Komplett Ireland

A lot of my mysterious job as country manager for Komplett in Ireland is to be the guy in the company who understands the Irish consumer. Every now and again I have to remind myself that I am one of those very same consumers, and it helps in gaining insight into how to best serve our customers.

I’m big into digital distribution – iTunes for music, Steam for video games – and have been for quite a while now. I saw the potential back when it was The New Big Thing(TM), and in many ways for many people it still is fresh territory.

It’s also an area where I’m a rather picky consumer – the two services above are the only two I’ll use for their particular field. You won’t catch me downloading a game from any service other than Steam, even if they have a game I’m specifically looking for that’s unavailable there. Why not? Trust.

Trust is that elusive thing seldom bought, often squandered and rarely more highly prized of customers to a business. Engendering trust leads to brand loyalty, and that’s something that comes with all kinds of benefits from repeat business to customers touting your products or service for you.

Trust is something that means different things to different people in different industries: In digital distribution it’s largely a question of trusting the service, the delivery methods, the copy protection – as you don’t have something physical to show for your purchase you want to trust that one day the company won’t lose any record that you spend €49.99 on a video game that you want to re-download.

In retail it’s also a question of service delivery, and it’s very elastic: Customers have to trust that you are the right guy to deliver the right products at the right price and provide the right backup customer service in the event that something goes wrong.

Barriers to engendering trust with your customers range from logistical failures – delaying an order – to not having the right stock on hand at a particular time or, worst of all, bad customer service after the fact. Screwing up any, but mainly the latter, is grounds for termination of a customer-retailer relationship, and it’s grounds for kicking some serious ass internally. Not to say that we don’t ever fumble the ball, but we do work hard to make sure that we don’t fumble it the same way twice.

Trust does not automatically lead to brand loyalty in this industry, either: Like shopping from Tesco or Dunnes you likely trust them both but are intensely loyal to neither. You simply join the pool of trusted brands to which a customer is going to look to when making a purchasing decision; and that’s fine.

The question that often wanders in my mind, and to which I often ask the opinions of others, is: Do you trust us? If so, why? If not, why? I always want to strive towards this image of Komplett as a customer friendly company who you can trust to come through for you on a one-to-one level when you need us.

We have thousands of happy customers every week, but it always sticks in my mind to wonder exactly what they thought of the experience of shopping with us – did it stick in their mind? Will they think of us twice?

I guess my question is always, like the girl dressing up for the dance, “What do you think?”

Everyone + Granny is weighing in on yesterdays emergency budget, and from pundits to punters there are a lot of different views to take into consideration. Everyone has one or two areas of the government economy – outside the universal levy’s – that’s a sacred cow or long overdue a cut, in the opinion of the individual.

There are a myriad of different areas of interest that we could comment on, be it the public service or where cuts should and should not be applied. How and ever, we will limit ourselves to the most pertinent topic to our mind: Consumer confidence and economic stimulus.

Apart from the rather pathetic 100mEUR the government has designated for enterprise they have taken no steps to try and stimulate the consumer economy or promote business in the near term: They have taken money out of people’s pockets with the increased levy’s, the “bad bank” will not take effect on the credit side of things until later in the year – when we could be in an even deeper hole – and there is nothing substantial for business or employment generation or to prompt people to open their wallets.

Indeed, during the budget speech we were told to expect more to come for the end of the year.

At the very least we were expecting a cut in VAT, going by the wisdom that 21.5% on spending that’s going to the UK and NI equals 0EUR, versus (say) 10% VAT on spending that’d stay at home.

A great deal of consumer confidence isn’t entirely linked to what people have to spend, but their confidence that if they spend what they’ve saved then they won’t get caught short tomorrow. In other words, people aren’t confident that the economy will improve – or that the government won’t hit us with something else in 6 months time – then they’ll not spend what they have. No spending means failed business, means rising unemployment… You know the story.

We won’t argue that this should be cut and this should be spared. What we will say is that the government seems to be doing precisely what it was agreed was the wrong thing to do – attempting to tax their way out of the recession. It was a politically sound budget, not an economically sound one.

Spending drives everything. We need to promote it; promote business and promote credit, both personal and trade.

On the upside, we in Komplett at least see ourselves as being in a good position compared to some others thanks to our cheaper prices compared to the high street. That being said, we could all do with a break and the lack of at least a VAT decrease – after the Minister for Finance admitted that raising VAT 0.5% was a mistake last budget – is a real shame and a missed opportunity to provide a feel-good factor to the economy and drive some spending.
 

Putting broadband-enabled PC’s into classrooms around the country has long been a government ambition. They have spent millions every year in providing schools with IT equipment, and we’ve certainly seen the impact over the past two decades – there are very few schools indeed that lack computers in the classroom or a special computer room for the kids to learn in.

