1. Provide an overview of Best Buy and use the framework provided in Figure 1.

1 to help
identify the key elements of Best Buy's strategy.

Answer: BestBuy is the largest multi-channel e-commerce retailer in the U.S market. Now the
company is operating in areas other than U.S like, Europe, Canada, China and Mexico (BestBuy,
2013). This organization is the one of the consumer concentric organizations of the U.S industry
( Rogers & Peppers , 2005). BestBuy is the10th largest retailing brand in both Americana and
Canadian market. The company uses the concept of the customer Centricity in their operations.
The customer loyalty is the main factor of the success of this organization, and BestBuy is one
of those organizations that enjoy a high degree of customer loyalty in their business. It is due to
the high class customer satisfaction in the operations of the company that almost 1.6billion
visitors take the visit of the stores and the websites of the company every year (BestBuy, 2013).
In the success of BestBuy, human resource of the company play an pivotal role, and the culture
of the employee satisfaction along with employee involvement helps the employees of this
organization to provide a better technology solutions to their customers, and increased their
value regarding to the company. The company stars its life in 90’s and from the beginning the
company situation in them market is not so compelling that it enjoys in the current age. The
company often charged to bankruptcy at one occasion in its life, but with the start of the new
century the company changes its culture, its view point and its strategies regarding to the
conduct of the business and now enjoys a favorable condition in the market.

In an organization, the importance of strategy can be understood from the fact that the
company cannot perform its operation successfully without any strategy. In BestBuy, the
importance of strategy will be same. This organization defines a strategy for the successful
conduct of the business. The successive story of the business strategy of BestBuy has some
chapters known as key points of the strategy. These points are the strength of the strategy and
collectively and individually results in a success of operations of this organization. These key
points are:

 Emphasize on services: emphasizing on services became one of the key feature of the
strategy of the BestBuy. This ensures the focus on the services and products offered by the
company and continuously improve it. We can also say it as a source of continual
improvement in the business process of BestBuy (KEY ELEMENTS OF BEST BUY’S STRATEGY,
2011).
 Consumer preference: it is another crucial chapter in the strategy of the BestBuy. BestBuy
always focus on the customer needs and take measures to increase the satisfaction along
with value of the customers. The company shifts its importance continuously towards
 increasing the customer satisfaction, and the recent strategy of the consumer Centricity is
evidence of this approach of the company (Gulati , 2010).
 Focus on growth: Along with the customer satisfaction and the service preference, the
business strategy of best buy also focus on the growth of the company, because it is
another crucial aspect for increasing the market share that helps this organization to
understand the needs of customer and serve them effectively in different areas of the
world.
 Market segregation and proactive behavior: the BestBuy business strategy also defines the
whole market into two classes known as domestic and international market, and uses the
proactive behavior to find out the changing arises in trends and design proactive measures
to tackle with them without affecting the market share. This approach helps the company
to eliminate the chances off market myopia and helps the company for effective planning
after understanding the upcoming problems and designs measures to welcome the problem
with successive solutions (BestBuy, FORM 10-K, 2013).

According to the Figure 1.1, the identification of the business strategy of BestBuy, the most
revealing concepts regarding to the business strategy of the company defines that what to look
for and what is the aim of the company strategy. In this analysis of the BestBuy, it is found that
the company strategy is focusing on two main concepts, and that are what to look for and how
to do that (Slide Share, 2008). What to look for defines the position of the company in the
market, what changes in the trends are, and what innovations are of most importance in the
solution of the problem. This will helps Best buy to understand the current problems along with
the future upcoming problems as results of changes trends in the markets. After the
identification of the problems, the second approach of the strategy regarding how to do
enables BestBuy to identify the challenges associated with the solutions of the problem. For
example, technological, financial and managerial issues associated with the solutions and help
BestBuy for designing most probable and the effective solution after considering every area of
the organization.

Q: Address what approach toward winning a competitive advantage does Best Buy seem to
be pursuing?

Answer: The attainment and sustainment of the competitive advantage became a goal of every
organization. Organizations take the help of strategic planning or strategic formation to achieve
this goal. Competitive advantage gains utmost importance because it defines an organization
what to do and how to do. Like any other organizations, the concept of competitive advantage
is of immense importance for the BestBuy, and the organization uses the generic model for
accessing and justifies the need of the competitive organization. These generic strategies define
the goal of the cost leadership of the BestBuy in the market. The purpose of the selection of
this strategy for the achievement of the competitive advantage by BestBuy is to strengthen its
control over the suppliers and provides high quality products to consumers at an affordable
price (Esquivel, et al., 2010).

