Case Study of Best Buy, Inc.
Best Buy’s History & Main Characters: Best Buy is Minneapolis-based and is North America's leading specialty retailer of consumer electronics, personal computers, entertainment software and appliances. Throughout Best Buy's 37-year history, the company has maintained the tradition of making life fun and easy for customers and employees, while providing a significant return to partners and investors. It has 80,000 employees and over 550 stores in the U.S., in addition to the brands Best Buy Canada, Future Shop and Magnolia Hi-Fi. Their leadership is led by Dick Schulze, Founder and Chairman, Brad Anderson, Vice Chairman and CEO, Al Lenzmeier, President and COO, and Darren Jackson, Executive Vice President of Finance and CFO. Chairman Dick Schulze founded Best Buy in 1966 with the Sound of Music, an audio component systems store in St. Paul, Minn. In 1973, Vice Chairman and CEO Brad Anderson joined Sound of Music as a salesperson. The company quickly expanded into video products and computers, was renamed Best Buy in 1983, and became a public company in 1985. Best Buy’s revenues for fiscal year 2003 were $20.9 billion and net earnings of $622 million. It was ranked number 91 on the Fortune 500 in 2003 (Bestbuy.com). Best Buy stores are redefining the way customers shop by offering an unparalleled assortment of affordable, easy-to-use entertainment and technology products and services available through its network of more than 550 retail stores in 48 states and online at BestBuy.com. Best Buy is scheduled to open 60 new stores in fiscal 2003 and is on track to have 650 stores by fiscal 2005. Magnolia Hi-Fi is a high-end electronics retailer specializing in audio and video solutions for homes, ...
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...e the three roles that make a good manager. I feel that my manager and the other managers performances include these being, technical skills, human skills, and conceptual skills which make up a good manager. Their roles as leaders include that they give us the “know how”, the personal relationship with trust and respect, and they have excellent conceptual skills to get us out of and through tight spots we might get into sometimes regarding meeting budget etc. (best buy.com).
Concluding, Best Buy has advanced and achieved so much since their beginning in 1966, and with the importance of its employees and managers being put first and into definitive roles, will only make the company go further on their road to success. I am excited to see what the future holds for Best Buys organizational behavior changes and advancements to keep current and on the cutting edge.
If we refer to products, people often take them as the things we get from suppliers with a price. Apparently, this is a definition from the perspective of exchanges and does not quite catch the essence of the meaning of product in the marketing discipline. In this regard, Rothschild (2009) offered a probably better definition for products as a bundle of benefits for customers. This definition also offers an important perspective for JB Hi-Fi to understand its products. Because after all, JB Hi-Fi is only a retailer and all its home theatre products are sourced from their manufacturers. If JB Hi-Fi only sees its products as the tangible parts, it may miss out the very important parts of the competition. However, if JB Hi-Fi sees the product as a bundle of benefits it can offer to its customers, the tangible part is only part of this bundle. There is much more for JB Hi-Fi to offer to improve the benefits to customers, and at the same time differentiate itself from its competitors.
In 1978, when two executives Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank received news they were fired from their jobs at Handy Dan Home Improvement Centers, they decided to take something negative and turn it into an opportunity. They put their experience and knowledge of the business and industry together and developed a business plan to create a chain of home-improvement warehouses. Their idea was to create a business which would be larger and more profitable than any of their competitors. So in 1979, one year after being fired, they acquired their funding and opened three stores in Atlanta which they branded with the name Home Depot. Today, Home Depot is the world’s largest home improvement chain and second-largest retailer after Wal-Mart, operating approximately 2,250 stores throughout the Americas (Parnell, 2014).
Another potential source of competitive advantage is Best Buy’s Geek Squad. While this has been a successful line of business for Best Buy, this too could become obsolete. Already an expensive part of Best Buy, Geek Squad costs would most likely increase if they wanted it to be more widely used. The likelihood of Best Buy overcoming this is arguably even less than its likelihood of competing with Amazon’s quick inventory - between 30 and 40%. With technology changing and a trend towards more user-friendly interfaces and products, consumers may not require the help of Geek Squad representatives to assist with their product, as they can figure out any issues on their own or by searching online for troubleshooting or product help blogs, customer reviews, etc.
