The meteoric rise of Alex Baldock epitomises how retail is changing.
Although his father was a chairman of M&S, Baldock was formerly a banker. His first role in retail came when he was appointed chief executive of home shopping giant Shop Direct in 2012.
Five years later, the transformation he wrought there earned him the Clarity Retail Leader of the Year award at the Retail Week Awards.
Now, 12 months on, he is taking the helm at a high-profile public company as chief executive of Dixons Carphone.
At Shop Direct, Baldock reshaped the business to make it a pioneer in online retail.
Catalogues went out the window and personalisation was prioritised. The possibilities of new technology were exploited to the max, and the changes were reflected in rising sales and profits.
The dramatic turnaround in Shop Direct’s fortunes and its trail-blazing adoption of technology were due in part to his ‘outsider’s’ eye.
He looked beyond traditional retail as he reinvented Shop Direct, drawing upon industries such as banking and gaming for insight and pulling inspiration from businesses at the forefront of digital change.
“I’m nobody’s idea of a retail lifer, that’s true enough,” Baldock told Retail Week when he was interviewed about his award.
However, retail lifers would no doubt agree with his view of strong leadership: “Strategic clarity, relentless execution and the ability to get people to follow.”
While he was determined to drive dramatic change, it was thought through. “There were a series of bold decisions but they didn’t feel like gambles,” he said.
At Dixons Carphone, expect a similar relentless push to adapt to contemporary and future shoppers.
Time of change
Baldock joins at a time of change. Dixons and Carphone Warehouse were merged in 2014 on the promise of creating a business consummately positioned to equip customers for, and help them navigate, the digitally connected world.
For a while all went well, but the retailer has been thrown off course by changes in the mobile phone market – ironic, given how much of their lives people now live on their devices.
A profit warning and a share price in the doldrums are testament to the need for action, and the retailer has already pledged a “simpler, less capital-intensive” mobiles business.
Baldock will start with a blank piece of paper. Dixons Carphone, more than many retailers, was made in the image of its boss, the ever-ebullient Seb James who is now off to lead Boots.
“Baldock will bring no emotional or intellectual baggage to the role, but a cool detachment and a reliance on data”
Many of the team that built Dixons Carphone have already departed, or will also be leaving – finance boss Humphrey Singer, for instance, is heading to M&S.
Once a newcomer to etail, Baldock must now get to grips with multichannel retail.
He won’t have things easy, as others with an online background, such as Debenhams chief executive Sergio Bucher, have found when attempting to recast companies with a big bricks-and-mortar presence.
Baldock will bring no emotional or intellectual baggage to the role, but a cool detachment and a reliance on data.
As retail continues to adapt to the shifting landscape, expect more leaders like Baldock to emerge, who may not have trodden the traditional shopfloor-to-boardroom route.
Some will lament that change, but no one can ignore it.
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