Paul Callow talks about his career and life as CEO of Cartridge World UK.
Retail Gazette interviewed Cartridge World UK CEO and asked him about his background before working for the franchise. Callow revealed that he had started out with Haagen-Dazs and L L’Oréal and later joined Lexmark’s retail team. He also spent some time working for Brother before returning to Lexmark and then set up his own company in business development.
Callow said that he became “involved with the Cartridge World business while working on a project for a coffee company” and that this led to his business partner and himself “taking over the master franchise rights for the UK and Ireland, shortly followed by France, Spain and Portugal”. Having always been involved in retail the CEO said that “a franchised retail business such as Cartridge World” was a challenging role and that “in the UK the prominence of online creates additional challenges and opportunities” and that his challenge has been “been to create a retail environment which business customers feel comfortable in but without alienating home users and students.”
Asked to describe his responsibilities as CEO Callow responded: “Most importantly, my responsibility is to ensure that the franchisees who have invested to join our network receive value for money and support. This way they can effectively develop their businesses using our brand. We have staff in Marlow, Harrogate, and Paris, with teams that operate across regions rather than just locally. Of course, we work with a range of manufacturers, distributors and wholesalers, and I have a responsibility to deliver good value and ensure their products and services are represented properly.
“Finally, working with my colleagues, I am responsible for developing new solutions and offers enabling customers to save money and deliver revenue opportunities for our franchisees.”
Asked how his previous experience has helped his current position Callow said: “Certainly, 12 years working for printer manufacturers has provided great insight and understanding as to what can be done to deliver value and savings to customers.”
Retail Gazette asked what he attributed Cartridge World’s success to and Callow replied that it was down to “offering genuine value and choice” as well as the franchisees caring about the brand, “their businesses and most importantly our customers.”
Callow said the most challenging part of his job was “getting the franchise store owners to move together as one unit,” and that the company offers many solutions “if each franchisee were to take full advantage we might see a giant leap forward in business growth. That would mean many more customers benefitting from what we offer.”
The CEO said that the most rewarding part of his job was seeing customers save money and watching Franchisees “making a lot of money”. He said that future projects include working on “the new showroom format store” to improve the overall appearance of stores. “The current brand image doesn’t fairly reflect the value they can offer customers, particularly business customers that print a lot.”
Callow said those wanting to embark on a career in retail should realise “It’s all about quality sales and genuine customer care – the two go hand in hand.”
Asked what the biggest risk was for the retail sector Callow was only positive and said: “We tend not to focus on risks and spend more time considering opportunities, listening to customers, and, creating new solutions to help people save money.”