New Best Buy CEO's Bold Vision Is Retail Equivalent Of "I'm Just Here To Help The Team"

As we mentioned earlier today, Best Buy has announced that hotel/restaurant exec Hubert Joly will soon be taking over as CEO of the embattled electronics retailer. Since then, Joly has made his first public remarks on the new gig, but if you were hoping for some exciting, bold vision of how he plans to restore Best Buy to greatness, well… you might be in for a letdown.

“My strong hypothesis is that there is a real and very special place for Best Buy in this market,” wrote Joly in an e-mail to employees this morning.

Not horrible thus far… Now is the part where he gives some great, if vague, details on how he’s going to begin carving out that real and very special place, right?

“[O]ne that combines competitive prices and great service at the point of sale and over time, and one that combines an online and a physical presence,” he concludes.

So his grand vision for saving Best Buy is to do what every successful retail business should be doing on a daily basis… At the very least, it shows that he understands the basics.

It reminded us a little too much of the scene in Bull Durham, where Kevin Costner’s veteran catcher coaches Tim Robbins’ hotshot young pitcher on all the cliches he’ll need to know when he gets to the big leagues.

Maybe it’s just us, but we would have preferred if Joly had at least said given employees and the public a slight clue as to what his actual vision for the company might be. Where is bolstering BestBuy.com on his list of priorities? Does better customer service mean more employees or better-trained employees? Or both?

Best Buy founder Richard Schulze has been much more public about his intentions for the company he intends to buy back from shareholders, so this was a chance for Joly — and the Best Buy board — to state their intentions to the thousands of employees and to the millions of shoppers who want to depend on the store.

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