Scott Hessell, director of the Lundgren Center, designed the correspondence course's curriculum and delivered its online tutorials. CBRE's enrollees were advised by retired executives whose careers included key positions at Home Depot Inc., Dick's Sporting Goods Inc., PetSmart Inc. and J.C. Penney Co. Assignments included field study and group examinations of retail business models.

“It's not unusual for an executive-education course to focus on an industry in which the students are working, but it's rare and more progressive for the course to focus on an industry that they're serving,” Hessell says. “CBRE professionals who graduate from this course will ask their retail clients targeted questions such as why they need a given store and what they need it to do, rather than just how much space they want and where.”

Caruso says that as the Retailing University graduates have shared what they've learned with retailer and investor clients, “they applaud what we're doing here. It all carries a common thread, which is where we're leading as an organization. Our value proposition is retail science. In an industry that has relied heavily on local market knowledge and the art side of the business, we realized that the retailer so often has to do more with less, and oftentimes even less staff. There was a day when Wall Street was applauding them to open x number of stores and it was all just about getting stores open. Now it is all about profitability.”

He cites the example of Home Depot, which earlier this month announced “great results” for the past 12 months, results that were achieved without opening many new stores. “They really focused on their customers, and they did some things inside the box to elevate their overall sales and their revenues accordingly. We want to be on top of these trends, and we want people who work with these specific retail accounts to be mindful of the things they're faced with.”

LOS ANGELES—The retailing landscape is changing rapidly enough that for real estate professionals, going above and beyond the usual channels for increasing understanding is key. With that in mind, CBRE Group literally sent some 80 of its retailing professionals back to school—specifically, the University of Arizona's Terry J. Lundgren Center for Retailing. The group graduated earlier this month from CBRE's Retailing University, an intensive online curriculum designed for them by U of A faculty and advisors. CBRE plans to graduate another 100 of its professionals from the next class.

“It's the best of both worlds,” Todd Caruso, a senior managing director overseeing CBRE's retail property owner representation business in the Americas, tells GlobeSt.com. “We're getting off-the-shelf instruction that they're giving U of A students majoring in retail, but we're also massaging it to speak to the profile of our professionals that are working on behalf of retailers in different lines of focus.”

Observes Mickey Ashmore, chairman of CBRE Retail Services in the Americas, “Retail has evolved so much that the point of sale is so dramatically different now that it was even five or 10 years ago. The multiple channels that retailers now work through have changed the industry, and that influences retailers' site selection. We can best stay attuned to clients' changing needs by maintaining a deep, up-to-date knowledge of retail operating models, which this course provides. There is always something new to learn.”

Caruso offers some specific considerations that play into a retailer's omnichannel strategy—the days of site selection beginning and ending with location, location, location are over and done with. “When a retailer is opening a store, they're thinking about their e-commerce strategy, supply chain, how they're stocking all their goods, inventory control, procurement—all of those things,” he says. Graduates of Retailing University, he says, are better positioned to pinpoint their clients' strategy.

Scott Hessell, director of the Lundgren Center, designed the correspondence course's curriculum and delivered its online tutorials. CBRE's enrollees were advised by retired executives whose careers included key positions at Home Depot Inc., Dick's Sporting Goods Inc., PetSmart Inc. and J.C. Penney Co. Assignments included field study and group examinations of retail business models.

“It's not unusual for an executive-education course to focus on an industry in which the students are working, but it's rare and more progressive for the course to focus on an industry that they're serving,” Hessell says. “CBRE professionals who graduate from this course will ask their retail clients targeted questions such as why they need a given store and what they need it to do, rather than just how much space they want and where.”

Caruso says that as the Retailing University graduates have shared what they've learned with retailer and investor clients, “they applaud what we're doing here. It all carries a common thread, which is where we're leading as an organization. Our value proposition is retail science. In an industry that has relied heavily on local market knowledge and the art side of the business, we realized that the retailer so often has to do more with less, and oftentimes even less staff. There was a day when Wall Street was applauding them to open x number of stores and it was all just about getting stores open. Now it is all about profitability.”

He cites the example of Home Depot, which earlier this month announced “great results” for the past 12 months, results that were achieved without opening many new stores. “They really focused on their customers, and they did some things inside the box to elevate their overall sales and their revenues accordingly. We want to be on top of these trends, and we want people who work with these specific retail accounts to be mindful of the things they're faced with.”