...Is Best Buy the Best? Is Best Buy the Best? Best Buy is one of the leading retailers in electronics and electronic services. With the growing popularity of online shopping, some retail stores are experiencing less physical business and more e-commerce. Best Buy has adapted to this trend and is still able to maintain many stores throughout the nation. The company simultaneously provides an easily navigated website to reach all of its client preferences. To maintain a structure as this, a company must have superior management and functionality. There are four basic fundamentals that encompass the management of a successful business such as Best Buy. The traditional functions are planning, organizing, leading, and controlling. These functions are affected by several external and internal factors such as globalization, technology, innovation, diversity, and ethics. Five Common Factors In 2010, Best Buy separated itself as a company into three divisions; the Americas, Asia and Europe. Each division was created with an executive vice-president running each area who would report to the Chief Executive Officer (Ernst & Young Global Limited). When the company planned this out, it created a self-paced region instead of the entire company proceeding as a whole. In other words, Asia can progress at a different pace then the Americas in all aspects. This plan enabled all regions and the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) to use their brains and ideas from clients to develop more efficient...
Words: 1359 - Pages: 6
...Ghoreishi Best Buy: Strategic Audit June 8, 2015 Current Performance: Best Buy’s historical advantage has always been pricing. However, now that other specialty electronics retailers have dropped out of the market with the fall of Tweeter and Circuit City, Best Buy now must compete with discount retailers such as Kmart, Wal-Mart, Target, Sam’s Club, Costco, as well as online retailers like Amazon. Consumers no longer have to go to Best Buy to purchase DVDs because buyers can get them through dozens of online sellers or stream them online via NetFlix or Amazon. You can buy a Blu-ray player or camera at a discount online. Televisions and appliances are the two products Best Buy sells that many people are less likely to purchase online because of their size and prohibitive shipping costs. If Best Buy wants to continue to be the number one seller of electronics and electronics related accessories such as games, DVD's, and electronic wiring, Best Buy needs to focus on shoring up television and appliance dominance to ensure sufficient foot traffic. Best Buy must also address the phenomenon of 'show rooming', which is the practice of shopping for merchandise in a brick-and-mortar store and later buying online at lower prices. In the past, Best Buy has provided only one week training sessions for new hires. However, as a first step to prevent show rooming, Best Buy will provide...
Words: 2914 - Pages: 12
...Best Buy MGT/521 - MANAGEMENT BUSINESS Description Best Buy or BBY is one of the leading developers of technology products and technology services. Best Buy is broken down into two segments; domestic and international, and works under a variety of names. In the domestic region there is Best Buy, Best Buy Mobile, Magnolia Audio Video, Pacific Sales, and Geek Squad. The international regions include; Canada, China, Mexico and Europe and use the brand names; Best Buy, Cell Shop, Best Buy Mobile, Five Star, Future Shop, Connect Pro, Geek Squad, The Carphone Warehouse, Geek Squad, and The Phone House. (Reuters, 2012) Best Buy stores currently make their money in six categories: • Consumer Electronics – Video products like TVs, DVD and Blu-ray players. Audio products like MP3 players, home theater audio systems and components, • Entertainment – Video games, DVDs, Blu-rays, CDs, and computer software, • Services – Installation from home theater and mobile audio, warranties, and repair, • Computing and Mobile Phones – Laptops, desktops, tablets, and printers, • Appliances – Major and small appliances, Other – Snacks and beverages History To understand the history of Best Buy, one would have to know the history of its founder, Richard M. Schulze. Mr. Schulze and a partner started Sound of Music, Inc. in 1966 with their first store in St. Paul, Minnesota. Four years later Schulze bought out his partner and decided to expand. His first step to expand came in 1982...
Words: 1069 - Pages: 5
...ADMIN 404 STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT Assignment one Best Buy Co. Inc : Sustainable Customer Centricity Model? Executive Summary Best Buy is a multinational retailer of consumer electronics. It operates as a retail store and online operations under several brand names in multiple countries, USA, Canada, Mexico, China and Europe. In Canada it operates under Future shop and Best buy names, offering in five revenue categories: Consumer electronics, Computing and Mobile phones, Entertainment, Services and other. Best buy’s mission is to become the leading multi-channel retailer by serving their customers and making a meaningful difference in their lives. Introduction and company overview Incorporated in Minnesota USA in 1966 as Sound of Music, Inc., Best Buy today is a multi-national, multi-channel retailer of technology products, including tablets, computers, televisions, mobile phones, large and small appliances, digital imaging and related accessories. It employs approximately 140,000 full-time, part-time and seasonal employees worldwide, it offers to its employees company-paid, full benefits that vary from location to location. Best buy’s success relies on the design and execution of appropriate business strategies. Best buy’s current strategy includes transformational change to many areas of business including online and in-store customer experience, employee-engagement, partnership with vendors and cost control, these strategies were adopted since 2012 as a result...
