We need to do it all over again

2012 has been an eventful year.  Olympic games and other things have caught the attention of many.  It is also a year where we have become somehow used to see companies go bankrupt.  A recent casualty has been COMET, a traditional business selling electric appliances.  It started in Hull, in Yorkshire, where I spent 11 years as a student and then as a university lecturer.  I remember seeing two COMET shops very close to each other in the town centre.  I have to confess I might have been in one of the shops only once.

COMET has gone into administration.  Customers still complain that even by doing this the discounts they offer are not that great.  Other retailers including PCWorld, Currys and others are very competitive.  Electric appliances (TVs, music players, computers and other househould items) are being sold by many other companies which did not use to do that before (my friend Nick Davey has given me this insight).

And then we have the media saying that the problem of COMET is that they did not exploit the online world as they should have.  Its competitors did it.  Still, this does not sound fully convincing, at least from where I stand.  The online world is more complex, challenging and unpredictable than we are used to think.

Before throwing COMET into the online world, we should be asking basic questions about its business.  The business should not be another 'online' brand.  COMET needs to rediscover itself, and see if its origins can still spark and inspire people to be their customer.   What was the vision of the business?  What if it was already achieved?  How can COMET position itself as a valuable, unique and reliable business?

Personally I have not seen any similar business getting close to its customers, educating them about the new technologies we are now using in our daily lives.  It takes more than being technologically savvy to create a good relationship with customers.  I wonder if there are also core values that could inspire people to work for COMET.

We need to do the homework of thinking hard about what the main reason of existence for a business is.  We need to do it all over again.  The online world will be there at any time, but not the ideas and values that make us good companies or good customers.  Time to stop and think about COMET and businesses in general.