Apple Geniuses - your time is almost over.
The only retail experience this guy has had is low-end, low-cost. Tesco is a supermarket chain that dominates through having expanded its out-of-town drive-to-shop stores during the 1980s, and buying up all the land they could, then getting exclusive planning permissions to build the only out of town supermarket for many medium and large sized UK towns. Dixons/PCWorld/Curry's did the same. THAT's how they got to dominate. It was nothing to do with good service or looking after customers - customers had no choice was what it came down to.
The Dixons Sales Group (or DSG as it is known) has probably the worst reputation of any UK store I can think of, not just in electronics. They have been losing money for years. They may have been good in the 1970s when I used to visit them as a kid, but after their 1980s expansion they rested on their laurels and monopoly type store locations and went downhill as each new top man in the company tried to squeeze more profits out of retail without really adding anything new other than cheap goods, high prices, and high pressure sales techniques.
Tesco has tried expanding into the larger EU, but cannot compete there because their business model is out of touch with modern retailing practices and they can't get cheap out of town monopoly sites. Instead, they expanded internationally by setting up supermarkets in countries such as Hungary or in Asian countries that had no previous experience of what a supermarket should be or do. Clever, but nothing to do with competing head to head, customer service or anything the Apple blurb is pumping out.
DSG tried to enter Switzerland and failed miserably. German Media Markt has a far superior offering and level of customer service. OK, Tesco is a lot better than Dixons at customer service, but are fast being overhauled by competitor Sainsbury and the even faster growing quality brand Marks & Spencer.
My only hope is that this new guy was brought in to Dixons to try to change the culture but didn't manage it so left; but even so, all that time at Tesco doesn't fill me with faith he knows anything about quality goods retailing; Tesco is more in tune with selling low quality, low price than high end, high price.
With a background in low cost, low pay, part-time employee staffed stores, I can only hope he doesn't change the Genius bar, and that the other aspects of Apple's retail store experience remain untouched by this guy trying to make his mark by improving profits as all execs think they can. He's obviously very clever, but is he right for Apple? More likely, Microsoft.
Apple, you did right to look abroad, but sadly you've been bamboozled. Steve would never have been taken in - after all, you can't kid a kidder, right?
Fifth Decade Blog Not for the delicate - it's all about International Politics, Business, Finance, Technology, Sport and stuff like that.
Fifth Decade Blog Not for the delicate - it's all about International Politics, Business, Finance, Technology, Sport and stuff like that.
