Entrepreneur roundtable Services with a smile - Perspectives Pictet

choices for individual customers in
marketplaces with a multiplicity
of products. James Daunt said this
curating role was central to his bookselling
business: “Some bookshops
sold the best display places to the
publishers, so the selection process
effectively disappeared. In my own
shops, I aimed to restore the art of
curation—to draw people into the
shops and thus to sell more books.”
Avid Larizadeh said that her business
was also highly curated. “There are
objective criteria based on quality
and certain standards, and subjective
criteria such as the need to have an
inspiring story behind a piece. But
it’s not just my taste: we have a team
of style-hunters who travel the world
and some of them will select pieces
that would not have been my choice.”
Had social media changed the
programmes produced by Theo
Kyriakou’s Antenna media group,
asked Tyler Brûlé? “Is it down to who
is making the programmes, or is it
the pull of the crowd through online
messages and tweeting?”
Social media were an unstoppable
power, Mr Kyriakou said, and his
group had invested in both Facebook
and Twitter. “But the media business
is still nothing more than content
distribution—the best content with
the best brands through the best
distribution network to reach the
viewers. Our editors are always
customer-oriented, of course: people
change their habits and their media
consumption, and you have to be there
before the competitors.”
Bottica also evolved its business
model, said Avid Larizadeh, to reflect
developments in online browsing
behaviour. But it would not turn into
what Tyler Brûlé described as “a grand
souk” in London or Paris: “It wouldn’t
make sense. Our business model is
based on holding no inventory and
we couldn’t be global if we did that.
The whole point is that you can get
something from the other end of the
world without going there.”
2
For James Daunt, the changing nature
of the global marketplace in books
posed an awkward problem. “You
can get exactly the same product I’m
selling from Amazon and prices are
always driven down to the lowest
common denominator. We don’t own
the content, and Amazon is now trying
to publish its own books to own the
content. It will be interesting to see
whether book retailers seek to follow
suit—if they do, it will be back to the
future: Victorian booksellers were also
publishers.”
When it came to questions from the
audience, the entrepreneurs were
asked what they would define as great
service. Kit Kemp’s answer was that
it is all about people wanting to come
back. “When people travel, they are
often tired and people take 24 hours to
get to know the hotel. It’s a matter of
taking something they are not used to
and turning it around so they enjoy it
and become a friend who believes in
the place.”
Tyler Brûlé asked her about the
honesty bars in Firmdale hotels— fully
stocked bars in a public space with a
Entrepreneur roundtable: Services with a smile | Winter 2012
notebook for people to record what
they had taken. “The reasoning,” Kit
Kemp said, “was that if you’ve been
to the theatre or are going somewhere
and you want a drink, you can serve
yourself, as if you were entertaining
at home. Some people make a great
show of signing the book, but you’re
also going to find those who have half
a bottle of vodka in their pocket—and
I think that’s quite funny!”
“The media business is still nothing
more than content distribution—the
best content with the best brands
through the best distribution network
to reach the viewers.”
Theo Kyriakou, CEO of Antenna
“If you’ve got all those, everything else
can still go wrong and you’re OK.”
Theo Kyriakou said that in free-toair
television, his clients were the
advertisers. “We must attract the
audience, the eyeballs, and deliver the
demographics advertisers need at the
right time. As television becomes more
competitive with more stations, you
need to be closer to the client and to
deliver every single day.”