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RadioShack CEO Resigns
xzvf writes to tell us Forbes is reporting that RadioShack CEO David J. Edmondson has resigned. Reeling from a 62% drop in fourth quarter net income the company has announced a sweeping restructuring plan. From the article: "Edmondson said in a separate statement Monday that new leadership was needed so the company's turnaround plan would have the best possible chance to succeed. The revamp announced Friday prompted mixed responses from analysts, who indicated the plan might be successful but, at that time, they doubted Edmondson's ability to pull it off after it became clear he had lied about his education."
Its been news for the last few days that he never gradudated college let alone had the two degrees he claimed. I'm suprised the article writeup only touched on this in italics in the bottom. One of the degrees he claimed wasn't even offered by the university that he claimed awarded it to him.
If religous zealots don't believe in Evolution, then why are they so worried about bird flu?
It's interesting and more than a little depressing to see just how greatly Radio Shack has changed in the past ten years. In 1995 I got my amateur radio license. Everyone knew that Radio Shack's license exam preparation materials, done by one Gordon West, were rubbish that taught people how to pass a test without understanding any of the concepts between it. That's why I ordered the ARRL's dependable guide Now You're Talking from another store (check the book out if you are looking for an interesting hobby, it's also in many libraries). But Radio Shack was incredibly helpful for providing all the parts one needed to build little projects. Whenever I found an interesting project in the ham magazine QST, such as an audio amplifier or a QRP kit, I knew Radio Shack would provide the materials.
But now, things have changed, there's hardly more than a couple of soldering irons for sale in the back of a Radio Shack today. The hobby of tinkering with electronics is no longer profitable for a retail store, possibly due to the decline of amateur radio. Hams today order what they need from the Internet or the catalogues that a few specialty stores like to spam technophiles with. Instead, Radio Shack has decided to entirely focus on consumer electronics. But it can't win there either, larger stores like Best Buy or Circuit City will always have a better selection. I can't really see any way for this company to survive.
Back in the 70s, they moved into Australia and tried to buy their way into market dominance, mainly against a local company, Dick Smith Electronics. DSE got hold of documents that showed that RS were prepared to lose a lot of money (by local standards) to wipe out the competition, then make it up with monopolistic pricing.
It didn't work, not least because they tried to simply transplant an American store to an Australian shop without taking local conditions into account. The publicity from DSE's protests didn't help them, either. Nor did the crap that they were selling!
Ironically, both Tandy Australia and Dick Smith Electronics were bought by Woolworths Australia (a big supermarket-based chain) in 2001. They still operate seperate shops, but there's a lot of overlap of product.
(Not completely on-topic, but moderators please note that I've just admitted to carrying a grudge for over thirty years. Mod me down if you like...) 8-)}
Radio Shack had a major divorce from its Canadian division. The result is that the Canadian stores are now called "The Source". The Canadian operation had major disagreements with the US operation about what should and should not be carried in the stores. The Canadian stores seem to have known what they were doing. The stores are full of merchandise and there are lots of customers.
I tried to get some parts for an oscillator once and the guy just looked at me like I was crazy. I thought in the back of my mind, "This is Radio Shack right....??"
EvilCON - Made Famous by
That explains why they had that 30% off EVERYTHING on-line sale last week of December.
(trying to make their numbers look better)
Dell does the same thing every quarter.
This isn't the first person to be exposed for lying about academic credentials and it probably won't be the last. Nonetheless, after so many have been keelhauled for doing this, I'm surprised that people still lie in writing about their academinc credentials and surprised that there are still companies not checking for this, particularly for executive candidates. No doubt some of the Radio Shack board have egg on their faces as well, especially in light of the drastic cuts that ananlysts suggest are needed.
Academic credentials are about the easiest qualification to check for. Just call the school. Either the candidate has the degree they claim to have or they do not. There's no shade of gray. That's why it's so stupid to lie about this. It's easy to check and there's no wiggle room. Why then do so many do it? Why then are there companies that don't check for this?
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
A year or 2 ago, I got interested in learning to solder. I've had soldering irons and tinkered a bit before, but I wanted to learn to do it right and actually be able to make things. (Without buring the boards and frying the components, you know?)
