Time to say goodbye...

As the UK's last remaining PC assembler/retailer goes into administration Sara Driscoll writes why the industry was expecting the news

The biggest surprise about the demise of assembler and retailer Time and its parent company Granville Technology Group last week, was that to most channel players it came as no surprise at all.

Although the firm was still bullish at the beginning of last year, claiming that it had increased sales of PCs and laptops from 1,000 a week to 3,500 a week, its financial results, or rather lack of them, told a very different story. The firm had not filed financials since the year ended June 2003 when it reported £2.5m profit. Then all went quiet. It emerged last week that the firm had been losing between £1m to £2m a month since January this year.

But Time had been facing an uphill battle for a long while and for a number of reasons. To its credit, the company did take heed of certain industry trends. The firm knew it needed to increase in scale, hence the purchase of Tiny back in 2002. It also knew it needed to expand into Europe – but failed to really establish itself as a major player on the continent, despite trying to forge deals with large supermarket chains. Although it is still trading in the Middle East.

But it is not what the firm didn’t do that was the problem. As the administrators Grant Thornton said, the firm fell victim to continued price deflation, a situation we can all empathise with. But Granville, being one of the last assembler/retailers in the UK, also faced the might of Dell in a head-on collision. As one analyst described it last week: “It was like a tiny minnow up against a global whale.”

But it was not only the marketing muscle and pricing power of Dell. Granville was AMD focused and faced the additional battle against Intel’s mighty brand. Facing both Intel and Dell in one market, it is amazing that the firm lasted as long as it did.

Add to this the company’s expensive cost base – 80 retail outlets does not come cheap – and consumers’ new-found ability to order expensive goods online rather than pop to the nearest retail park, and it is easy to see why many chan nel partners said the announcement last week had simply an “air of inevitability” about it.