American Golf is Europe’s leading golf retailer. The company has 78 specialist stores around the UK and Ireland and also operates as a successful online retailer. Here’s our 30-second interview with American Golf’s Finance Director, Ged Gould.
American Golf's Ged Gould
Q. What do you think has been the secret of American Golf’s continued success?
A. The key to our success is based upon excellent customer service and great value. The success has also been underpinned by the business keeping a close control of its costs and working capital.
Q. What is the secret to good customer service?
A. At American Golf we make sure we offer the best range of products at the best value. Our ethos is very much focussed on ensuring our staff always look to sell the right product to a customer in order to improve their game.
Q. What is the company’s attitude to investing in technology?
A.As a business any investment in IT has to deliver on one of two counts – either improve business efficiency or improve the customer experience.
Q. How do you convince the board to invest in IT?
A. Any investment we make always has to have a strong and clear payback in terms of financial return.
Q. How do you get the best out of your suppliers?
A. Golf is dominated by around 6 major suppliers, to grow our business it’s vital that we work in close partnership with our key suppliers.
Q. What are American Golf’s plans for 2010?
A. To continue our store rollout programme and to continue to increase our market share.
We recently ran a competition asking retailers to complete a short survey on multi-channel. For every entry we donated £5.00 to the Retail Trust and ten lucky winners recieved a luxury hamper. Congratulations to:
Thanks to everyone who took part in the survey. Not only did you help support the Retail Trust, but all your responses have given valuable insight into customer interaction within multi-channel operations.
It’s great when a plan comes together…as it did for this the Multi-channel Retail Summit, held this January in Reigate, Surrey. K3, The Retail People, were proud to be lead sponsors for this event, and we’ve been overwhelmed with the positive response from all the retailers who attended.
Bringing together the latest perspectives on the multi-channel experience
The event featured a great line-up of speakers, including a keynote from Asda’s Excutive Development Director. Doug Gurr, Joe Tarragano from eBay and Roz Hunt, Head of Online for Lloyds Pharmacy. K3’s own Tony Bryant delivered a great presentation on “What Does Multi-channel Strategy Mean to a Bricks and Mortar Retailer”.
” This years multi-channel summit was a very successful event, with more than 80 retailers joining us for a busy day packed with presentations and thought provoking comment around one of the most talked about topics in retailing today”, Tony writes in the introduction to the post-event report written by retail journalist Gynn Davis.
With our extensive background in multi-channel we are proud to have taken a lead part in the Multi-channel Retail Summit 2010, as it brought together some of the latest ideas and freshest perspectives from throughout this fast-paced industry.
Forget about 2009 – now we’re in 2010 and it’s all about getting ready for 2012. Are retailers ready for the Olympics?
Here are some stats:
- 270,000 staff will be employed at 35 venues throughout the UK
- There will be an Olympic broadcast audience of over 5 billion
- The UK will be visited by around 20,000 press and media personnel
- 9 millions tickets will go on sale for the Olympic events
Staggeringly the typical sales uplift during the Olympics is around 60%. For retailers, the opportunities are unparalleled, however to fully reap the benefits of this event, planning, for those not already off the line, needs to start now.
(more…)
Looking for something to do this January? Well if you’re a retailer, with or without a multi-channel offering, then there you can’t afford to miss this. K3 is lead sponsor at this years Multi-Channel Retail Summit, to be held on the 19th of January in Resigate, Surrey. Register here to take in the words of wisdom from this great line up of speakers:
- Doug Gurr, Executive Development Director, Asda Wal-Mart
- Aamir Ahmad, Managing Director, Dwell
- Tony Stockil, CEO, Javelin Group
- Richard Burrell, Director of Media Operations, QVC
- Darren Gardner, Head of New Business, Multichannel and Future Strategy, The Carphone Warehouse Group PLC
- Tamer Ozmen, Vice President, Online, Orange
- Nigel Randall, E-Commerce Systems Manager, Waitrose
- Joe Tarragano, Enterprise Services, eBay
- David Oliver, Director, CRM (EMEA), Hertz Europe Limited
- Tony Bryant, Business Sector Manager, K3 Retail Business Solutions
- Ros Hunt, Head of Online, Lloydspharmacy
- Duncan Grant, Director of Multichannel, The Entertainer
See you there!
