Amazon-proof yourself... Since 2012, Best Buy CEO Hubert Joly pulled that off. Now the turnaround magician from Minnesota is stepping down as CEO, but will remain Chairman of the board — Current CFO Corie Barry takes over in June. While Circuit City was dying, Joly did this with Best Buy:
- The stock quadrupled during his reign.
- Stores enjoyed 5-straight years of sales growth.
- The chain rose from a $421M loss in 2013 to a $1.5B profit in 2018.
Operation "Renew Blue"... That's the actual plan turnaround artist Joly kicked off in 2013. We ID'd his 4 strategic moves that transformed Best Buy into a retail phoenix:
- Price matching: Joly refused to let you test out Dance Dance Revolution at Best Buy before actually buying it on Amazon for cheaper.
- Store-within-a-store: He turned Best Buys into showrooms, carving out mini-stores for brands like Apple to better show-off their goods.
- eGrandparent Tech: He bought Life Alert owner GreatCall ("Help, I've fallen and I can't get up!") along with its 900K paying subscribers, and also invested more in Geek Squad for in-home installation.
- Dual/Purpose Stores: He combined warehouses with regular stores — Now 40% of online orders are picked up in-store, an Amazon-beating advantage.
"There's no room for mediocrity in retail"... We'll let Hubert's words take our takeaway today. He realized early that Amazon can't completely replace in-person shopping experiences — Ecommerce just raised expectations. As a leader, Hubert saw Best Buy's physical stories as a "wonderful asset," so they became just that.
FYI, just check out these Glassdoor employee reviews of Hubert.