Excellent piece Sangeet, thank you. Seems like a very good fit with what we're doing with Jobs-To-Be-Done: Jobs, Meta-Jobs and Job Domains. Big brands can compete with Big Tech by leveraging their deep expertise in serving jobs across a domain - openly and transparently. The commercial partner opportunities then follow. This is properly human-centric commerce.
YES! As you previously shared, "Commoditize Your Complements"... the pattern identified by Joel Spolsky! https://gwern.net/complement. Great insight, as usual. It clarifies what to work on, what not to work on, and guides advanced co-opetition thinking.
I wonder if Best Buy was intentional in its thinking. Probably panicked experimentation not to get Amazon-ed. It also helps to be the last electronics retailer standing (less competition from Circuit City, dept stores, etc.) And their earnings performance is very correlated with product cycles.
The way Hubert Joly frames it, it does sound like they were strategic about it. He spent time in the stores understanding what was breaking down on the frontlines and then worked backwards from there. The next CEO (also former CFO) seems to have gone the other way though.
Yet another piece full of actionable insights. Digital disadvantage is a cool application of ‘inversion’ paradigm. Decision support, ticket value, trust are key aspects that can be applied for banking as well. Best Buy’s abandonment of low quadrant (ticket and decision support – under Choice #1) may also become key to address commoditized aspects that are most likely to be loss-leaders.
one of the breakdowns of a retail business iv read in a while! Great job 👏
As always, insightful and makes one think.
Fantastic analysis, Sangeet. 👏
Excellent piece Sangeet, thank you. Seems like a very good fit with what we're doing with Jobs-To-Be-Done: Jobs, Meta-Jobs and Job Domains. Big brands can compete with Big Tech by leveraging their deep expertise in serving jobs across a domain - openly and transparently. The commercial partner opportunities then follow. This is properly human-centric commerce.
Excellent post, thank you!
YES! As you previously shared, "Commoditize Your Complements"... the pattern identified by Joel Spolsky! https://gwern.net/complement. Great insight, as usual. It clarifies what to work on, what not to work on, and guides advanced co-opetition thinking.
I wonder if Best Buy was intentional in its thinking. Probably panicked experimentation not to get Amazon-ed. It also helps to be the last electronics retailer standing (less competition from Circuit City, dept stores, etc.) And their earnings performance is very correlated with product cycles.
The way Hubert Joly frames it, it does sound like they were strategic about it. He spent time in the stores understanding what was breaking down on the frontlines and then worked backwards from there. The next CEO (also former CFO) seems to have gone the other way though.
Classic retail management. Obsessed with headcount to "optimize" hours and coverage.
Yet another piece full of actionable insights. Digital disadvantage is a cool application of ‘inversion’ paradigm. Decision support, ticket value, trust are key aspects that can be applied for banking as well. Best Buy’s abandonment of low quadrant (ticket and decision support – under Choice #1) may also become key to address commoditized aspects that are most likely to be loss-leaders.
Thanks!
Really interesting write up. I didn't know this part of the "best buy story". Very strong. Thanks for sharing.