Words: 1411 - Pages: 6
...Best Buy Co., Inc. Sustainable Customer Centricity Model Case Study Analysis Amber Keita ADMIN404 November 16, 2013 Table of Contents Executive Summary 3 Introduction and Company Overview 4 Mandate 4 Core Purpose 4 Vision & Major Goals 5 Core Values & Guiding Principles 5 Stakeholder Analysis 6 External Analysis 7 Opportunities 7 Economies of Scale 7 Complementors 7 Global Expansion 8 Threats 8 The Internet 8 Big Competition 9 Government Regulation 9 Internal Analysis 10 Strengths 10 No Commission Sales 10 Customer Centricity Model 10 Broad Market Coverage 11 Multiple Product Lines 11 Weaknesses 12 High Debt – Low Cash 12 Pricing Pressures 12 Legal Issues 13 Short Product Life Cycles 13 References 14 Exhibits 15 Executive Summary Best Buy Co., Inc. is a leading retailer of consumer electronics in the U.S. and Canada with nearly 4,000 stores worldwide. Among the extensive range of products marketed, are mobile phones, televisions, gaming systems, appliances and computers, along with all of their components and accessories. The company pursues a differentiation strategy based on excellent customer service, no commission, highly informed sales staff, and a plethora of end-to-end services. Best Buy was started in 1966, and has acquired seven companies in the path of its growth, all of which either provide a complementary service and/or additional products for its customers. The external analysis identifies...
Words: 2770 - Pages: 12
...installation, cleaning, and home improvement. Richard W. Sears made his way into the retail industry by receiving a shipment of watches that was unwanted by a neighboring jeweler. He purchased and sold the watches Culture in business or corporate America is described as a blend of the values, beliefs, taboos, symbols, rituals and myths companies develop over time (http://www.entrepreneur.com/encyclopedia/term/82104.html). My definition of culture for organizations in business is what makes the business operate the way that it does and what strategies they use to reach their goals. Before Best Buy implemented the new plan called ROWE, the culture at Best Buy was like any other organization, come to work on a daily basis and repeat the same task over and over again. This caused a great deal of turnover within the company that needed a workable solution, because employees felt over worked, had no family time or job satisfaction, so this caused the production from the employees to be very low. Many companies operate under situations like this and do nothing to make employees feel valued and appreciated, but Best Buy decided it was time for a change. Best Buy was started back in the mid 1960’s and their culture took pride in...
Words: 1532 - Pages: 7
...BestBuy Case Study TROYFONTAINE MACON: M6marketing [2011] [Best Buy is considering reducing their current store sizes, and changing their operational infrastructure. This is a good idea, and a typical retrenchment strategy, but I believe there to be better alternatives. Executive Summary According to multiple media sources, Best Buy is considering reducing their current store sizes by 10%, and changing their operational infrastructure. This is a good idea, and a typical retrenchment strategy, but I believe there to be better alternatives. Implementing Subway restaurants inside of Best Buy‟s instead of reducing the size of Best Buy stores by 10% may have the same financial underlining but not the same market impact. Subway is a restaurant chain that has (1) Brand Recognition (2) Good Public Image “healthy”, “fresh”, “Inexpensive” (3) Strong Independent Advertising Campaigns (4) Profitability within a Growing Industry. Subway restaurants promote and advertise timely events such as movies, athletic events, months, holidays, etc. to go along with Subway‟s existing promotional deals such as the “$5 Footlong” sandwich deals. Subway creates daily incentives for customers and provides a multitude of product offerings that allow Subway not to get stagnant or predictable to consumers. “Take your pick; eat a sandwich on a budget and lay out $5 for a 12‟inch submarine, or eat a fresh, healthy one to train like Michael Phelps, lose tons of weight like Jared Fogle (Subway spokesman)...
Words: 6499 - Pages: 26
...Sears is a mid-range department store chain of America. It sells clothing, shoes, furniture, jewelry, books and so on. Sears story is about how Sears manage their business successfully. Sears success is based on its smart response to the changing market and its wise adjustments because of the need for expansion. One of the main achievements Sears made is that Sears invented mail-order plant for reaching its first target consumer group: the farmer. Mail-order method is still used by a lot of companies now and it is improved a lot. These companies have the warehouses locally, the orders will be automatically chosen from the warehouse that’s close to customers, which is very efficient. Another move I’d like to talk about Sears is the change of target consumer. In the mid-twenties, Sears switched its target focus from “only the farmer” to “both the farmer and city population”. The reason is that the low-income groups desired to buy the same goods as the middle and upper class. The country was becoming one big homogeneous market. And Sears noticed the trend and was aware of the consumer shopping habits, so they made changes accordingly. This strategy made me think of Starbucks in China. The consumer of Starbucks in America is almost for everyone, but in China, the target consumer is mostly for the wealthy upper and middle class. College students won’t pay 30 yuan for a cup of coffee because they can buy 6 bottles of CocaCola instead. Starbucks was really smart when they decided...
