Global Customer Focus

Our customer focus becomes even more interesting as we expand globally. We're in the US, China, Canada, Europe, and we'll be in both Mexico and Turkey soon. As we infiltrate these diverse markets, we do so cautiously: we want to learn from the mistakes of others, and one big mistake is going too fast and imposing operating models that do not meet consumer needs.

You can't look at new countries through a US-centric lens. You have to break away from traditional orthodoxy and think like a customer, wherever those customers are. To achieve this, we carry out research, talk to other retailers about their customers and talk to customers about what they want, observing and noting cultural differences. For example, while customers in the US are accustomed to touching items on display, in China everything is showcased behind glass cases. The people in the stores are employed by manufacturers and vendors and are product-centric. The implications for the in-store systems are significant if we want to import the open display approach we have in the US.

Knowledge transfer also works in reverse in China, where the people expect faster responses to changes in technology. In the US, we change our telephones once or twice every 18 months, while in China phones are a fashion item and the Chinese change theirs every quarter.

These variations raise different challenges for our understanding of customer data privacy, storage and data flow. Going global isn't about scale; it's about skill - transferring skill and knowledge about customers backwards and forwards.

Strategic CIOs who focus on customers have an opportunity to influence how their industries relate to the end customer. Over the past 25-30 years, retail has shifted from mass marketing, where we bought everything in mass and sold at a price. Today's personalised customer marketing is based on psychographics and demographics, each enabled by IT. We are moving into a more exciting space, which I call 'co-creation'. The journey no longer ends in the store, it ends in the home.

Consumers want connectedness - linking PCs with TVs and phones through WiMax and voice-over-IP. They want to partner with a trusted brand to aggregate content and co-create the solutions.

As the ambassador of the customer, Best Buy's role is to represent their needs with the vendor community to help create that interactive environment here and elsewhere in the world. It's my team's role to understand these issues and search for ways to make the experience of co-creation seamless for the customer. There is only one way to achieve this, and that is by taking the time to 'think customer'.