Greater customer focus at PC World, Currys and online
CEO John Browett, poached from Tesco by DGSi last December, today outlined how he intends to transform the group. Contrary to prior speculation, store closures in the UK will take place only as leases expire. However the shareholder dividend will be halved to fund reinvestment in better business practise designed to produce £50 million in cost cuts.
Browett’s main point was that “we’ve found the business processes to be a bit more inefficient and ineffective than we had hoped, and we think there is a very big opportunity there to . . . liberate quite a lot of cost, which we can then invest in the customer.”
On our opinion piece on Monday we commented that DSGi’s main hope in the face of competition from Tesco and the looming threat from the Best Buy/Carphone Warehouse joint venture was to offer better customer service and a superior in-store experience.
Browett agrees. “It’s very clear what the customers want from us,” he said. “They want better choices within our stores, they want better service, both actually in the store and after they’ve bought the product, and they want a store which is a more exciting place to shop.”
Store closures
Forty-one underperforming stores are to be closed in Italy. In the UK, “a more fundamental review was necessary for Currys.digital,” Browett said. In about 100 of 180 catchment areas “we’ve got the right store and it is approximately right, but as we actually improve the offer, we will be much clearer about the long run potential for the whole chain.”
Browett admitted that PC World store layouts were confusing and the signage unclear. “We’ve got a trial store up where we have essentially sorted out those issues,” he said, “and just those very simple changes have made a major difference to how customers perceive the store.”
Etailing
“We already have a billion pounds of sales online and we think we can make a much bigger business in time,” said Browett. The key will be the e-Merchant platform developed by DSGi’s French acquisition Pixmania. “We are going to introduce that across the group and in the UK, hopefully in time for our peak trading later this year,” he promised.
Superstores
The question was not asked, but Browett did address the challenge posed by the BestBuy/Carphone Warehouse combination. “We are also going to bring a large store format from our overseas businesses to the UK because we think there is a potential for a bigger store, 3,500 to 5,000 square metres or 35,000 to 50,000 square feet,” he said.
