Huge and high-calibre

Sergio Giroldi kicked off the 5th Global DIY Summit at the beginning of June with something like a keynote speech. After all, he was speaking not just as the CEO of Obi, the market leader in Germany and number three in Europe, but also as the newly elected president of the European DIY Retail Association Edra.His message to the industry was ambivalent. It fluctuated between fear and a wake- up call, self-criticism and optimism. "Amazon will soon take over the market leadership" - not good news for the global DIY industry, that has known nothing other than growth in the last 50 years. The problem now: the industry - "the majority in this room" - belongs to the old generation. "For us it is really difficult not to continue being proud of what we have built."Amazon is unbeatable when it comes to selling goods and logistics. However, Amazon can only deal with products. What Amazon can't do is: customer advice services and projects. Giroldi sees the opportunity for the DIY stores here: because the young millennial generation have needs and desires, but are much less DIY- savvy than their parents and are looking for full flat solutions. Consequently, the new business model needs to be "a solution provider". This will also have an effect on the bricks and mortar stores. The old principle of "location, location, location" won't count in the future.Giroldi presented his theories to a huge, high calibre audience, the like of which, has never been seen before at a Global DIY Summit. The organisers from the Retail and Manufacturing Associations Edra/Ghin and Fediyma constantly break one record after another. In Berlin, the one thousand-participant barrier was broken, with just under a third coming from the retail sector.Just the sheer size was impressive, but also led to a certain lack of transparency. The event organisers constantly stressed the need for straightforward networking and promoted this just as actively and successfully - but the participant was left with the feeling that, well yes, they had actually come face to face with a great many contacts and maybe exchanged hellos but didn't really get the chance to launch into any deeper conversations. Giroldi's (self-) critical and somewhat worried tone, was also picked up by Michael Grampp from the Swiss consultancy company Deloitte. He described the current decision-making risks using the black swan symbol. The term refers to potential current risks, such as populism, the Trump administration, the…