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Best Buy looks to improve employees as a way to boost sales

September 7, 2012

After a decline in sales and uneven store performances, Best Buy CEO Hubert Joly plans to put more focus on employee training, according to an article on Businessweek.com. 

Joly is attempting to turn around sinking sales numbers, following a second quarter drop of 3.2 percent and a decrease in consumer purchases of televisions and notebook computers.

"We've got to stop the comparable-store sales decline," Joly said in the article. "Across our stores, we have a wide range of performance. Leadership and quality of execution make a huge difference at the local store level. If we can improve our execution across the system, there is significant upside."

The challenge for Joly and founder Richard Schulze, who is considering taking the electronics company private, is to figure out how to spend more on employee training and lower prices while boosting profit, said Colin McGranahan, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. in New York, in the article.

Joly’s "basically got until January to lay it all out, make a credible case and hopefully start to show some progress so he can convince shareholders not to sell their stock to Dick," said McGranahan to BusinessWeek.

Read more about employee training.