To show how out of touch Best Buy management is, they’re
about to make their stores even more of a nightmare than they were before.
Anyone go to Best Buy and either never find a salesperson,
or wait endlessly for one to free themselves from the customer that wouldn’t
leave?
Best Buy now thinks that that wasn’t bad enough. This is
what happens when, after a Great Recession takes out the competition, consumers
are at the mercy of lousy management.
Yahoo News: Electronics retailer Best Buy is laying off 600
staffers in its Geek Squad technical support division and 1,800
other store workers, totaling about 1.4 percent of its 167,000 employees. Best
Buy is cutting costs and restructuring as it tries to combat the
"showrooming" of its stores, as consumers test out products at its
stores but go home and buy them cheaper online or at discounters. The company
is trying to trim $800 million in costs. Interim CEO Mike Mikan has vowed that
the retailer is committed to fundamentally changing operations to improve
results.
Sadly, those salespeople who really knew their stuff, and made Best Buy a competitor, are the ones on the losing end of CEO Mike Mikan's "blame someone else" management style.
It's all about how Jim Cramer and mad money sees the quarterly returns coming in.The stock holders and fund managers see nothing but the next quarter and estimated earnings. Cut jobs and you increase profits. The GEEK guys were the best thing they had. People hate to set up complicated systems. It's a spiraling cycle to failure.
ReplyDeleteYet those small shops advertised on SLY will survive. They sell great products, install them and provide great service. Online doesn't work for every product.
I'm with you on the Geek Squad, they were also understaffed with long lines of customers. Cutting that is nuts.
ReplyDeleteThe small shops will get a boost from this, hopefully a big one.
This is the same tactic that Circuit City used, cutting experienced sales people. How did it work out? They went bankrupt, fast.
ReplyDelete