Unfortunately, "inevitable demise" is often more economically-rational than "outside-the-box pivots," especially when talking about an organization the size of RadioShack Corp. The cost to pivot some 5,000 stores into an unproven, capital-intensive market that would require high-skill, high-cost employees would be far beyond the company's reach, especially since RS is totally beholden to its lenders for any kind of strategic change (they nixed plans to shut down some 20% of their stores, for example, since the cost to get out of those stores was higher than the lenders were willing to bear). Instead, the most likely scenario is a fast bankruptcy followed by a faster closing of stores -- or a total liquidation of assets, in the worst-case scenario.
I call this the "Blockbuster Paradox" -- the idea that a corporation with a large investment in assets, employees and contracts is often locked into an unsustainable path by virtue of past successes. Just as Blockbuster wasn't financially capable of disrupting its own business model, so too is RS incapable of a major pivot like the one you describe. After all, the maker market is a tiny fraction of the market for cellphones and personal electronics, and the company's structure and finances are based on the higher revenue expectations. (The company needs a minimum of $800m in revenue per quarter just to break even.) RadioShack, with only about $30m of cash on hand, would die of asphyxiation long before it could ever become the kind of large-scale TechShop you describe.
Having said that, I would absolutely agree that RadioShack and the maker community have great mutual potential, just not on a large scale. RS could create a small number of flagship stores offering equipment, access and expertise, as a rebranding of the company back into a more technically-oriented market. (It can be argued that a central RadioShack makerspace could provide ongoing sales and marketing support for smaller, retail-oriented satellite locations.) But RS will need both a new strategy that can keep them around $4b in revenue per year, and a set of new investors that are willing to believe in them. That's a very hard row to hoe.
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Unfortunately, "inevitable demise" is often more economically-rational than "outside-the-box pivots," especially when talking about an organization the size of RadioShack Corp. The cost to pivot some 5,000 stores into an unproven, capital-intensive market that would require high-skill, high-cost employees would be far beyond the company's reach, especially since RS is totally beholden to its lenders for any kind of strategic change (they nixed plans to shut down some 20% of their stores, for example, since the cost to get out of those stores was higher than the lenders were willing to bear). Instead, the most likely scenario is a fast bankruptcy followed by a faster closing of stores -- or a total liquidation of assets, in the worst-case scenario.
I call this the "Blockbuster Paradox" -- the idea that a corporation with a large investment in assets, employees and contracts is often locked into an unsustainable path by virtue of past successes. Just as Blockbuster wasn't financially capable of disrupting its own business model, so too is RS incapable of a major pivot like the one you describe. After all, the maker market is a tiny fraction of the market for cellphones and personal electronics, and the company's structure and finances are based on the higher revenue expectations. (The company needs a minimum of $800m in revenue per quarter just to break even.) RadioShack, with only about $30m of cash on hand, would die of asphyxiation long before it could ever become the kind of large-scale TechShop you describe.
Having said that, I would absolutely agree that RadioShack and the maker community have great mutual potential, just not on a large scale. RS could create a small number of flagship stores offering equipment, access and expertise, as a rebranding of the company back into a more technically-oriented market. (It can be argued that a central RadioShack makerspace could provide ongoing sales and marketing support for smaller, retail-oriented satellite locations.) But RS will need both a new strategy that can keep them around $4b in revenue per year, and a set of new investors that are willing to believe in them. That's a very hard row to hoe.