Steve Bendt

Best Buy has been forced like many companies to make tough decisions with the economic downturn.   Recently, a voluntary buyout was offered to all corporate employees.  On Jan 5th, employees had to decide whether Best Buy was the company they wanted to work for.  It was a tough week as people turned in their decisions.  Barry Judge, our Chief Marketing Officer blogged about his perspective on the package (read it here).  I think he wraps up most people’s feelings who decided to stay.

Gary Koelling and I decided to stay.  We did for a lot of reasons but one of the big ones for me, was the major transformation I feel like Best Buy is going through.  It feels like this is one of the major milestones that will define Best Buy’s future.  How we choose to organize to do work.  How we choose to talk to/with our customers.  How we choose everything now is different.  Its no longer business as usual and this isn’t a blip in the road.  

There are two things I believe in strongly.  The first is the leadership that decided to stay at Best Buy.  They treat people as humans.  They do the right thing.  And they know that the business model needs to change to address the evolutions in the market.

The second thing I believe in is that an Open, Social Approach is a key part of the evolution of the company.  It allows Best Buy to accomplish something few retailer or brands do- connect on a hyper-local level with customers.  What does that mean?  It means that each individual customer has unique needs, frustrations, dreams.  In the past, we’ve tried to find the common denominator and create segments to address those needs.  I believe the use of social technology allows us to have real conversations with each individual customer and find out what really matters to them- and then act on what we learn to help make what we know personal.

Open conversations help us learn much faster than we could on our own- to bring ideas inside that we may not have the perspective to develop on our own.  Open conversations keep us grounded in reality and the market, make us accountable, and opens the possibility to developing real human relationships with our customers- not ones defined by direct mail and email campaigns.

Open conversations let us share our stories, what we know, what we don’t know.  They let others see the values that are core to the company.

The presentation below is our attempt to tell others how we feel and the impact that we believe this type of work could inspire.  We’ve revised it slightly from a previous version.

As always- questions, comments, critiques are welcomed.