Best Buy Co.

Inc: An Innovators Journey

Best buy identified its core customer base as techno-entertainment enthusiast. The typical customer was in the range of 29 to 39 year-old age range. World class retail stores made Best Buy a fun place to shop. The investment of significant time and money to build operations around customer friendly environments has ultimately built their brand and differentiated them in the eyes of the consumers. In June 2002 Anderson was made the CEO.

Vision of New CEO

Achieve sustained innovation for future growth.

Anderson has hired consulting firm Strategos to imbue the company with an improved innovative capability.This is a good move as they can make use of the experience of strategos as they have implemented many such models and also may help best buy to imbue the right strategy and implement in a short period of time. The six-month program of experimental learning (Innovation learning Journey- I Journey) yields new business ideas and also trains Best Buy employees as innovation coaches. However, this kind of learning is expensive and time consuming.The program requires 120% dedication from their employees. The case deals with the learning journey as experienced by Best Buy employees and raises the question of when such development programs are appropriate. Focuses on the learning process (Discovery, Synthesis and Implementation stages) and stimulates an environment about how people and organizations learn in general, as well as how an innovation capability can be fostered and the process to be followed.

Key Learnings
Addressing innovation from the perspective of senior management in various approaches towards creating and integrating a sustainable innovation capability, within a large organization and Also, the experiential learnings like creativity, Employee development and Innovation.