Special Forces, Business Design & Best Buy

Once again, very impressed with the presentation quality at the Shopper Insights in Action conference. And also once again, the speaker, Bill Hoffman SVP Customer Insights at Best Buy, is not only sourcing consumer insights to drive the business, they have changed their business model accordingly. Bill has a background in military special forces and intelligence services and has therefore influenced the internal design of the business at Best Buy so it takes quick action on the consumer “intelligence” gathered through various sources.

In fact, they have defined a consumer insight as finished intelligence that drives the business so they have put processes in place and changed their structure to close the gap between those that source the consumer insight (e.g., people on the store floor) and those that can take action to drive better business results.  Insights are funneled to either the corporate office for action or local leadership or both since the insight is captured and made readily available internally to employees.

I agree. An insight is not useful until it is monetized by driving action and better results. Strategy, business design, better results… Well done at Best Buy.