Although the retail stores were important in the initial phase of the 
company, they were losing money at a time that Cyberplay could least 
afford it. I would have closed both stores instead of allowing one to 
continue. After the deal with Computer City fell through and CompUSA 
took over, it should have been clear to Mr. Shamrock that relying on 
another company to provide a retail training center would not allow him 
the control that he desired, but they did not have the capital to build 
retail spaces with the same level of design of the original Cyberplay 
stores. However, the creativity and design of a consumer-oriented retail 
space was no longer an advantage for the new business that Cyberplay was 
engaged in - that of a corporate trainer. One reason Cyberplay was 
successful in the training business was because they had shortened 
training sessions to only three hours on average to make it more 
convienent for customers to attend. It seems that a retail operation 
would be an inconvienance compared to an on-site trainer. In addition 
to closing the stores I would have let Ron Young, the store designer, go 
in order to help close the difference between income and expenses.

Instead of store design, Cyberplay should have focused on what they 
considered to be their competitive advantage, hiring the best trainers 
that they could find. A good trainer would get his message across 
whether he was in a nice retail space or on-site with a client.

While hiring talented trainers was an important part of Cyberplay's 
strategey, one of the most important goals for 1999 was to get the 
income of the company up and the expenses down so that