---
title: "The Art of Preparation Before Becoming a Regional Manager"
description: "Almost all retail companies with cross-regional operations establish the role of regional manager, known as DM (District Manager), responsible for business development in a specific area. While duties vary by industry, the common goal is to drive sales performance, develop talent, and ensure customer satisfaction."
author: "李会娜"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2015-12-22"
language: "en"
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# The Art of Preparation Before Becoming a Regional Manager

> Almost all retail companies with cross-regional operations establish the role of regional manager, known as DM (District Manager), responsible for business development in a specific area. While duties vary by industry, the common goal is to drive sales performance, develop talent, and ensure customer satisfaction.

▎Source: Data-driven Management
Almost all retail companies with cross-regional operations establish the role of regional manager, known as DM (District Manager), responsible for business development in a specific area. Duties vary slightly by industry. In FMCG, regional managers focus more on channel development; in automotive, they manage dealers; in food and beverage and apparel, they primarily handle store management.
Regardless of industry, the common goal of regional managers is to drive the company's sales performance, which is also a key indicator in their performance reviews. They are not just sales managers; talent development and improving customer satisfaction are also important aspects of their work.
These functions require regional managers to possess business acumen, talent development skills, discernment, and leadership. Additionally, since they collaborate with marketing, merchandise, logistics, finance, and other departments, cross-departmental cooperation is also crucial.
Today, as more brands enter new first-tier cities, regional managers face new talent challenges and may also need to address low brand awareness in new markets. Furthermore, e-commerce has impacted all retail industries, and regional managers need to use better in-store service experiences to bring online customers back to physical stores.
Challenges bring a sense of achievement. As a regional manager, I find the most rewarding aspect is talent development. If you have capable subordinates, achieving performance targets becomes a natural outcome.
> **1. Responsibilities of a Regional Manager**
The role of a regional manager can be summarized in four words: bridging the gap. Simply put, they convey the company's key decisions to their team—usually store managers in their region—and lead them to achieve the company's performance goals. Their KPI assessments include sales growth, profitability, employee engagement and retention, and scores based on consumer surveys. These requirements reflect their scope of responsibilities, mainly covering three aspects.
**Achieving Performance**
This is essentially the most important part of a regional manager's job. Generally, companies set a sales target for regional managers each year. For example, at Gap, for new stores, the company measures the achievement rate, and from the second year, it measures year-over-year growth. It's important to emphasize that regional managers drive sales, but they are not sales managers; they are responsible for the entire region's business, including customer service and talent development, making it a comprehensive management role.
After receiving the company's overall sales target, regional managers need to coordinate the goals for different stores based on specific conditions. Stores with high foot traffic, like flagship stores, may bear a higher proportion, while new market entries may have lower targets.
Regional managers sometimes face store managers who don't understand company decisions. Some store managers focus only on their own stores without considering the bigger picture. Regional managers need to explain the rationale behind company decisions, the starting points, and encourage them to cooperate.
**Talent Development**
Regional managers must always be ready to develop talent. Especially for brands like Gap that are rapidly expanding in the Chinese market, talent reserves become even more critical. Regional managers must meet the company's expansion needs while also considering subordinates' career development aspirations. This requires regular communication with subordinates, understanding their strengths and weaknesses, providing feedback, and clarifying their next career goals.
**Standardization**
Although every company has a set of standardized processes, execution is not easy. Standardization means ensuring consumers have the same experience in stores across different cities. "This includes brand awareness and execution," says Liao Jianghong. The former is about standardizing brand image; for Gap, the message to convey is 'American classic casual brand,' while the latter is about standardizing customer service.
> **2. Capabilities Required for Regional Managers**
**Business Acumen**
First, it manifests as foresight and proactive planning. For example, during holiday sales peaks, they should estimate sales data a month in advance to ensure merchandise availability. They proactively communicate with marketing to find the best promotional methods for the local market. Second, they are adept at identifying market opportunities. Third, they have market judgment. For instance, after receiving the company's performance target, they assess its reasonableness based on market environment, foot traffic, and other survey data, then persuade the company to adjust if necessary.
**Discernment**
Regional managers have the authority to hire and fire, so they must be able to identify talent and spot high-potential individuals. A good regional manager not only looks at what an employee can achieve in the next step but also anticipates their progress in the following three or four steps. Additionally, they retain the best talent through flexible incentive policies.
