate Stiehler-Mulder Chair: Wholesale and Retail Leadership Chair (Gauteng) Department of Marketing Management, School of Management College of Business and Economics OVERVIEW The Wholesale and Retail (W&R) SETA Leadership Chair: Gauteng (WRSLC), resides in the Department of Marketing Management in the CBE School of Consumer Intelligence and Information Systems. The Chair holder is Dr Beate Stiehler-Mulder. We aim to expand wholesale and retail-focused research, develop W&R leadership, and empower HEIs to enhance their retail offerings. The Leadership Chair builds international networks and student exchanges and provides bursaries for master’s and doctoral students with wholesale and retail-related topics. The goal of this Chair is the advancement and professionalisation of the retail sector. RESEARCH FOOTPRINT The Chair published two research reports in 2022: • Omni-channel Retailing: Low-income consumers’ experience. The Fast- Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) industry has shown a keen interest in improving its omnichannel consumer experience. Still, a lack of research on low-income consumers’ shopping journeys, particularly their omnichannel experience, poses a challenge for FMCG retailers. This study addresses this challenge by conducting interviews with 20 participants and undertaking a qualitative analysis to understand their behaviour, challenges, shopping journeys, and overall omnichannel experience. ISBN: 978-0-6397-13373 (electronic). Access the full report here or at www.uj.ac.za/wrseta and click the “Research” tab. Two articles about this research report were published in Bizcommunity: – Omni-channel retailing: Are your online and offline experiences consistent? Read here: https://www.bizcommunity.com/ Article/196/182/231642.html – What is driving online shopping among SA’s low-income consumers? Read here: https://www.bizcommunity.com/ Article/196/394/231267.html • Towards Enterprising Fuel Retailers. Fuel retailers must compete in regulated open systems, and the factors influencing their profit margins are not always under their management’s control. For these reasons, these systems/organisations need to function optimally. Everyone in these organisations could be viewed as an element in the structure and ideally needs to be an enterprising problemsolver (which includes management and the levels below management). The types of problems that all individuals need to be able to solve are in four domains: communication, product/service construction, strategy, and systemic integration. Systemic integration between various levels must occur for a fuel retailer to function optimally. ISBN: 978-06397-2996-1 (electronic). Access the full report here or at www.uj.ac.za/wrseta and click the “Research” tab. The Chair presented these findings at the annual Fuel Retail Association’s (FRA) 2022 conference.
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