Richard Uechtritz - CEO Corner

Issue 32
Richard engineered the management buy-in of JB Hi-Fi in July 2000 and seven years later is leading the company through record growth. He talks to Wealth Creator about further expansion, new technology and how he’ll achieve a 30 per cent rise in sales every year for the foreseeable future.

Your sales increased. What has been driving your performance?
It’s partly as a result of all the new stores we have been opening. Over the past two to three years our new stores have been maturing and we are opening another 20 stores this year. Then of course on top of that is our entry into new categories like games, computers and telecommunications. On top of that there’s the public’s insatiable desire for technology - whether it be flat screen TVs, navigations systems, digital cameras or iPods. It’s a combination of those factors that has driven growth at the rate we have seen.

JB is the largest CD retailer in the country. Has there been a drop in CD sales as people go to internet downloads and has this impacted that side of your business?
No we haven’t. We must be getting market share from others because our CD business is very resilient and the cost of CDs has come down. You can get a hard copy CD at a lower price from JB Hi-Fi than on the net. You can still illegally download at various places, but you can get it cheaper through JB and many people prefer to have a hard copy. People like to touch, feel and own something. Most people are able to download, but they still choose to have a hard copy. It’s the same with DVDs - it’s a good business growing at a good rate. With the range we have, people can buy a TV series on DVD and watch programs when they want rather than having to be home on a Tuesday night.

What new developments or new innovations are in store for 2008?
More stores and concentrating on new product categories. Growing the business organically and by opening new stores and making sure we are doing the right thing retail-wise every day. The new DVD technology, which is either (Sony’s) Blu-ray or high definition will gradually get bigger and bigger. There are always advancements in mobile devices, MP3 players, cameras and TVs, so that will continue to drive growth. Plasma or flat-screen TVs are only in 20 per cent of Australian households, so there is still a lot of growth left in something that has been around for a few years already. Australians are early adopters of technology and we are a wealthy country by most standards, so the penetration rates of these products is on par with other countries. The populations the US, UK and Japan have are obviously bigger, but by percent of population we are up there with the biggest of them.

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