Edw.

For me, the real value of a SWOT is that it is objective and analytical. As such, I love so many of the comments about Strengths, Weaknesses and Threats. What I take issue with is the use of the word Opportunities. What I see in almost all of the entries here are suggestions of ‘what to do’, rather than an analysis of ‘what’s possible’ or ‘what’s available’. I feel that this limits the analytical integrity of the process – reaching decisions or proposing answers before really thinking-through all of the external possibilities. Rightly or wrongly, my firm believes that these should come from four key areas: overall demand, as driven by macro-economics [not such a great topic right now, I'll agree]; competitive activity or inactivity or even failure; changes in consumer behaviour [and boy are we seeing lots of significant changes right now]; and trends in the behaviour of key suppliers [such as the use of promotional dollars, rebate schemes, quarter-end deals, inventory support, the deployment of in-store promoters, that sort of thing].

Now this looks like a bit of a stylistic rant, but its intentions are to add rigor to the process. Some academic wag said some while ago that SWOT really stands for a Significant Waste of Time. That’s not so. In my opinion, done well, an objective SWOT will really drive business planning choices. I guess that as your post had a time limit, then this is now all done for the next year. Hope it’s looking good…

Because of my RZ membership, you know where I live, where I shop, etc. Also, I’m surprised that there is no “upselling” by Best Buy or very little outbound marketing based on past purchases.

There are many direct marketing concepts that Best Buy could utilize that customers would welcome and would lead to more revenue/margin for BBY.

At the place I bought – the salesmen were helpful but polite. When we we’re ready to talk, he was fully informed. I even asked some test questions that I knew the answers to to see if they matched my research. It was such a pleasant experience I almost felt guilty if I wouldn’t have bought so I did.

Best Buy forgets they are a specialty store.

Very cool idea with the public SWOT idea. Your commitment to Social technology is awesome. I’m a fairly loyal BBY customer and I was very interested to see some of the comments. I thought Jon Dale’s comments in particular were dead on. My thoughts

S-
Your store experience, for the most part is enjoyable. Large wide lanes, bright lighting, clean, uncluttered display.
Your distribution capabilities must make you a pretty significant force. Next to you, your old competitors of Circuit City and the like, look very dated.
Geek Squad purchase was a briliant move. Magnolia is a nice attempt in the audio space, but not sure its getting traction. I’m not quite an audiophile, but I don’t get the impression that the stuff in the designated Magnolia area is anything special or particularly high end. The great service I get there only highlights how little the other stereo guys know
I bought my Imac from you last year. The Apple area is an interesting play, but again it was clear to me that the Apple folks were just “on lease,” and when discussing computers with them vs your regular computer sales guys—big difference in knowledge
I also think you’ve done a very nice job trying to allign your online, FSI, In store look and feel for consistency. They feel like the same branding family—a consistency that they didn’t use to enjoy
Loved reading about your guys passion and the corporate entreprenuership in Groundswell. Very cool. It seems like BBY has a fairly young and hip culture inside corporate, but I don’t necessarily see that resonate as strong in the stores themselves. Not sure why.

W-
-Women shoppers. You’re coming @15 campaign may start to address this with young women, but I don’t get a sense that you’ve figured out what to do here. Close you eyes and The appliance area could be in Lowes. Nothing differentiates you here.
-Reoccuring visits. Right now, I go when I go, but there’s not a reason for me to have a Best Buy “routine.” Unlike Target, which sucks me in now with groceries or prescription drugs, BBY doesn’t have the continuous draw. I thought your photos area might help, but I just don’t think of best buy when I want to get my photos done. I just upload and pick them up at Costco—again because I’m going there already. I’ll be very interested to see how you try to use Napster to form a virtual routine.
-Differentiated product lines—No great private label offerings here and No Target like designer line that you’ve built with an authentic partner who has captured a trend. Could you be better at working with young filmakers to debut first films, artists, etc? I thought the Rolling Stones DVD was a great idea, but then it was followed by Elton John? Not exactly a fresh breakthough artist.—Crossing my fingers that Celine Dion is busy when you call.
-Electronics is a bit tough to have trends team, but I also don’t get the sense that I’m seeing it first at BBY. (although do very much like your nod to local artists and radio stations)
-You seem to be very agile—which is a great strength. It could also see it interpreted as fickle. It seems like you bounce around alot on your brand essence and your brand identity. “Get yours.” etc