Youdath illustrates some of Kmart’s management changes, Charles Conway wanted to turn Kmart into an “Everyday low price destination,” making Wal-Mart Stores a direct competitor. Conaway cut back on advertising and the results were not profitable. After an unprofitable holiday season in 2001 the company filed bankruptcy. In 2002, James Adamson hoped to improve customer service and restock the shelves within the Kmart Stores. While Kmart was taking time to recover from filing Chapter 11, its rivals like Wal-Mart and Target were stealing its customers. When Kmart was focusing on random in-store discounts, Wal-Mart and Target were pitching low prices, broad inventories, hip products, and a pleasant shopping experience (2002).
Best Buy's principal objectives, as a public company is to sustain growth and earnings. For this to continue to work, they have to be frequently review their business model to make sure that it is pleasing customer needs and desires as effectively and completely as possible. The company attempts to have not only wide-ranging product offerings but also exceedingly trained workers with broad product knowledge.
Managers have a multitude of formal responsibilities and are accountable for the actions of their employees. Managers must lead and direct an organization through manipulation and deployment of an organization?s resources. People in a management position are expected to carry out specific functions, jobs, and responsibilities; they must influence people, manipulate the environment, money, and time to achieve
The company had to be the second largest retailer shop in the US; it has many advantages that come along. The customers well acknowledge the company and its brand have been well established.
The eighties prompted change as well as the opening of Best Buy’s first superstore. During 1983, a new corporate name was approved and the Sound of Music Company became known as Best Buy Co., Inc. With mounting consumer support Best Buy continued its road to expansion by opening an additional five stores. In 1985, the newly named company was being publicly traded under the symbol BBY. The late eighties brought forth additional change for the continuously growing company. Best Buy adopted a new concept in retail merchandising with the opening of massive superstores. The new concept shifted the placing of all inventory on the sales floor and hiring a specialized staff of non-commissioned service representatives (FAQ). Such adaptations have fueled the company into progression and continued to promote the company’s corporate vision of “Making life fun and easy”(Fact Sheet).
Strategic human resource management involves the development of consistent and aligned practices, programs, and policies geared toward the achievement of an organization’s strategic objectives. It requires human resources (HR) managers to abandon the standard personnel management mindset and focus instead on strategic issues. These programs must be integrated into a larger framework that facilitates the organization’s overall mission and objectives (Mello, 2015). Nordstrom considers customer service to be at the core of the company’s culture (Spector & McCarthy, 2012) and sales is their service.
Best Buy, one of the biggest consumer electronics retailers in the world, provides products from smartphone, computers to large electronic appliances. It aims at offering a large variety of products with outstanding customer service at a comparably economical price. Yet, it has been facing internal and external challenges in the recent years. Bottom line and the share price are slightly catching up after a fall in 2013 but still barely satisfying the shareholders and customers are changing their purchasing habits which may threaten its future.
It is necessary for these managers to assure that their employees know what is expected of them. They also need to effectively communicate the company goals and strategies in addition to frequently giving feedback to their employees. Managers also need to have the confidence in their employees to allow them autonomy in their work roles.
Management is a very tough job in today’s world of ambiguity, uncertainty, stiff competition and threatening environment. You have to be mentally and physically very strong to cope up the challenges posed by the current business environment. Following are the most important management skills and qualities needed for a successful manager.
(Author). According to Oxford dictionary a manager is an individual viewed in terms of their ability in managing resources (Oxford Dictionaries | English, 2016) Managers need certain skills to become good managers, to be able to solve problems, good time management, and organization skills. Good managers are able to hold good relationships with their colleagues. Therefore, the company is managed well and progress making more profit. (Author)
function, managers need to analyse how activities and resources are to be grouped and carry out plans successfully (Bartol 2007). A manager have to understand their ability to manage the lower level employee which is the most valuable of the company as they are the key of output and implement in the planning. Then manager will coordinate the jobs between authority and responsibility that is to define the role position of them (MSG 2012).
Henry Mintzberg has defined the ten main managerial roles of manager as monitor, disseminator, spokesperson, figure head, leader, liaison, entrepreneur, disturbance handler, resource allocator and negotiator. He further categories them into Decisional, Informational and Interpersonal.