This is the third of four installments of our conversation with Thales S. Teixeira, Lumry Family Associate Professor at Harvard Business School. In the previous installment, Teixeria explained how BestBuy approached the issue of “showrooming.” Readers can find information on his book at https://www.decoupling.co/.
To read Technology Didn’t Disrupt Your Industry: Q&A with Thales S. Teixeira, Part IV, click here.
To read Technology Didn’t Disrupt Your Industry: Q&A with Thales S. Teixeira, Part III, click here.
To read Technology Didn’t Disrupt Your Industry: Q&A with Thales S. Teixeira, Part II, click here.
To read Technology Didn’t Disrupt Your Industry: Q&A with Thales S. Teixeira, Part I, click here.
To listen to [Podcast] Technology Didn’t Disrupt Your Industry: Q&A with Thales S. Teixeira, Part IV, click here.
To listen to [Podcast] Technology Didn’t Disrupt Your Industry: Q&A with Thales S. Teixeira, Part II, click here.
To listen to [Podcast] Technology Didn’t Disrupt Your Industry: Q&A with Thales S. Teixeira, Part I, click here.
BestBuy also changed a lot of their instore procedures. They added more services, particularly consulting, because people don’t know how to use their DVD player or their virtual router. They were adapting internally, looked at that disruption, and realized the true opportunity is the service, the expectation. They changed some of their practices, didn’t they, to be more customer centric?
Yes, one of the biggest customer-centric practices was actually not giving commissions to sales people, because then sales people are freely allowed to say what they think and try to help consumers. But initially BestBuy said, “What can we offer that Amazon cannot offer?” and based what they can offer off of that, value-added services. Amazon is an online company and can’t offer that.
Well, that’s not true anymore. Amazon offers installation and all sorts of services which are actually executed by local partners. So that in itself didn’t do the trick. The realization that BestBuy had two customers—they had one customer who is called the consumer, the shopper, and the other customer was their suppliers and manufacturers. Samsung is their customer, but they weren’t charging Samsung for certain activities.