Quickfire: a month after taking over as head of music for HMV, Gary Rolfe discusses the challenges as the retailer responds to changes on the high street.(Forum)(Interview)

So, you are a few months in now, how are you enjoying the new job?

If you have wanted to do a job for a while and get the chance, it is exciting and terrifying in different degrees. It is a big challenge. On a purely market level, there has not been more change in the industry from a retail perspective than in the past six months--things change almost on a daily basis with the growth of the internet and digital. I have been in the head office for 11 years--I look back at the last six months and the amount of change is unimaginable. But the market is still buoyant, it is just a challenge of moving HMV forward.

How will you do that?

We need to have the most compelling offer on the high street. It's as simple as that. In most towns we have the widest range, but maybe we need to try and improve what we do. Looking forward, it's a question of "can we develop as compelling a digital offer in our stores as we do physically?" Our greatest assets are our stores. Is there a way that we can get people in smaller locations going into our stores and using the internet? It is the store-to-door philosophy.

Obviously it is hard on the high street at the moment--how will HMV continue to prosper?

It is all about the offer that we have in any one of our stores. We should look to have the best offer in that location. There are these people who are specialist music buyers, who will always come to our stores. There are things that we have that others don't, for example the Playlist CDs, the HMV Choice magazine, HMV's classical label, offers that other people don't replicate. We just need to build on that.

With supermarkets selling music so cheaply, why should people continue to go to HMV?