UPF-BSM Retail Round Table. The retail sector needs to make a large investment in sustainability, digitalization and talent training

Distribution businesses are well aware that European trade, as the McKinsey study commissioned by Eurocommerce has shown, must make a billion-euro investment effort to update three basic aspects: sustainability, digitalization and talent training. At the UPF-BSM Retail Round Table, which recently took place in the Balmes Building of the UPF Barcelona School of Management, business managers acknowledged these shortcomings and expressed their willingness to be fully involved in this renewal.

Despite the uncertainty of the current economic moment, in which a considerable percentage of SMEs are experiencing losses on their income statements, the managers of companies in the different areas of commerce that form the round table remain hopeful and trust that many businesses will straighten themselves out. In fact, the retail sector faces the year 2023 knowing that the economic indicators for the first months of this year are better than a few months ago. And although consumer confidence is tending downwards, if the labour market maintains its pace of employment over the last few months and inflation does not increase dramatically, commercial businesses believe that gross disposable income will hold up for the year ahead and help consumption along.

The data analysed in the UPF-BSM Retail Round Table suggests a good year for tourism, and as such the sector is convinced that this will also drag the commercial sector along with it. From this perspective, businesses are asking the authorities to look at the situation positively and create a climate of promotion and expansion.

On the other hand, the round table continued to demand that the processing for the opening of establishments in each municipality be sped up and that deadlines be shortened, for two reasons: because they entail an unnecessary cost, and because they devalue business projects.

Josep-Francesc Valls, Director of the Chair of Future Scenarios in Retail, Tourism and Services at UPF Barcelona School of Management, said “I note that there is a considerable effort on the part of retail business to adapt to the new demands of customers, including prices”.