DSGi chairman Sir John Collins has committed to roll out the retailer’s Tech Guys service across Europe after firming plans to improve service levels across the company to retain a competitive specialist edge.

“Tech Guys is an important part of our business,” said Collins. “We still need to do some polishing of the offer here, but are about to start rolling it out in Europe.”

He said that DSGi was continuing to reassess its entire business model. “Business as usual won’t wash anymore – you are either specialist or generalist. In these tough times, there is no future in no-man’s land,” he said.

Speaking of the challenges for specialist retailers at the Retail Week Conference, Collins said that maintaining “clarity and differentiation” was vital for retailers to fend off competition – particularly from the powerful supermarkets.

“I have the greatest respect for the hypermarkets. They can create efficiencies very quickly,” said Collins. “They will continue to have a place for selling electronics competitively, but they cannot reach the service levels of the specialists. We will be well and truly tested by Tesco, but if we can commit to our template, we will be fine.”

He cited the example of Best Buy in the US and the tussle it had with Wal-Mart, which tried to eat into much of its market share. Best Buy remained defiant and succeeded. “Specialists need to keep the barriers to entry high by shoring up their offerings.”

Collins repeatedly cited service as the most crucial part of a specialist’s offering and admitted that DSGi had got it wrong in the past. He said that the retailer had recently restructured its training department to improve staff’s technical knowledge as well as their interpersonal relationships.

He also said that DSGi wanted to be the “master of multichannel”. DSGi at present generates about 10 to 12 per cent of sales through online. Collins said that, in the next 10 to 15 years, that will grow to 30 per cent. He added: “I disagree that e-tail is calling the death knells of the high street.”