Hi! My name is Julian Richer and I’m the owner and Chairman of Richer Sounds. I’d like to welcome you to our StudentZone which has been specially created to help you with your investigations for your Business Studies award linked to your Heinemann student book for either GCSE Applied Business or BTEC First Diploma.

I opened my first Richer Sounds shop at London Bridge when I was 19. Today we have more than 50 shops all over England, as well as in Ireland. We are the leading specialist retailer of audio equipment and separates – such as DVD players, CD players and amplifiers.

We are a very successful company. Last year we sold £100 million worth of equipment. I like to think the main reason for this is our total commitment to our customers. We are keen to ensure all our products are good value for money and we always aim to give excellent customer service. This, of course, means employing staff who are eager to work hard to help us achieve these aims. However, at Richer Sounds, we also like to have fun! We think it is very important that all our staff enjoy working here and are well rewarded for their achievements. We employ nearly 400 "colleagues", as we prefer to call them, and in 2003 we were delighted when Richer Sounds was listed as being the top British-owned company in the official list of the UK’s 100 Best Companies to Work For.

As you investigate Richer Sounds in more detail through these pages you will learn more about the company. I thoroughly enjoy running the business and hope you will have fun finding out about us, too!

I also hope that applying everything you have learned to a real business will help you to understand more about how businesses operate – and help you to achieve a really good grade. Good luck with your course – and with your future career in business.

Go back to www.richersounds.com