In March 2015, Sebastian James, the former chief executive of Dixons Carphone, predicted that the rise of connected devices (the internet of things) would cause an “asteroid strike” for some retailers.
James had spent 12 months completing the £3.7 billion merger between Dixons Retail and Carphone Warehouse in an attempt to ready his business for the IoT revolution. “This new shift — just 15 years after the last [the internet] — is going to bump off as many retailers as the last one,” he told a retail conference.
Little was he to know that, five years later, Dixons Carphone was to slash almost 3,000 jobs and close all 531 of its standalone Carphone Warehouse stores. The company had been hit with its own asteroid. It