Kingfisher gives IT Works the elbow

Comet's sister operation IT Works - hailed as the only retailer focusing on business needs - has been scrapped due to a lack of support from parent company Kingfisher.

The store, which was opened in January 1998 by Kingfisher to target the booming SME sector, was expected to be launched nationally by December 1998 (PC Dealer, 22 April). But IT Works closed its doors just before Christmas as Kingfisher pulled the plug.

The store had been established after 18 months of market research into the concept. It had its own lab to manufacture PCs on site and a team of business consultants.

A Kingfisher representative said: 'We decided to focus on the core stores.

Aspects of IT Works may emerge in Comet stores, but we needed to concentrate on Comet. There were no enforced redundancies - most staff moved to other areas of Kingfisher, mostly Comet.'

But at the time of the launch, the hybrid nature of the store was criticised by industry watchers. Richard Holway, analyst at Holway Research, said: 'I don't believe a retail model will work for this type of business.' David Atherton, managing director of Dabs Direct, added: 'Kingfisher has a lot of money, so it can afford to experiment.'

A representative from Tiny said: 'Kingfisher tried a very different business model. Becoming a manufacturer, even on a small scale, is a big jump.

It will be interesting to see how Dixons does with its build-to-order version.'

Jeremy Davies, senior analyst at Context, said: 'Packaging a business-to-business services operation with a retail front is hard.

It is not Kingfisher's forte.'