...Best Buy Case Abstract In this case study of Best Buy in Crisis, by John Wells and Galen Danskin, Best Buy Company (which will subsequently be referred to as “Best Buy” or “BB”) is shown to be in a period of financial turmoil. Best Buy focused on consumer electronics in 1983 and experienced growth along the way, adapting its product offering and changing its big-box sales style, however, with changes in technology and the retail environment itself, Best Buy is experiencing a stagnation in sales. This report will review the case study and tactics of Best Buy, and in particular, the strengths of this electronics retailer as well as the threats that have emerged that endanger its financial well-being. From the information provided in this case, defensive and offensive plans of action will be suggested and analyzed in order for Best Buy to remain competitive in this industry. By utilizing both types of these recommendations, Best Buy will be able to lower its expenses, increase its revenues, and maintain its current market share as well as attracting new customers in order to achieve the growth the firm once saw. Issue at Hand In a changing electronics retail environment, how can Best Buy survive financially and remain profitable? Internal Recommendations One aspect of BB’s business that is doing well is the creation of Best Buy Mobile and the ability of consumers to choose between multiple carriers at a single location with an even lower priced subsidized...
Words: 1666 - Pages: 7
...3. Identify the prominent features of the company’s current business and functional strategies, and consider attack strategy from competitor. What would be Best buy strategy to retaliate? In the traditional retail sector, Best Buy has previously largely squeezed other electronics warehouse-superstores out of the business (or left them as a shell of their former self), with the exception of some regional retailers such as HH Gregg, or Fry’s Electronics. In addition to competing with these smaller chains, Best Buy continues to compete in the consumer electronics retail sector with companies such as Staples and Office Depot, which offer a small selection (compared to Best Buy) of competitively priced electronics and accessories. Other competitors, particularly in the areas of laptop computers and televisions, include retailers such as Costco and Wal-Mart (Funding Universe). However, all brick and mortar retailers are facing increasing pressures from online retailers, which given their comparably lower operating costs, can accept much lower profit margins on each item that they sell. Amazon is by far the most formidable player in this market, given that it has assembled a massive global network of highly automated warehouses, acquired successful online retailers like Zappos and Woot!, has struck deals with parcel carriers to offer 2-day and overnight shipping at very low prices, and cultivated a reputation for offering products at low prices with particularly lenient and understanding...
Words: 1204 - Pages: 5
...after the release of the iPhone the sales of the iPod lowered every year until the present time. The IPOD became a product that decreased in number because of the different growing features of the other apple products like the IPHONE and iPad. Right now the main problem of Apple is the decrease of popularity of the IPod products , because of the other products of Apple like the iPhones . Also there are also other brands that compete with apple like Samsung , Blackberry , and HTC , and many more. The iPod has fallen from its top rank falling down to the far bottom. Losing all its popularity. My recommendation for apple are to stop the production of iPods and focus on the iPhones , Another recommendation is to make the products in a lower price , and to make a better iPod product to outshine other company products , and last is to have a better market grasp. The first recommendation is based on the sales of the iPod because the sales of the iPod gradually decrease every year because of other gadgets that function better than it. Also apple already has its iPhones so what’s the point of selling iPods if there are iPhones that are far more better .Another thing this would be a advantage for apple because they wont pay more cost in manufacturing iPods also with the iPods on the stop of manufacturing the company can focus more on its other products , but the disadvantage of this is that they wont have various of products anymore , and also not have the iPods in...
Words: 1546 - Pages: 7
...capacity? Is a keyboard enough, or should I splurge for the touchpad/keyboard combo? Do you have any that aren’t this heavy? These are all question I heard from consumers who were looking to buy a new laptop. Laptops have become a necessity to many these days. With a technological world that is rapidly expanding, desktops have become out-of-date, and consumers are demanding laptops with grand capabilities fit into a small package. The vast amount of options out there give consumers a variety of options to choose from. Consumers demand different qualities from their laptop whether it is processing, durability, battery life, display, and a variety of other options. This paper will discuss the present displays being used in stores to promote the products, what consumers voice in terms of what they want in a laptop, and primarily what brands can do to further help their sales. For this specific paper, I will be looking at Dell as the targeted brand. Dell was once the dominant presence is the computer industry, but their market share is diminishing constantly. My goal in this research is to determine what Dell is doing wrong if anything, and what they can do with their brand and products to regain their lost market share. The first store I stopped out to see their laptop display was Best Buy. Best Buy is one of the leading electronic stores in the nation, and is on the market as one of the top retailers that consumers shop at for electronics. The clerks there are tech savvy, and are helpful...