**Cross-Departmental Collaboration**
Regional managers work extensively with various departments, including finance, product, inventory management, marketing, and HR. They need to understand the relationships between departments, learn the business processes and models of each partner department, and find the most effective communication methods to solve problems quickly. They should also consider the convenience of others. For example, when communicating merchandise needs with inventory management, they should consolidate the entire region's requirements into a single table rather than sending individual emails for each store, so the other party isn't confused and can respond promptly.
**Leadership**
Team leadership is a crucial capability. As managers, regional managers serve as role models and are responsible for conveying the company's culture and values. Only by making the team understand these and fostering cohesion can they align everyone's efforts toward a common goal.
> **3. Training for Newly Promoted Regional Managers**
**Business Model Training**
A regional manager is essentially a business owner and must understand the business model. At Gap, every newly promoted regional manager undergoes training from the finance department. They need to understand the meaning of each financial metric that affects performance, such as the impact of a 1% price increase on profitability. Moreover, as the number of stores grows, they can no longer focus on just one store.
After promotion from store manager to regional manager, they shift from focusing on a single store's sales to finding the most effective methods for the entire region, and the methods for achieving performance may differ for each store. The biggest challenge after promotion is adopting the company's requirements and standards as their own way of thinking.
**Visual Merchandising Training**
The purpose is to teach regional managers how to use displays to boost sales. Sometimes, a product doesn't sell well simply because it's not placed prominently or not styled well. Regional managers need their own judgment and keen observation.
Additionally, in retail, visual merchandising is a vital part of the brand's visual identity and key to brand consistency.
**Leadership Training**
This covers how to lead subordinates, quickly identify their strengths and weaknesses, help them discover career opportunities, and motivate them to improve. At Gap, newly promoted regional managers visit the Shanghai headquarters quarterly to communicate with experienced regional managers or HR to enhance this skill.
**Mentor One-on-One Training**
At Gap, mentors are typically experienced regional managers. Gap's 8-week training includes 4 weeks at the Shanghai headquarters working with different managers, such as accompanying store visits, observing their workflows, problem-solving approaches, and solutions.
Additionally, they communicate with contacts in various departments to build working relationships, understand the factors each department considers when making decisions, and learn the company's operational processes, making cross-departmental collaboration smoother.
> **4. Current Challenges for Regional Managers**
**Talent Challenges in Second- and Third-Tier Cities**
As first-tier markets approach saturation, more brands are expanding into new first-tier cities. Due to lower market and talent competitiveness compared to first-tier cities, talent challenges arise. In first-tier cities, when recruiting a store manager, half of the ten candidates might meet requirements, but in second- and third-tier cities, she often struggles to find suitable candidates and must invest significant effort in training.
"I didn't expect that in Gap's first year in Hangzhou, it would be so difficult to recruit a senior store general manager for apparel retail," says Liao. Two years ago, Gap opened its first store in Hangzhou. The store general manager she eventually hired was a regional manager from a coffee chain brand, responsible for over 30 stores. Due to industry differences, he lacked product knowledge in apparel retail, and Liao spent a year developing him. Similar issues exist in Ningbo and Fuzhou. The first store manager in Ningbo was a regional manager from a fast-food brand, and in Fuzhou, from a supermarket chain. They all took about a year to become fully competent.
**E-Commerce New Channel Challenges**
This is a realistic challenge for all retail industries. Store managers and regional managers need to shift their mindset. For physical stores, the in-store experience becomes particularly important. Previously, after product launches, they encouraged customers to try on. Now, they also need to strengthen training for store managers and staff on product knowledge, including the features, concepts, and design inspiration of new season products. They must know not only individual items but also how to style them, providing valuable advice to consumers. So, the emphasis is now on service, customer experience, and styling suggestions.
> **5. How Regions Are Divided for Regional Managers**
1. Generally, geographic location is a key consideration, such as East China or Southwest regions. However, brands like Gap, which have not been in the Chinese market long, may have only one store in many cities, so they don't yet have such large regional divisions.
2. The regional manager's strengths are also a factor. If a manager excels at processes, this is important for new stores, as the company wants them to bring standardized processes to new cities and stores. If their strength is driving performance growth, the company may place them in mature markets to oversee more stores. For example, Gap currently focuses on bringing first-tier standards to second- and third-tier cities, so regional managers may oversee stores in Shanghai as well as Hangzhou, Ningbo, Fuzhou, and Xiamen. They must be capable of covering different types of cities.
3. The manager's personal background is also considered. For instance, Gap's North region manager, besides Beijing, also oversees Shandong because he is from Shandong. And for Shenzhen, due to language, support often comes from Hong Kong.
**-END-**
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