Is it good news for consumers as the government accepts the Competition Commission’s proprosal that a body be created to oversee grocer-supplier relationships? According to an article in Retail Week, Consumer Minister Kevin Brennan is taking the line that free and fair competition ensures that consumers are getting the best deal in the market. The British Retail Consortium, however has strongly announced it’s concerns that it may create the opposite effect, and warns that consumers would be faced with “a costly new democracy”.
Contradicting the BRC’s response are reports saying that small grocers support this move, as do the Scottish Grocers Federation. The SCF Chief Exective John Drummond said “I hope this announcement will introduce a culture change within the major supermarkets and an acknowledgment that they must be open and transparent in their supplier dealings.”
More beaurocratic than beneficial?
John Little, Head of Sales at The Retail People
It has almost become a December cliché to look back and comment ‘this year has gone so fast’ – but never before has this seemed truer than this December. Often as we move from challenge to challenge we lose track of time, and this year we have certainly had our share of challenges.
In December 2008 it had become apparent that the economy was shaky and opinion columns were littered with views on who and what was to blame. By the time we moved through first half of 2009 the landscape of the UK High Street changed in a way without comparison. While the Retail industry could focus on 2009 as the year when the wheels seemed to fall off, there were also many lessons and successes.
Online and multichannel retailing stepped into its own this year. We saw the important role of value retailing as customer’s became even more discerning about where they spent. Conversely high-end retailers also assured us that even in the hardest of times people needed luxury.
Predictions for next year include a further easing-up of pressure on the economy and businesses, having taken away the lessons on 2008, investing more into their processes and the technology that supports them.
Whatever the New Year holds, the team at K3 are looking forward to embarking on the challenges of 2009 and wish you all fun and prosperous holiday season.
All the best
John
The Retail People have created a short survey (less than five minutes to complete) to investigate views on multi-channel retailing. They want your views on the challenge faced by retailers in providing an exceptional customer experience at every point of interaction.
Once you have completed the survey your details will be entered into a prize draw where ten lucky people will win a LUXURY HAMPER ! Even better, you are contributing to a very good cause - for the first 100 surveys completed £5.00 will be donated to the Retail Trust.
Oh, but it just gets better! As a thank you for taking part The Retail People we will also be sending you a copy of the research report, so you can see what the overall thoughts are out there.
That’s 5 minutes of your time very well spent , good luck!
10 Prizes, 100 donations, 5 minutes!
For those wanting a quick look at what K3 has been up to, here are a few stories that were covered in the news throughout October and November. (For the latest press releases you can also check out the news section on The Retail People.)
K3 customers Carpetright and Kiddicare win at Retail Systems Awards 2009:
Retail Bulletin
IT Backbones Retail News
IT Director
K3 wins GIVe contract
Catalogue e-Business (client wins)
K3 Selected by apetito:
IT Backbones Retail News
Hyde’s Hall systems for the Royal Horticultural Society to be supplied and implemented by K3:
IT Analysis
And now, the News
Despite the recession, retailer Carpetright has gone from strength to strength, including winning Retailer of the Year at the recent 2009 Retail Systems Awards. Carpetright’s Ian Woosey does our 30 second interview to reveal some of the secrets of their success.
Ian Woosey, Carpetright
Q. What do you think has been the secret of Carpetright’s success in this recession?
A. Great product, service and prices supported by slick systems and supply chain processes. Sounds easy but is much harder to achieve in reality. We have also done a good job of keeping the cost base under control without any knee jerk reactions to the volatile economy.
Q. What’s the secret to good customer service?
A. Everything centres around the staff and their genuine desire to provide outstanding customer service. Management have to promote and nurture that attitude in every way possible to succeed.
Q. What is Carpetright’s attitude to IT?
A.We see it as an enabler, something we can use to really improve our business, gain competitive advantage and enhance the customer experience. We know the benefits are achievable through the right solutions.
Q. How do you convince your board to invest in IT?
A. The Board had the vision 5 years ago to sign off a major IT overhaul across the business. The fact that has been delivered successfully and the benefits are being realised on an ongoing basis helps but you still (quite rightly) need a rock solid business case. We don’t do technology for technology’s sake.
Q. How do you get the best out of your suppliers?
A. A lot of it is about relationships, we try to work in true partnership and view our suppliers as very much part of the team. I also prefer commercial relationships which enable all parties to benefit from successful projects or initiatives.