My first thought was 'Radio Shack! They've always had that stuff.' So I'm all happy and travelled 45 minutes to my nearest not-a-cesspit Radio Shack (I wouldn't touch the local one with a 10-ft pole. Very slimey) and start looking for those kits for radios and wireless microphones. They had not a single one! When I finally got a free clerk, his answer was 'We used to have those, but we don't any more.'
So I took a good look around and they still have some parts like resistors and stuff, and some stuff I have no earthly clue about, but the majority of their store is overpriced phones, overpriced computers, and overpriced toys for adults with too much money and too little sense. I was very disheartened.
I eventually went to the net to find what I wanted, and got a couple kits (one of them actually worked when I was done!) and had my fun that way.
In short: The one thing I remember Radio Shack fondly for, they no longer have. That seems like a grave mistake to me.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
I recently web ordered a security camera and ignored the additional accessories page. The website had a 100' video cable for $18 and a power supply for $10. In a pinch to install the camera I go to Radio Shack.
Radio Shack had a 6' cable for $16. I would have needed 16 of them and 15 connectors to equal the 100' at a cost of $331.00. Not that I would have gone that route but still...
And then there was the power supply. Radio Shack wanted almost $20. We ended up with a different solution that "only" cost me $50 rather than the $28 it would have cost from the original supplier of the camera. And at that I only got 50' not the 100'.
I'll absorb some premium for the convenience and personalized service but not almost a 100% increase for half the product. I only concluded the sale because I needed it fast.
I left the store feeling ripped off. And that's a very difficult feeling to market or promote out of your customers. A once loyal fan of RS I'm not even sure I'll go there the next time I'm in a pinch.
the top sales associate before being offered the job as CEO.
How does being a good salesman equate with the leadership and organizational ability required of a CEO? I understand, CEOs must to some extent "sell their company", but many great CEOs are very introverted, out-of-the-limelight type of people.
I worked at a Radio Shack (a company owned store) for a few years, and the pressure to sell people expensive items, whether or not they needed them, was intense. Batteries were (and still are) the big killer profit-maker for them. They really beat it into our heads to sell those batteries. Why do you think Radio Shack gave out those coupons for free flashlights all the time? Because if just a few takers would buy batteries for them then they did very well.
Anyone that excels in sales in that type of environment plays dirty. Period. So the fact that he was a leading salesman tells me enough about his character to know that he is not someone that should be in charge.
Dan East
Better known as 318230.
I deeply regret that the parent was modded "Funny." The post is insightfully correct, but it fails to point up the larger underlying principle: discrimination.
I was a test-engineering consultant for 20-odd years to companies such as Lockheed, Motorola and TI defense divisions, Dell, and so on. At the time, I was one of the top ten people in my (admittedly narrow/specialized) field in the U.S.
Yet, not one of those companies would have hired me as an employee to do the *exact* same work they hired me to do as a consultant because I did not have a degree. I never attended high school, but did get a GED.
(Side note: Tandy was one of my clients in the 1980s and 90s. Every Tandy computer manufactured in the U.S. was production tested with software I wrote and on apparatus I designed and built.)
When I burned out in that field, I switched careers and entered writing/journalism, eventually becomming a magazine editor (circ. ~100k)--still on a contactor/consultant basis. Yet, I'd be hard put to land even a proofreading job as an employee because I am "uneducated."
I hold that this is an unrecognized/unacknowleged form of discrimination and bigotry. Experience and ability should be the primary--if not only--criteria in hiring, not race, sex or orientation thereof--or education.
Ignorance is curable, stupid is forever.
I wonder how the "little" lie that helped him get his original position at Radio Shack 11 years ago affected him in his rise through the ranks. Can you imagine wondering all those years whether someone was going to find you out eventually? Sure, it seemed like a harmless bit of misinformation when he was applying to be a sales associate, but it quickly becomes a much greater liability as power and position increase.
NINJA SPIRIT - The Ancient Art of Insanity
I never got a degree, and I'm now a contractor who does very quick turnaround solutions for a customer who needs very specialized and unusual tools (software and hardware). It's very interesting and technical work requiring a fair breadth of knowledge, and there's no room for incompetency (4 man team, combined 70 years of experience). I think I've done quite well for myself.
