“No. 1 U.S. electronics chain Best Buy Co., seeking to identify itself in a changing industry that’s seen lower demand for its bread-and-butter merchandise from televisions to digital cameras, said on Tuesday its Chief Executive Brian Dunn has resigned,” Andria Cheng reports for MarketWatch.
“Analysts said the news added another level of certainty after the Richfield, Minn.-based company said in late March it would shut 50 of its unprofitable big-box stores and reduce square footage in a series of restructuring moves that aim to cut $800 million in costs by fiscal 2015,” Cheng reports. “‘Investors see a company with structural problems, regardless of the CEO and now one undergoing leadership transition,” Telsey Advisory Group analyst Joe Feldman told MarketWatch. ‘Investors have wanted to see a CEO change for some time. Best Buy is likely to go after a strong operating CEO who has the courage to make tough, and possibly radical decisions.'”
Cheng reports, “Best Buy said it had no disagreements with the 51-year-old Dunn regarding operations, financial controls, policies or procedures. The company said the decision was mutual, adding ‘it was time for new leadership to address the challenges that face the company.’ The company named director Mike Mikan, 41, as interim CEO. Best Buy founder Richard Schulze continues to serve as chairman.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Too bad for Best Buy that Ron Johnson is already onto his next challenge.
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Best Buy posts $1.7b loss, to close 50 U.S. stores, cuts 400 corporate-level jobs – March 29, 2012
Steve Jobs’ ex-lieutenant Ron Johnson adds $1.5 billion to J.C. Penney in two days – January 30, 2012
J.C. Penney CEO Ron Johnson: What I learned building the Apple Store – November 21, 2011
Apple’s retail store chief Johnson off to J.C. Penney; expected to become CEO within months – June 14, 2011
I always considered Best Buy as Worst Buy 😉
Circuit City 2
Let me guess…Dunn is quite proud of his tenure at BB and is now interested in spending more time with his family and pursuing new challenges.
Right.
Wonder if they will charge him a 15% salary restocking fee.
Best Buy, once the best prices around, charges way too much and tries to do too much in an industry where Apple rules!
BB’s stores are too big. Too much choice on the shelves. Yet, would have been a good lab experiment for Ron Johnson.
I doubt Ron would have taken the job if he was available and it was offered. Johnson came from Target; he knows general merchandise. Having done tech right for Apple and put them on top, why would he go to BB?
When the first rat off of the sinking ship is the Captain, it’s time to cash in your stocks and start abandoning the ship, too.
CompUSA, CircuitCity, Best Buy. It’s like falling dominoes in slow motion. I guess we can say the whole tech bubble is finally gone. They might as well kill the Space Shuttle, too… oh, wait, they did. Apple has been in a deep coma since Steve died. Where’s all of the cool US tech? Now, we’re just stuck with lame regurgitated social networks on 6 year old computers. Even my TV programming is mostly from the UK.
True story: I went to a Best Buy just a few days ago to get a HDMI cable. I had a choice between a $45 and $135 cable. A common plain cable should not be one-forth the cost of the TV. Wondering if it was the world or me that was going insane, so for the fun of it, I stopped by the local rural Farm & Fleet. You know, horse bridles and bib-overalls, they had them! $14. I no longer wonder why Best Buy is failing. $135 for just a cable… really?!
I don’t think this relates to a “tech bubble”. The tech bubble relates to the dot com boom. Best buy sells technology hardware, which is different. Overvaluation based on tons of capital being put into hype and changes in consumer behavior are not really comparable. The problems with consumer electronics chains does not signal a problem with available technology, but rather a problem with their model of distribution.
I’m also confused by the “deep coma” comment. Their release schedule has not really been changed significantly since Steve Jobs passed.
Brian is Done — no worries.
you can’t compete with the online model
It’s not just the online competition. BestBuy is not a well-run company. Ditto for Good Guys and Circuit City, both of which are now history.
Maybe now Best Buy will hire Ballmer to straighten out this mess.
I don’t think Best Buy needs Developers, Developers, Developers!
Best Buys biggest problem is that it is being used as a display room for online retailers that have few of the costs of brick and mortar stores and the added advantage of not having to charge tax. Best Buy will move to a rental of retail space model with companies manageing areas supplying and paying its own staff. The
Apple Shops within BB have been great for both.
BB has played a big part in switching loyal Best Buy customers who had returned to buy another PC to Apple.
big box retailers put mom & pop stores out of business by leveraging volume and undercutting service levels. Now they whine when online retailers and wholesalers do the same exact thing to them.
…but then, Best Buy never really did offer any service or product knowledge whatsoever, so no big loss.
Support your local stores, otherwise they will all disappear and you’ll never be able to touch & try before buying — you’ll have to buy and return until you get the product that actually lives up to its online description. … or you will have to visit an Apple store, which carries a selection of what, maybe 0.1% of the available electronics on the planet, and only in certain metropolitan regions?