Monday, December 28, 2009

Best Buy Articles in BusinessWeek

Couple of interesting pieces on electronics retailer Best Buy from BusinessWeek.

The first was from the start of December and titled "Why Tech Bows to Best Buy." As could be inferred from said headline, it's about the current dominance in it's category and how that translates to increased control in relationships with suppliers.

Best Buy certainly must have done some things right to enjoy this position, but along with their success, it's also helped that competitors such as Comp USA and more recently Circuit City have shuttered their doors (again, though... leads to a chicken and egg type question as perhaps moves by Best Buy helped take down the other retailers).

Getting at what they've done right, the second BW Best Buy piece of note was a December 2006 cover story titled "Smashing The Clock. No schedules, No mandatory meetings, Inside Best Buy's radical reshaping of the workplace."



As the story was from three years ago, I was curious to see what the current usage of this ROWE (Results Only Work Environment) program may be and how it seems to be doing. Well, a Google search later seems to indicate that the usage is there and it seems to be a success. I found this May 2008 post from the Tim Ferriss blog (he of the bestselling book "The Four Hour Workweek") and more recently, this June 2009 post on the blog Free Pursuits.

Additionally, the two Best Buy employees behind the ROWE program have since written a book and been spun off from Best Buy into a new consulting venture, CultureRx) to spread this management practice.

Interesting stuff.