With a stock price that has nearly tripled since January, market analysts are marveling at Best Buy’s recent financial performance. Less than one year after taking the helm, CEO Hubert Joly has managed to force industry professionals to do a double take. When many were ready to write off the electronics big box retailer as a casualty of increasing dominance from ecommerce, the company seems to have made a turn around. If anything, it at least stuck a plug in the leaking money from lost sales from stores that have been open more than a year, and when you include European sales, it beat projections last quarter.

Best Buy seemed doomed like Circuit City and others, but now it seems to have recovered.
Image: Shutterstock
After the fall of Circuit City and Good Guys, not to mention a few tumbles in its own public relations, Best Buy seemed doomed to the way of the dodo. However, hospitality veteran Joly has implemented strategies that have given the company a new energy. Fueled by the “renew blue” initiative, the company has issued new customer service guidelins, and signed a retail kiosk partnership with Samsung. The new deal will create boutique stores within Best Buy locations, aimed at competing with Apple stores. It also looks like deals with Microsoft are working out.
Joly was appointed CEO of Best Buy in August of 2012. Many were skeptical about his lack of retail experience, coming from hospitality giant Carlson. However, in his short tenure he has managed to keep shareholders and critics at bay, proving wise and witty at meetings consistently performing financially. Board members at Best Buy must have known something the rest of us don’t, as they company paid Joly $20 million in cash and stock to quickly snag him away from Carlson when it became clear a new CEO was needed.