John Linton It was with great sadness that I read that Circuit City was in the final throes of going out of business:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123212123583390511.html
I have spent many, many months in the USA on work assignments, 'trade show' visits and supplier briefings and negotiations and a visit to the closest Circuit City store to pick up some key cable/component that I had unwittingly left behind or had got damaged during the trip just prior to a key 'presentation' was a 'life saver' on many of those trips. In later days Circuit City would be my last stop before heading for the airport to pick up the latest games and gadgets for my children and I was always astonished at the apparent acres and acres of display shelves selling every thing electronic and software you could conceive.
Over almost 30 years I watched as Circuit City made continual changes from ham radio and kit TVs through the very early days of DEC and its competitor's 8 bit computer kits thrugh the early days of the IBM PC 'revolution' (the first chain to recognise the importance of both Taiwanese prices and their advanced technology in the early 1970s) and then into the computers and accessories used today - all it appeared to me - seamlessly and with the assured touch of a competent management whose past experiences and assessments of the future let them abandon 'old' product lines while introducing new technologies without missing a 'beat'.
But now - gone by the end of April - the once unchallenged chain store that dominated technology supplies in ways that the likes of the old Radio Shack couldn't begin to aspire to - but Radio Shack will continue on while Circuit City wil soon be just a fading memory. Like GM and Chrysler - once unthinkable that they wouldn't continue to dominate the US markets forever - now the world has changed so dramatically there is no place for them.
From what I've read the sort of sweeping changes that have been occurring in the US and the EU throughout 2008 will begin to make their presence felt in Australia in 2009. While you can also read the assurances of various 'experts' that Australia will not face the same magnitude of financial and commercial 'disasters' that are every day reading in the New York Wall Street Journal and London's Financial Times you have to wonder just why Australia and Australians will be so 'protected'. (and yes -I've read huge amounts of the Australian 'poular press's rationales - but they are all, at least to me, written by people who simply don't know (the financial journaliists and their tame sources) or by people who wouldn't know but want you to believe that everything is fine (the lying politicians from Krudd downwards - or should that be upwards?).
I can see one piece of indisputable 'evidence' of changing for the worse times and I see it every day of the week. That is the number of shops/business premises that have closed down over the last few months on the 5 - 8 minute drive from my home to Exetel's North Sydney office along Military Road - a very busy Sydney Road. The count has gone from 7 in mid September to 38 last Friday. Time of the year you say? Possibly. I'll take a bet though that the count will be higher by the end of March 2009.
Just like the employees of Circuit City the "Australia is protected" pontifications won't be of any comfort to the employees and owners of those 31 businesses in one tiny part of Sydney's business populations. - they no longer have a job in the case of the employees and they have a lot less money/a lot more debt in the case of the business proprietors - they too of course also have no income.
From my contacts with several of Exetel's suppliers I also get very clear indications that business is not good for them with the 'missed targets' of a few months ago becoming the "year to forget" of today. In some ways that's good for Exetel as our small business volumes become a little more important to some of our suppliers who are not having the best of times. However it also means that some of our competitors have already found it tougher that we have and I'm under no illusions that Exetel will find 2009 much tougher than 2008.
Nil desperandum - tough times are made for tough people and I think we are among the very toughest.
Sad about Circuit City though.