Like Ikea, the Best Buy also focus on the consciousness of the value of their respected
customers for winning the competitive advantage ( jalmeida, 2012). BestBuy is performing in
the retail market, where it has to face a direct competition from the largest market leader
“Wal-Mart”. The successive story of the company is based upon the value and the satisfaction
of customers in the products of the company. BestBuy in this strict competition with the market
leaders makes a difference in the market by effectively and efficiently responding to the
customers and time to time design strategies for increasing satisfaction of the customers.
BestBuy along with satisfaction of the customers focus on the growth of the company, and also
focuses on the increase in product offering to gain the successive competitive advantage in the
market.

Q: What Makes a Strategy a Winner?

1. Three questions can be used to test the merits of one strategy versus another and
distinguish a winning strategy from a losing or mediocre strategy:
a. How well does the strategy fit the company’s situation?
Answer: in order to get the answer of this question, a strategy must be fitted with the
organization situation and competitive conditions and defines one step forward for the
achievement of the goals of the company. For example; BestBuy made strategy increase
the market share by increasing the satisfaction of the customers, and define their
situation of competition in the market. The best fitted strategy according to the
organizational situation provides best opportunities to the organization to compete and
also helps in the identification of the other aspects of the external environment. If we
look at the example of the BestBuy, then our concept regarding to this question will be
cleared, because the strategy used by a company defines the conditions of competition
in the market and defines the way for the achievement of competitive advantage.
b. Is the strategy helping the company achieve a sustainable competitive advantage ?
Answer: yes, surely the strategy of the company helps in the achievement of a
sustainable competitive advantage. A sustainable competitive advantage requires
different attributes from a side of organization that helps it to outperform the
competitors from the market (Boundless, 2013). Organization design policies in different
areas like customer loyalty, cost structure and the value chain process to make a
difference between the competitors and outperforms them form the market. This is
only possible due to the formation of strategy because the strategy helps the
organization in making a long term plan to create a difference in the market and
 outperform competitors from the market, and results in the achievement of sustainable
competitive advantage.
c. Is the strategy resulting in better company performance?
Answer: The performance of the company can be future subdivided in to financial
performance and the market performance. The effectiveness in both of these types of
performance of a company can be achieved effectively through the better planning and
strategy formation. Strategic planning of the company defines the learning of the
company regarding to the solution of the problem, and when strategies are made
regarding to the achievement of the competitive advantage, they can also effect on the
financial and market health of the company.
Bibliography
jalmeida. (2012, August). The Quest for a Competitive Advantage. Retrieved from
http://www.studymode.com/: http://www.studymode.com/essays/The-Quest-For-A-
Competitive-Advantage-1060862.html

Rogers, M., & Peppers , D. (2005, July 01). Best Buy Counts Customers. Retrieved from
http://www.cio.com/: http://www.cio.com/article/8094/Best_Buy_Counts_Customers

KEY ELEMENTS OF BEST BUY’S STRATEGY. (2011, May 26). Retrieved from
http://dineshperspective.blogspot.com/: http://dineshperspective.blogspot.com/2011/05/key-
elements-of-best-buys-strategy.html

BestBuy. (2013). FORM 10-K. South Richfield.

BestBuy. (2013). Investor relations. Retrieved from http://phx.corporate-ir.net/: http://phx.corporate-

ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=83192&p=IROL-IRhome

Boundless. (2013). Sustainable Competitive Advantage. Retrieved from www.boundless.com:

https://www.boundless.com/marketing/marketing-strategies-planning/strategic-planning-
process/sustainable-competitive-advantage--9/

Esquivel, M., payne, R., Nguyen, A., Brocious, A., Fang, X., hall, S., & Rogers, K. (2010, April 21). BestBuy.
Retrieved from www.prezi.com: http://prezi.com/wjncvsjvb8ay/bestbuy/

Gulati , R. (2010, April 12). Inside Best Buy's Customer-Centric Strategy. Retrieved from
http://blogs.hbr.org/: http://blogs.hbr.org/hbsfaculty/2010/04/inside-best-buys-customer-
cent.html

Slide Share. (2008, October 18). Best Buy International Strategic Update. Retrieved from
www.slideshare.net: http://www.slideshare.net/finance7/best-buy-international-strategic-
update