I say that not to brag (well, maybe a little), but more to drive the point home when I say that a college degree is a very important part of your resume. Practical experience in IT has a hard time truly capturing the theory aspects of what you are doing. Too often it's a "make it work" world where you have enough understanding to navigate the dialogues in windows without understanding why the network is the way it is. How often will you have practical experience in compilers, operating systems, or assembly language from working experience? Yet all of those skills are extremely valuable to be a good software person. The most important thing about formal education is that it exposes you to things that you may not need right away, but later down the road may be useful. I spent a days researching just to find that the algorithm I needed for one problem was a "weighted connected component", and most of that was just in finding the right term to search for. If I had taken a junior level graph theory class, I would have been exposed to it.
You mock the engineers who flash their degrees at you when you fix their network. Does their job entail fixing their network connections? If there's a mess on the floor, I could clean it myself but I'm more likely to call the janitors. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of really compentent people without degrees. There exists a few of them who are wildly successful. The other 90% of people won't be competent or successful, though, and a most of the remaining would be more competent and successful with a formal education.
It never ceases to amaze me when a person gets fired for faking a degree. It's a very common practice. When I worked in higher education, the HR people were militant about getting offical transcripts sent straight from the college in question. There was no fooling these people; about 5% of all finalist candidates had degree claims that could not be substantiated.
But I got in, no degree required. As a part-time temp, doing a mainframe operations job that nobody wanted. Thirteen years and six promotions later, I was the Director of Technical Services. Still no degree. On six occasions, the Board of Trustees had to vote on an exemption so that I could be promoted. Today, I work in private industry. I have a senior management position in IT, still no degree. I never lie about it because I don't have to. I have 20+ uninterrupted years of IT experience -- take it or leave it.
If you read the job ads very closely, you find all kinds of weasel-words that actually chinks in the degree requirement armor. Things like "MSCS preferred, or equivalent experience". Even when the ad says "BSCS required", it's negotiatble. I know of several non-degree people who managed to get hired despite some really strict wording of the degree requirement. Even companies who portray a degree-only image are often much different behind the scenes. My personal policy is to pass on the ads where they use keywords like "essential", "must have", "successful candidate will have", etc.
That said, there is no substitute for having the same skills that degreed people have and doing the job. In the long run, we are all evaluated against the same criteria.
You don't know the half of it, amigo...
I'm not allowed to work at a corporate-managed RadioShack ever again (I quit without notice).
Radio Shack pretends to care about its customers. It's evident from the way every meeting goes, all the way down to the store manager with his employees. The entire focus is on SELLING BIG-TICKET THINGS. If you're in here for batteries, I should offer you a cellular plan. Why? Because deep down, you want one, and you're just waiting for me to offer it to you. Their strategy for floor salesmen was "give them what they came in for, and then add as much as you can onto it." It doesn't matter if they need cellular service, if they have good enough credit to support it, whatever... sell it to them anyway!
Now, they're changing their pay scale as part of this revamping process, and making it so even less of the money goes to the people who sell things. Their new commission system is designed to screw the salesman 4 ways from Friday. I'm so glad I got out of there... I hated that job. Ugh.
Now, I don't even shop there. I'll find some little independent electronics retailer, or I'll find it online. Radio Shack isn't nearly what it used to be. They hire salespeople and try to make them knowledgeable instead of hiring knowledgeable people and making them into salesmen.
Everyone, do the world a favor... Take your money elsewhere.
Windows isn't the answer... it's the question. NO is the answer!
I personally have fired an MIT grad and opted to retain the community college grad, based on actual peformance, work ethic, and team mindedness.
In the end, tertiary education does not count for as much as some people think it does, especially in the business world. Tertiary education simply primes your for a certain kind of job. It does no actual on the job training. Sure, you got an 4.0 in your business degree, but can you actually sell product and make money?
Once you begin working, that is when your true worth becomes apparent.
May the Maths Be with you!
Do you also give fake address information when you buy DVDs online, then?
I'm not saying I agree with the practice of requiring customers to provide the info unnecessarily. However, I do find it ironic that we will refuse to give personal info to someone who we are looking at face-to-face, but give it happily to a nameless, faceless online "storefront".
Obviously, not everyone buys things online. But to those who do, quit being such hypocrites.