Words: 4108 - Pages: 17
...Resources: Best Buy number one resource are their employees that have the skills and knowledge about what they sell. This makes them a service oriented company. They want to help customers realize the benefits of technology and technological changes so they could enrich their lives in a variety of ways through connectivity. p. (24-1) Capabilities: They have been very successful in a series of acquisitions. They have the ability to effectively determine where to expand. They have become a global company with acquisitions in Canada and China. They have many different markets with consumer electronics, Geek Squad Centers, Builders and Remodelers with Pacific Sales Kitchen and Bath Centers. Also acquired Speakeasy Inc. Provider of broadband, voice data and information technology services. Core Competencies: The company has the Centricity Model which was built abound a significant database of customer information, to construct a diversified portfolio of product offerings. They have also gained valuable experience in the process of integrating companies under the Best Buy family through acquisitions. And they have a talent of retaining their sales staff. Which are trained with the knowledge of all the equipment they sell. Finding of Facts #1: Available cash and long-term debt is not desirable. This is due to the acquisition of assets. (P.24-5) Recommendation: Best Buy should space out acquisitions so their available cash is not stretched so thin. It is great that...
Words: 459 - Pages: 2
... Matt Bridges Re: Case #4: Best Buy Inc., Dual Branding in China Date: December 2, 2013 The Situation: The situation presented was Best Buy Inc., the number one retailer of consumer electronics (CE) in the United States, had acquired ownership in the Chinese company Five Star, the third largest CE chain retailer in China. The problem occurring from this ownership of Five Star was the international expansion of Best Buy and how it would be handled while expanding into China. In 2002, Best Buy had acquired 100% ownership of the largest Canadian CE chain retailer, Future Shops, in their beginnings of international expansion. Senior vice president, John Noble, was at the head of the Best Buy International and steered the company to implement a dual-brand strategy in launching Best Buy into Canada. What this means by dual-branding was that even though the two retailer were owned and operated by the same mother company, they went into a head-to-head competition as separate entities of the single companies. This was the first of this strategy that Best Buy had ever implemented and it was deemed to fail because the company was not used to this type of operation. But within the first year of full competition between the two brands, upper management had seen this tactic become very successful. In the decision of how to approach this situation there was much controversy on how this would be handled. There was always the option of Best Buy to completely absorb the Future...
Words: 1534 - Pages: 7
...Best Buy & Security (SSL) Technology Keller Graduate School of Management Table of Contents Abstract. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . 3 Purpose of the report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Discussion of Current issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Recommendation for manager of IT and conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Bibliography. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Abstract Best buy Co., Inc is a fortune 100 company and the largest specialty retailer of customer electronics in the United States and Canada. The company’s corporate headquarter are located in Richfield, Minnesota, USA, establish on June 26, 2007. The company plans to operate more than 1,800 stores worldwide, including 1,400 Best buy stores in the US. Best buy sells consumer electronics as well as a wide variety of related merchandise for instance, computer, computer software, Video games and appliances (including washing machine, dyer...
Words: 1666 - Pages: 7
...1. Methodology 1.1 Impact of Buy and Sell Recommendations We examined the effect of Barrons’ buy, sell and hold recommendations on stock prices, using the Brown and Warner (1985) standard event-study method to compute the daily abnormal returns. We used a two-step procedure to compute the average daily abnormal returns with stock price data from CRSP. First, we estimated the alpha and beta coefficients of each firm by using a single-factor market model. We used the days from –301 to –46 as the estimation window for this purpose. Second, we computed the abnormal return by subtracting a firm’s expected daily return from its observed return. We calculated the cumulative abnormal returns by adding up the abnormal returns over the periods from days -30 to 0, days -5 to 0, days 0 to 1, days 0 to 5, and days 2 to 30, where day 0 represents the next trading day following the Saturday when the Barrons’ recommendation was published. These abnormal returns are estimated for buy, sell and hold recommendations. ------------------------------------------------- 1.2 Portfolio Performance In order to evaluate the average performance of recommendations published by Barrons we assembled a Barrons portfolio by equally weighting their recommendations for 374 days starting January 3, 2012 till June 28, 2013. We used two approaches to do this. First, we added a new security into the portfolio whenever there was a buy recommendation published for it in Barrons. The security remained in...