Words: 704 - Pages: 3
...BEST BUY [pic] [pic] Making Life Fun & Easy! [pic] Tiago Alves Andrew Bornstein Mae Brana Grace Tan Meredith Walters Table of Contents Business Summary 2 Vision Statement & Corporate Values 2 Rankings 2 Market Share 3 Stock Chart – 5 Year Performance 3 Financial Highlights 4 History 5 Key Executives 6 Strategy 7 Customer Centricity 7 Value-added Services Business 9 Supply Chain and IT Systems 9 New Store Openings 10 Mergers & Acquisitions 10 Employees 11 Key Competitors 12 5-Year Performance vs Key Competitors 13 Appendix 14 Business Summary Best Buy is a specialty retailer of consumer electronics, home-office products, entertainment software, appliances and related services in a superstore format. It operates retail stores and commercial Web sites in the U.S., Canada and China, under the brand names Best Buy (BestBuy.com and BestBuyCanada.ca), Future Shop (FutureShop.ca), Magnolia Audio Video (MagnoliaAV.com) and Geek Squad (GeekSquad.com and GeekSquad.ca). As of Feb 25 2006, Best Buy operated 742 Best Buy stores, 20 Magnolia Audio Video stores and 12 Geek Squad stores in the U.S.; and 118 Future Shop stores, 44 Best Buy stores and five Geek Squad stores in Canada. Best Buy operates two reportable segments: Domestic and International. The Domestic segment is comprised of all U.S. store and online operations, including Best Buy, Magnolia Audio Video and Geek Squad....
Words: 23684 - Pages: 95
...Hal Stinchfield, a 30-year veteran of the rebate business, calculates that some 400 million rebates are offered each year. Their total face value: $6 billion, he estimates. Office-products retailer Staples (SPLS) says it and its vendors alone pay $3.5 million in rebates each week. TAX ON THE DISORGANIZED. Why the rage for rebates? The industry's open secret is that fully 40% of all rebates never get redeemed because consumers fail to apply for them or their applications are rejected, estimates Peter S. Kastner, a director of consulting firm Vericours. That translates into more than $2 billion of extra revenue for retailers and their suppliers each year. What rebates do is get consumers to focus on the discounted price of a product, then buy it at full price. "The game is obviously that anything less than 100% redemption is free money," says Paula Rosenblum, director of retail research at consulting firm Aberdeen Group. The impact on a company's bottom line can be startling. Consider TiVo (TIVO). The company caught Wall Street off guard by sharply reducing its first-quarter loss to $857,000, from $9.1 million in the same period last year....
Words: 1927 - Pages: 8
...The culture of Best Buy, one of the leading electronic retail stores in America, embraces long work hours, sacrifice, and dedication to duty. The culture was so obvious that the company was said to give a plaque to an employee “who turns on the lights in the morning and turns them off at night”. There was also a story of a former Best Buy employee who stayed up for three days in a row and ended up in a hospital. This culture overworked Best Buy employees and lacked a balanced approach to work live. Best this culture by implementing a work program it referred to as Results-Only Work Environment (ROWE). The basic construct of ROWE is that employees can work when and where they like provided they get the work done. The primary rules of the ROWE program and culture require that employees do whatever they want, whenever they want, as long as the work is done. Hence some basic work requirements such as schedules, meetings, and in person services were considered optional. It was all about results and getting the work done no matter what it takes. ROWE started in 2003 and had been introduced to its 150,000 employees in retail stores as of 2009. The ROWE process started quietly and spread like wild fire. It made total flexibility available to everyone that wants it, improved employee morale, and eliminated meetings that were rather unnecessary, Above all, participation was voluntary and no one was forced into it. The early results ROWE in the first six to nine months of its introduction...