O-
Love the fact that you’re exploring the social media space. I think the @15 could be a fantastic move for you. It makes you feel younger, gets you PR, draws in a demographic that might not otherwise touch Best Buy and will give you great market research and trend data. Very smart. Hope it works for you.
-I agree with some of the other comments about the “only at walmart” or exclusively at Target artist deals. You should have these. Should BestBuy have its own phone platform that features content from BestBuy content partners?
-Wondering how your play in the recycling of electronic is going. Sounded interesting (mandatory with new regulations?).
-I think your online experience could be even better. I love sites like B and H photography for example because of their power reviews. They feel more authentic than you in the camera space. Could you ramp this area up perhaps?
-What services are you supplying to business. I don’t know, but I’m guessing you’re in the small business space aggressivley with Geek Squad. Is there another line of services to sell businesses—anything with thier mobile telephony needs? Not to be too nutty, but could BBY be networking say hospitals with a Best Buy entertainment network during hospital stays.

Threats
-I think you’ve nailed it with the local “low price” competitor and the Costcos of the world
-As TIVO/NetFlix, Apple and others deliver content directly to consumers’ homes, what will drives consumers to make a trip to best buy

I wish you the best of luck. More CMOs should follow your lead. Bravo.

Strength-
1. Blue Shirt = service. We know our blue shirts stand for quality customer service as do customers. Is it a coincidence that within the last year I have seen Meijer, walmart, and walgreens employee uniforms turning into blue polos and khakis?
2. Geek Squad services, GSBTP, incredible variety of products. WE can do ANYTHING our customers want. From complete peace of mind with black tie protection plans, to services we offer to do whatever people want, right down to being able to get almost any product a customer wants

Weaknesses
1. Blue Shirt = Service. Customers view us so highly that a lot of times their expectations are too high. Wow did I just say that? So their expectations really aren’t out of the question…usually the problem is something we caused but it was do to something like this…we get a rush of customers at an odd time and the blue shirt to customer ratio is 10-1(seriously it happens a lot) I cannot possibly give every one of those customers the level of service they want without upsetting at least 1. Also more and more, customers get upset when you try and help multiple people at once. Oh and products have become so technical that I don’t even have time to tell the customers half of what we can do for them before their heads explode from the amount of data we are talking about.

As an example you come in to buy a pc…leave the pc out of it, we have 3 kinds of black tie protection, 3 kinds of geek squad ant virus options, 3 kinds of geek squad networking options, at least 10 accessories they could use from day one, 3 combinations of rewards/financing, and I haven’t even begun to talk about convergence and needs the customer doesn’t even know they have. Currently we as employees do our best to match needs with these options based on what we gather from a customer’s life and that is why people love the service they get since we make things simple…this brings me to the wollowing

2. Services, GSBTP, Variety of product. So we have nearly unlimited ways to help our customers, but less and less time to do it as we gain more and more market share meaning more and more customers. As an example the store I am at is 2 years old and has grown nearly 2.5 times what it was expected to do. We are still doing great but it feels like many stores are reaching their max in terms of what they can physically do in the building to grow. My store is one of them as the amount of products we need exceeds the space to put them. So we innovate and come up with new solutions every day.

Wow, that was a really long way of saying that our incredible strengths are a major weakness. This knowledge is why my team is so good at coming up with new value props to serve our local customer and I think it should be the foundation of any look at a category.