All of which really rather misses some important points. The first is that it's a long time since Jack Cohen made his fortune by piling it high and selling it cheap. The second is what we've learned since the fall of the Soviet Union. When people familiar with logistics, distribution and the retail trade actually had a look at what they had been doing they were appalled. One number that sticks out is that 50% of the entire agricultural output of the entire country rotted as it went thought that system (some proof is that they now grow less grain than they did but now export, rather than import).



There's also the rather provocative point from the US that WalMart has done more to reduce poverty around the world, both by improving distribution and by offshoring, than any government has ever done.

But at the heart of what makes retail rock is efficiency. Looking at WalMart again, it has been their mastery of computer systems, to tell them what people are buying and linking that back into their ordering system that has driven their efficiency gains. Quite seriously, you will find economists who equate this to a second industrial revolution.

The task within retail (in so far as a sector has a task, rather than individual companies striving to make profits) is therefore to roll out these techniques right across the sector. Those companies that do it well will reap rich rewards in terms of profits and those that don't....well, Kmart got it wrong in the US and went bust. The squeezing out of inefficiencies in the supply chain doesn't actually sound all that exciting but it contributes a great deal to the rising standard of living.

Where the good people at Talisman come in of course is in their being at the centre, the nexus, of a network of those with such skills and those looking for them. There's also the point that those individuals seeking the companies that impart those skills and those companies looking for those to train are part of the same network.

Retail rocks might be a slightly over-enthusiastic sound bite, but the sector is in fact driving the rise in living standards by applying the new technologies, of computerization, of the internet, to the supply and logistics chain. There's nothing quite so exciting for a manager as taking part in an industrial revolution.