Best Buy's Problems
Best Buy Co. Inc
1. After Anderson took over Best Buy in 2002, he pursued four pivotal strategic initiatives, what prompted him to do so – his rationale?
After Brad Anderson became the CEO of Best Buy in 2002 his team of executives came up with and emphasized four main central strategic initiatives, which are customer-centricity, promoting an efficient enterprise, win with providing the best service, and win in entertainment. As we all know, customer-centricity being by far the most important initiative. One major reason that prompted Brad Anderson and Best Buy to come up with these strategic initiatives was the main threat of imitation by competitors for example the emergence of Wal-Mart, Target as mass merchandisers/wholesalers and other forms of retail such as Amazon (online retailers). In the past, most of Best Buy’s competition focused on customers whose main concern is pricing, without providing anything extra such as advice, support and services. However as the competition began to emulate or imitate Best Buy’s strategy/business model by delving into the higher-end consumer domain (electronics) which is of course Best Buy’s bread n’ butter, Brad Anderson and his team of executives had to come up with a new way to do business by focusing on customer-centricity instead of just focusing on the product (or the selling of it) itself. For example Wal-Mart is poaching or headhunting talented Best Buy salespeople or their rising stars by offering them better benefits which will in turn cause a high turnover rate of Best Buy staff and hinder their sales force and development program.
Another reason, which is also vital and in turn prompted change in Best Buy’s strategic initiative is the key concept that the environment or the world we live in as well as the people/customer will continually change. One who understands this concept will ultimately grasp the fact that people’s needs are constantly evolving and changing over time. For example as mentioned
1. After Anderson took over Best Buy in 2002, he pursued four pivotal strategic initiatives, what prompted him to do so – his rationale?
After Brad Anderson became the CEO of Best Buy in 2002 his team of executives came up with and emphasized four main central strategic initiatives, which are customer-centricity, promoting an efficient enterprise, win with providing the best service, and win in entertainment. As we all know, customer-centricity being by far the most important initiative. One major reason that prompted Brad Anderson and Best Buy to come up with these strategic initiatives was the main threat of imitation by competitors for example the emergence of Wal-Mart, Target as mass merchandisers/wholesalers and other forms of retail such as Amazon (online retailers). In the past, most of Best Buy’s competition focused on customers whose main concern is pricing, without providing anything extra such as advice, support and services. However as the competition began to emulate or imitate Best Buy’s strategy/business model by delving into the higher-end consumer domain (electronics) which is of course Best Buy’s bread n’ butter, Brad Anderson and his team of executives had to come up with a new way to do business by focusing on customer-centricity instead of just focusing on the product (or the selling of it) itself. For example Wal-Mart is poaching or headhunting talented Best Buy salespeople or their rising stars by offering them better benefits which will in turn cause a high turnover rate of Best Buy staff and hinder their sales force and development program.
Another reason, which is also vital and in turn prompted change in Best Buy’s strategic initiative is the key concept that the environment or the world we live in as well as the people/customer will continually change. One who understands this concept will ultimately grasp the fact that people’s needs are constantly evolving and changing over time. For example as mentioned