Dunn’s interim successor, Mike Mikan, was responsible for hiring Matthew Furman as the company’s Senior Vice President of Communications and Public Arrairs in June 2012. Furman previously served as the Vice President of Corporate Affairs at Mars Chocolate, and had also worked in various communications positions for Google, ChoicePiont, and even President Bill Clinton. His main objective was to tell Best Buy’s story—“where it’s been, where it intends to go and how it’s going to get there”—with “consistency, clarity and passion” to the firm’s multiple stakeholder audiences.
Still, Joly felt that several more key hires were needed. In October 2012, he recruited Scott Durchslag to Best Buy’s growing executive team as President of Online and Global e-Commerce, reporting to Gillett in the technology division. He was given the reigns to BestBuy.com, along with instructions to create a world-class e-commerce experience. Durchslag hailed most recently form Expedia Worldwide, where he was responsible for managing strategy, product development, marketing, and operations for the company’s 27 global sited, In prior posts, he served as the chief operation officer of Skype and corporate vice president of Motorola, where he helped launch the RAZR line of mobile phones. Durchslag started his business career at McKinsey & Company, rising quickly through the ranks and making partner in just four years. When his boss, Stephen Gillett, left Best Buy for Semantec in December 2012, Durchslag assumed leadership for the entire online division.
Sharon McCollam joined Best Buy in November as the company’s new Chief Administrative and Chief Financial Officer, with responsibility for all global financial activities. Earlier in 2012, she had retired from a similar post at Williams-Sonoma, a U.S.-based home furnishings retailer. Sharon was regarded highly for her skills as a cross-functional leader and her track record of producing strong financial results. She had worked in the financial field throughout her professional life, starting out in public accounting at Ernst & Young and then moving up through the controller ranks at Dole Food Company.
With his lead players in place, Joly’s next move was to restructure the business effective January 1, 2013. He created two channels, online and retail, and promoted insider Shawn Score to lead the U.S. retail unit. Shawn had held a variety of position over his 27-year history with Best Buy, But most recently served as senior vice president and general manager of the Connectivity Business Group. In turn, Jude Buckley was promoted form chief operating officer to head of the Connectivity Business Group. His prior experience included several years as managing director for the Carphone Warehouse and as an investment banker and tax accountant in Europe and Australia. There were no leadership changes for the two other business groups: Mike Mohan remained head of the Home sector, and George Sherman continued to run the Services unit. All unit heads reported directly to Joly, at least for the time being. Joly hoped that the simplified organizational and reporting structured would enable Best Buy to become more flexible and responsive to market demans.
REINVIGORATE THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
Best Buy’s strategy had long been characterized by a commitment to customer-centricity attained through in-depth data analysis and systematic customer segmentation. The company’s Purchase Path Solutions project with Accenture enabled it to collect and mine masses of customer data, which it then used to design its stores and train its salespeople. An internal analyst described the company’s goals as follows: “We needed to make sure that the district, territory, and store teams have the tools that they need to actually look at things like: what kind of traffic do they have coming in their stores today, how effectively are they selling to the people that are in the stores today, what do their close rates look like, what does their customer information look like, what segments do they have coming in, what kind of market share do the y have for those segments… We have invested in the right tools so that the field knows what to focus on and can identify what indicators to move at little bit that will help us a lot.”
The term customer-centricity indicates a business orientation that caters to specific customer needs and behaviors. Compared to traditional product-centered marketing, customer-centricity looks at a business form the “Out-side in,” asking what problems its customers are facing, and then providing solutions. The firm then customizes sales strategies to appeal to the more lucrative customer segments (“angels”) and to discourage the “devils” who actually cost the store money (i.e., buying returned merchandise, loading up on loss leaders, insistion on price matching, and so on).