Bharti Walmart, the joint venture between Bharti Enterprises and Walmart, has extended its training efforts to South India from its core market, Punjab.
It established its first “Skill Centre” at the Peenya ITI in Bangalore, indicating the joint venture between Bharti and the World’s largest corporation is serious about its expansion plans in India.
Bharti Walmart also runs Training Centres in Amritsar and Delhi. The two have trained over 5,550 candidates have been enrolled at the Centre and over 1050 candidates have been placed across industry. 250 candidates have been employed at Bharti Walmart’s wholesale ‘Best Price’ shops and Bharti Retail’s easyday and easyday Market stores.
WalMart, world’s largest company, is trying to replicate its US model of training its own staff. The firm has a reputation for encouraging shop-floor assistants to train themselves and rise up in the hierarchy to become managers.
The joint venture, however, has not had the smooth sailing it had envisioned when it set up shop in India more than three years ago. The government, which had promised a gradual and progressive opening up of India’s retail business to foreign firms, has found it difficult to open it up due to opposition from the trading class who are estimated to account for 5-7% of India’s votes.
Bharti Walmart has ambitious plans of increasing its present tally of around half a dozen wholesale megamarts by several fold over the next three years and opening “hundreds of retail stores” if permitted to enter the retail chain business. All its current stores are located in the Punjab region, home of Bharti Enterprises.