Unfortunately the follow-through on this government spending program has been woefully poor. Schools are given a budget to purchase IT kit one year, and given nothing to sustain the investment over time, particularly in the area of IT knowledge: Schools largely depend on IT-savvy, already busy, teachers and parents to solve their IT problems and plan for the future. They are also using a hodge-podge of old and new kit, spending their grants as they get them, often failing to get the best value for their money.

The private sector has, to some degree, stepped in to help. In other degrees, there has been a great deal of gouging of what is seen as easy public money: I don’t visit one school without seeing waste or non-techy principals being ripped off by business-savvy sales guys who use techno- jargon to charge way over the odds.

To give examples of just two schools I visited during the week, in one they had just purchased some 15 fairly basic laptops, for €550.00 each. We’re selling the same laptop for €365.00. The school also recently lost its broadband connection in a – wait for it – roof collapse, and are having trouble getting reconnected with Eircom. We’ve stepped in with our own contacts – free of charge, this is just a friendly helping hand we’re offering – to try and resolve the situation for the overtaxed working principal, who really knows very little about IT and is worked off his feet, like so many others.

In another school a service company had come in to quote for what is a fairly simple job to network the whole school up. They were quoting €550.00 for the pleasure of a job that, including parts and labour at €20.00 an hour, I quoted at €150.00

Schools do not have the IT backup, even in the form of roaming Department of Education IT people who could visit a school once a month even to solve problems and help them to make purchasing decisions and turn the wants of the school into technical solutions that work for a cost-effective pricetag. The only schools with such support are those lucky enough to be attached to a larger organisation, such as a hospital.

This would be a great idea – so great, in fact, that we’re making good business for ourselves and our consulting partners in offering such an on-call IT guy, as well as full IT Audits and many other services to schools.

Komplett is having great success in partnering with primary and secondary schools around the country in order to bring them both low-cost hardware and services. We see it as a long-term relationship, offering cost-effective solutions so that the school will continue to partner with us to deliver whatever they should need.

The funny thing is, I suspect that we do it for a cheaper pricetag than would some public sector run mass-IT department for schools.

If you are working in or around a primary or secondary school, or a small business that doesn’t have a dedicated IT department, don’t hesitate to drop us a line and we can arrange a no-obligation meeting to take 20 minutes of your time and see what your needs are and where we can help out.

You can drop us a line at business.ie@komplett.com or else phone for Rafal on (01) 8610 207 / 087 6297 851

I laughed off the idea of Logitech’s boutique Harmony One all-in-one-with-the-bell’s-and-whistles remote control when it was first presented to me: An “advanced” remote control to be sure, featuring a full-colour touchscreen and the ability to control all devices, from your TV to DVD to media player to PC to anything else it picks up and pairs with. The problem? The hefty pricetag.

I scoffed that it wouldn’t sell. I’m eating my hat at this stage, the damn thing is flying off our shelves and we’re scrambling to get them back in stock. The Harmony One has several cheaper brothers, but they’re not running as well – it’s really a value-driven proposition where if you’re going to spend serious money for a remote control you might as well be in for a penny, in for a pound and go for the top dog model.

From the customer reviews and general media consensus the Harmony One is an excellent product that has managed to confound my own expectations about what people will and won’t pay for. I’m pleasantly surprised.
 

Sorry for the extended St. Patrick’s Day break. Our first Build Your Own PC Class on Saturday last went exceptionally well – Shelton Romhanyi, head of our testing lab and formerly labs manager of Tom’s Hardware Guide U.S., gave the class. It was his first time teaching a group of people, and I figure he learned a bit about giving a class as he taught his students about PC’s on the component level.

He started describing the different parts of the motherboard and what components go onto it, bit by bit, before discussing design and then giving the small class (5 people) a hands-on go taking apart and putting together a PC.

It’s really a confidence as well as a knowledge thing – really, the knowledge of how to build a PC is easy to attain (it’s like complicated, expensive lego.)

A real bonus to the class was the hands-on experience, because it’s one thing to be told “Press firmly on the RAM to insert it onto the motherboard”, it’s another thing to have 500 euro worth of kit sitting beneath you and being told that you have to apply enough pressure that you think you might snap the mobo, the RAM or something else in half. Do it once or twice on our test bed and get a feel for it and you’ll likely feel a lot happier doing it yourself when you get home.

The Q&A session, which most of the class was really, was another great bonus; and I don’t foresee any two classes being alike as people arrive in with different questions and levels of experience.

All in all a great success. I’m going to be taking a good look at how we can make this a sustainable class to keep driving forwards with, the demand for it has been really big.

Picture nicked from Adrian Weckler, Sunday Business Post writer who attended the class.

Apple has launched its new iPod shuffle today. To be honest, it’s a bit of a boring product release from Apple – a company we usually expect a lot more of.

As you can see it’s smaller than the last iPod Shuffle – Gadgetrepublic is calling it a fancy looking cigarette lighter – but there are two beefs we’ve got with it:

For one, you can have it in any colour so long as it’s black or grey. That’s Microsoft thinking. Microsoft in the 1990’s thinking. Apple is meant to give us vibrant choice with our colours!