Words: 1337 - Pages: 6
...REPRINTS CALL 800-988-0886 OR 617-783-7500, OR VISIT HBR.ORG What Makes Analysts Say “Buy”? all Street analysts’ recommendations can move markets. But even though leaders of public companies spend significant amounts of time interacting with this constituency, there’s little information about how analysts arrive at their recommendations. What factors most influence their thinking? We set out to answer that question through a global study of analyst forecasts and stock performance over two consecutive years in the mid-2000s. We surveyed nearly 1,000 analysts in Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the U.S., asking them to rate almost 1,000 large companies on 12 factors, FINANCE by Boris Groysberg, Paul Healy, Nitin Nohria, and George Serafeim W using a scale of one to five, and to forecast revenue growth, earnings growth, and gross margin on the basis of those ratings. We also estimated how important each factor was to their ultimate recommendations. The strongest determinant of a buy or sell recommendation, we learned, is projected industry growth, followed by the quality of the top management team. Analysts in different regions often weighed factors quite differently, though. For example, having a clear, well-communicated strategy was of “very high” importance to analysts in Europe but of “low” importance to those in other regions. One of the most FACTORS THAT DRIVE BUY RECOMMENDATIONS CLEAR, WELL-COMMUNICATED STRATEGY ABILITY TO EXECUTE STRATEGY GOVERNANCE STRENGTH QUALITY...
Words: 586 - Pages: 3
...THE EMERGENCE OF TECHNOLOGY AND ITS ADVANTAGE TO BEST BUY COMPANY INC. Course project on; Managerial applications of information technology -IS535 Devry University, Keller graduate school of management. June 2013 Table of Contents Abstract Company Background Discussion of Business problem High Level Solution Approach Business and Technical Approach Benefits of Solving the Problem Conclusion and Recommendations References THE EMERGENCE OF TECHNOLOGY AND ITS ADVANTAGE TO BEST BUY COMPANY INC Abstract Many companies have been struggling recently due to the shift and the constant increase of online marketing and sales. The internet has created an entire new market. This has posed serious problems to Best Buy company Inc., as it profit and revenue seems to be on the down turn .In 2013 fiscal second quarter, Domestic comparable stores sales saw a 1.6 percent...
Words: 2940 - Pages: 12
...balance. Alan Wurtzel who is the son of Circuit City founder Sam Wurtzel outlined in his book “Good to Great to Gone” that he believe the CEOs that preceded him did a poor job with adjusting to change. Best buy on the other hand has faced the same issues in the market and still came up on top because their leadership, though ever changing, had kept the same syntax for the leadership model. They did not try and change the makeup of the company and were better able to cope with the external factors of change because of that. The purpose of both the companies is the same; to sell electronic goods to the customer. Best Buy and Circuit City were ranked 2nd and 3rd biggest big box retailers in the US for electronic goods with Wal-Mart being number 1. Both Best Buy and Circuit City also were in the service sector as well since they provided installation, troubleshooting, and repair services. The structure for Circuit City was very hierarchical. For example from personal opinion I remember when I use to go to Circuit City and ask for something in particular, the representative would point me in the direction of another representative that was supposed to be in charge of the area, even if that person was already fielding questions and concerns from other patrons. At Best Buy when a representative doesn’t know the details because they are from another section of the store they wait with you and make sure that someone who knows what they are talking about gets to you. If everyone...