Words: 566 - Pages: 3
...Within this paper two companies will be discussed concerning their business decisions of diversification. The first company, Circuit City, was unsuccessful at broadening their business, and eventually had to shut down the business. The other company, Canon, was successful at broadening their brand and scope of the business. This paper will compare and contrast their businesses, outcomes and reasons for the differences. Circuit City was established by Samuel S. Wurtzel in 1949 as the Wards Co. that sold Televisions and home appliances. Over the course of time, it expanded into a national retail powerhouse that rebranded itself Circuit City in 1984. When the store was still operating, it was the “nation’s second-largest consumer electronic retailer” (Mui, 2008, p.D1). When it closed in January 16, 2009, it had 567 stores to close and 34,000 employees out of work. (Haynes, 2009, p.D1). In 2007, the company “posted nearly $320 million in losses, its second consecutive annual shortfall. (Mui, 2008, p.D.1) In 2008, the companies “most recent quarterly showed that it had assets of $3.4 billion with $2.3 billion in liabilities.” (Mui, 2008, p.D1). Circuit City did not have much of an international presence, but it did have stores in Canada which did not account for much of its business. In the economic downturn, “Circuit City neglected to improve its web presence, just as other on-line retailers like Amazon.com were hitting their stride” (Hamilton, 2008). The Circuit City...
Words: 2019 - Pages: 9
...Redesigning retail: Operating model imperatives for international retailers Deploying the right operating model can help international retailers drive profitable growth by balancing customer relevance and operational efficiency across diverse and dynamic markets. Today’s consumers are a formidable bunch. Armed with more information than ever thanks to technology, they shop anytime, anywhere and with anyone they choose. Moreover, choice, convenience and service mean just as much to them as price. Evolving customer demands are driving retailers to tailor their offerings, expand into new business segments and enhance customer touch points. At the same time, competition— always fierce in retail—is intensifying. Only the fittest or luckiest retailers have survived the global downturn, and investors are demanding ever better performance from them. Already-lean retailers are searching for new ways to achieve structural and operational efficiencies in a bid to outpace competitors. Furthermore, new players from other retail segments and industries are ramping up their retail presence. For example, big-name manufacturers including Apple, P&G and Nike are now bypassing traditional retailers and reaching consumers directly through multiple channels. Growing numbers of retailers are going international—and small wonder. Home markets are saturated, but markets near and far, particularly in emerging economies, still offer white space (see Figure 1). The world’s largest retailers are entering...
Words: 5309 - Pages: 22
...402 DESIGNING AND MANAGING THE SUPPLY CHAIN rlX\s '-----' E ~\C)I\ The Great Rebate Runaround Ah, the holiday shopping season: Santa Claus, reindeer-and rebate hell. Those annoying mail-in offers are everywhere these days. Shoppers hate col lecting all the paperwork, filling out the forms, and mailing it all in to claim their $10 or $100. But no matter how annoying rebates are for consumers, the country's retailers and manufacturers love them. From PC powerhouse Dell to national chains Circuit City and OfficeMax to the Listerine mouth wash sold at Rite Aid drugstores, rebates are prolifer ating. Nearly one-third of all computer gear is now sold with some form of rebate, along with more than 20% of digital cameras, camcorders, and LCD TVs, says market researcher NPD Group. Hal Stinchfield, a 30-year veteran of the rebate business, calculates that some 400 million rebates are offered each year. Their total face value: $6 billion, he estimates. Office-products retailer Staples says it and its vendors alone pay $3.5 million in rebates each week. TAX ON THE DISORGANIZED sees lower redemption rates during the Christmas shopping season, when consumers may be too dis tracted to file for rebates on time. Credit this bonanza for retailers and suppliers partly to human nature. Many consumers are just too lazy, forgetful, or busy to apply for rebates: Call it a tax on the disorganized. Others think the 50 cents, $50-or even $200---is just not worth the hassle of...
Words: 2052 - Pages: 9
...Best Buy disaster plan Christian Jones Qazi Ali CIS 359 May 25, 2012 Abstract Through this paper I and my partner will be discussing number of things about one of the biggest computer retail company in the United States of America. First is that we will provide some background information on the Best Buy company such as how it came about and how it has evolved from the past and to the present date. Basically we will give up a little bit of information on the owner as well as the company itself. In addition, we will also cover some of the problem that we face will developing this reasech paper. We will also cover some key points that we reasech or were told there disaster recovery plan. Also we provide solutions to their disaster recovery by point out some problems that they might face in the near future. We will also discussion how the plan will work in some cases and how it will not be as successful in other cases. Disaster Recovery for Best Buy A disaster is defined as an unexpected, unplanned catastrophic event that renders the Organizations ability to perform mission-critical and critical processes, including the ability to do normal production processing of systems that support critical business processes. A disaster could be the result of significant damage to a portion of the operations, a total loss of a facility, or the inability of the employees to access that facility. There were a lot of challenges that occurred during the development of this...
Words: 1979 - Pages: 8
