Charles Dunston, the boss of Carphone Warehouse, said recently that to him consistency is very important.

"For ten years we have stood for doing the best for the customer. Each year we do a staff attitudes survey and 80% always say that the main reason they like working for Carphone Warehouse is that the brief is always to do the best for the customer, rather than pushing a particular product.

"When we started with £6000 in a rented flat ten years ago the key to attracting customers was to 'do more for them.' We should not be Number 1 in the business now because we came from nowhere.

"Our success is a condemnation of others who had a head start. Presumably they failed with customers because they got hung up on internal affairs, as big organisations often do.

"In Carphone Warehouse it's frontliners who matter – that's the people in the stores and me. The rest are oxygen thieves. They become bureaucratic and stop things growing."