It’s no secret that retail is a diverse and fast-moving industry, one in which retailers must constantly adapt to the ever-changing needs of consumers. Retaining footfall and high sales is about responding to the environment as it develops around you, in order to remain current and appealing. The underlying question here for many retailers, particularly those approaching the maturity stage, is how do we continue to attract new customers with what we currently offer? Well looking to the news this week, the union of Carphone Warehouse and Dixons is all but confirmed in a so called ‘50/50’ merger. This merger brings together Europe’s largest telecoms and electrical retailers’, who aim to become the ‘RAC’ of their field and bring a new end-to-end service for all things techy.
So why merge?
Aside from continuing to provide electricals and mobile phones, Dixons Carphone intends to utilise the efficiency of shared operations and invest in better training, systems and employees. They believe this will then support their service offering – from product set-up to after-sales support and repairs. As two separate organisations, Dixons and Carphone Warehouse were like any other electrical and telecom retailer – they provided a product, with Dixons ‘Know How’ and Carphone’s ‘Geek Squad’ providing service which didn’t live up to it’s US equivalents. Now, they essentially aim to offer the whole package with better training hopefully leading to better customer engagement.
The benefits of mergers have long been proved, and not just in retail- Disney and Pixar’s merger enabled the release of family favourites like ‘WALL-E’ and ‘Up’, and mean they are now able to annually release at least two films, while the EE rebranding of Orange and T-Mobile has resulted in awards for best mobile service provider year on year.
Mergers like Dixons Carphone give both companies a new lease of life where there was limited room to grow in their own sectors. The joint retailer is larger, more efficient and sees exciting opportunities become a reality. Dixons and Carphone have found their answer to the question of adaptation and change, but now need to take action to ensure this is a sustainable business prospect rather than one last hurrah.