Words: 1011 - Pages: 5
...to examine differences between professional portfolio managers to amateur investors in their approach towards technical and fundamental analysis. Second, we want to study the difference of use of fundamental and technical tools in the buying versus selling stocks. We used online survey in one of the leading business portals in addition to asking professional investors in a leading investment house in Israel. Our results show no significant difference between professional and non-professional investors in terms of how frequently they use fundamental and technical investment tools. Both groups of investors use more frequently fundamental tools than technical when they make buy/sell decisions. We also found that non-professional investors use more fundamental tools such as "analysts' recommendations" when they buy stocks and more technical tools such as "support and resistance lines" when they sell stocks. Moreover, our study Economics and Management Department, The Max Stern Academic College of Emek Yezreel, Emek Yezreel 19300, Israel, e-mail: gilc@yvc.ac.il 2 Economics and Management Department, The Max Stern Academic College of Emek Yezreel, Emek Yezreel 19300, Israel, e-mail: Kudryavtsev: andreyk@yvc.ac.il 3 Economics and Management Department, The Max Stern Academic College of Emek Yezreel, Emek Yezreel 19300, Israel, e-mail: shlomith@yvc.ac.il....
Words: 1882 - Pages: 8
...Best Buy Strategic Initiative Fin/370 November 19, 2013 Nicole Church Best Buy Strategic Initiative For every company to grow and survive in the long run, they must have a strategic plan of where the company is and where they want it to go. It is of the utmost importance for top management and the board of directors to ascertain a strategic game plan for the organization. This will serve as an outline specifically identifying the precise steps they are going to take to meet their agenda. Major companies, such as Best Buy, will outline this in their annual report to shareholders. A major component of this is the financial planning on how costs and sales will be affected and the risk associated with their decisions. Best Buy is the world’s largest multi-channel consumer electronics retailer with stores in the U.S., Canada, China and Mexico and is the 10th largest online retailer in the U.S. and Canada. Its unique customer loyalty program has earned it the recognition of being number one and more than 1.6 billion visitors use its website and visit the stores each year. Its 145,000-plus employees are committed to helping deliver the technology solutions that provide product value and knowledge to customers, further enhancing the overall shopping experience as well as promoting new technology that is educational, enjoyable, and useful in the daily lives of the public. On April 30, 2013, Best Buy announced plans to sell its 50% ownership interest in Best Buy Europe...
Words: 1499 - Pages: 6
...Technology & Information Management Individual Assignment Technology & Information Management Individual Assignment Introduction Furntown is in the business of furniture manufacturing and sales. The organisation is currently considering implementing a mobile application for customers. With this new software application problem comes the question on whether to build or buy. The acquisition decision is a difficult one due to many competing interests and the different factors that affect the decision. This report aims to highlight the differences between the build and buy decision by providing an outline of the advantages and disadvantages which are inherent of each and finally deliver a recommendation for the course of action that will be best for Furntown. The organization choosing the build or buy criteria would make such a choice depending on the size of the business, the complexity of its structure, the demands of its service and how its rendered. Applications differ in use according to how they are built to suit the organizations catered for. Small organizations usually use standardized commercially built software as they work efficiently for their model whereas bigger and more developed ones need specific software uniquely made for them to cater for the complex and more demanding models they serve. A budget of any organization also forms a fundamental basis from which this choice can be made. Buying an Application from commercial vendors is more cost effective...
Words: 1923 - Pages: 8
...problems in 1993 that made the history books for adverse pricing strategies. Sandy Bloomberg formed the company in 1972 and the company faired well in the 1970’s and 1980’s. It grew to 13 stores when they implemented the Automatic Price Protection pricing strategy. This strategy nearly drove the company into bankruptcy. The company still faces unremitting problems which this paper will address. This is our proposal as RU Consulting, L.L.C. First, we will examine how the company evolved. Second, an analysis of the company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and their threats will be considered and an analysis of their corporate strategies will be given. Third, we have included our solutions and recommendations for this company. Last, we would like to give our recommendation to you as the stockholder on what you should do with the stock you are holding. Tweeter started out as a small retailer of high-end audio/video equipment right outside of Boston University. This store was a success and soon expanded into 13 stores through out New England. [1] It began to get a reputation for its excellent service and quality products and sales soared. However, in the late 1980’s, the bottom fell out of the electronic market and caused two things: price wars with local competition; and Tweeter then joined the Progressive Retailers Organization, in 1988. This organization combined the buying power of small high-end consumer electronic retailers across the United States which allowed...
Words: 2256 - Pages: 10