Secondly, the smaller size means that the control unit is located on the headphone wire. This means that you are stuck with the standard iPod headphones, and any custom jobs you want to wear (for example, in-ear) are out of the question. Maybe there’ll be an adapter to come, but it’d be a bit crap to have to pay a premium to Apple after you’ve already paid for premium headphones.

Other than that it’s a pretty solid device: 4GB in size and its also got a nifty sounding audio thingy (we’re sure Apple has a good marketing name for it) that’ll tell you what song or playlist you’re on, to make up for the Shuffle’s lack of a screen. Handy, but this one just strikes us as being a bit… Boring. Not something often said about Apple products. And the control unit may (hopefully) prove unpopular and see a reversion as we did in the iPod Nano range when they changed the shape.

Komplett Calls Foul On Harvey Norman “Haggling” – A Nice Way To Round Off The Week :-)

Key Facts

·       Komplett has taken an informal investigation in response to Harvey Norman’s “Can You Haggle? Yes You Can!” advertising campaign

·       Even after “haggling” their prices remain sky-high compared to Komplett

·       In one case, a Sony 32” HDTV went from being 392 more expensive than Komplett to 242 more expensive… A cosmetic saving for the Harvey shopper

·       In another case, sales reps offered discounts “If you purchase in a bundle”; for example loading warranty, software and peripherals onto the sale of a laptop

·       Harvey Norman sales rep’s response to online pricing? “We can’t compete with the prices from the internet shops, they don’t have to pay the same taxes as we do.” A direct quote.

·       Anyone wishing to see our tax clearance certificate is more than welcome to it!

In Detail

Dublin, 06th March 2009, in response to Harvey Norman’s “Can You Haggle? Yes You Can!” advertising campaign, stating that all of their prices are negotiable, Komplett has done a quick straw poll by haggling with Harvey sales reps around the country. The results have been less than spectacular…

Below you will find a quick table of “savings” that, when compared to Komplett prices, merely close an extremely wide gap across the board. Furthermore, the response of Harvey’s sales reps when confronted with online pricing is laughable, shocking and downright concerning in places.

In a direct over-the-phone quote from one TV sales rep we were told “We can’t compete with the prices from the internet shops, they don’t have to pay the same taxes as we do.” We at Komplett, with registered offices in Ireland, employing an Irish workforce and registered with the Irish revenue commissioners since 2003, would beg to differ on that point.

Naturally we’re a partisan source of information. So, why don’t you pick up the phone and call a few Harvey Norman, Peats, PC World or Power City stores yourself, or drop in over the weekend, and see what they say? http://www.harveynorman.ie/locations.htm

An FYI, 52” TV’s are bloody popular! We’ve not had any in stock since before Christmas, and recently we got a Sony and a Samsung 52” model in stock, and already to our Pick Up Point alone we’ve seen 6 come in in one day. (To put this in perspective, 40” we’d see about 4-5 of per day to the PUP.) It’s throwing our backs out…

Key Facts

·       Komplett.ie is today launching free Build Your Own PC (BYOPC) classes for customers, existing and new

·       The classes will be conducted by Komplett engineers over several hours and will involve theory and practical work

·       Small classes and one-on-one interaction will ensure that students get personalized advice to match their own needs

·       Enrolment for the first class to be held on Saturday 14^th March is now open

·       Enrolment is open to all, including people who do not already have an account with Komplett

·       Those interested should send an email to business.ie@komplett.com

·       Komplett will also begin publishing a series of BYOPC and overclocking related guides in the coming weeks

In Detail

Dublin, 27th February 2009, Komplett.ie is today opening enrolment for Build Your Own PC classes. The classes aim to give students the knowledge and confidence to successfully build, maintain and upgrade their own machines from the ground up; thus furthering Komplett’s overall aim to bring more value to the Irish market as more people become able to reap the savings brought about by building a PC from individual components.

The small classes will commence on Saturday 14^th March and will be conducted by Komplett engineers who have years of experience working on the component-level.

Students will learn both the theory behind building their own PC’s as well as getting practical hands-on experience, and they are also more than welcome to bring along their own components if they want to walk out with a built/upgraded PC as well.

“Building a PC from scratch is far cheaper than purchasing a pre-built machine from even the most streamlined of operations like Dell or HP, and the savings on offer increase exponentially with higher-performance machines,” said Shelton Romhanyi, Komplett Ireland’s RMA labs manager. “Building a PC is also far easier than many people might imagine, and it’s really 60 percent a confidence issue and only 40 percent a knowledge issue. We want to give people both the knowledge and the hands on experience required to go out and build or upgrade their own PC’s, and hopefully impart that knowledge to their friends as well.”

Anyone interested in enrolling should contact business.ie@komplett.com, and enrolment is open to all, including people without an existing Komplett account.

As a part of its ongoing Buyer’s Guide series of articles Komplett will also be putting up Build Your Own PC and Overclocking guides in the coming weeks.