Critical Factors

          The US consumer electronics store industry includes about 27,000 stores with combined annual revenue of about $60 billion. Technological innovation and the need to replace or upgrade products drive the most demand. Profitability for individual companies depends on the ability to generate store traffic and repeat business through customer service, as well as effective merchandising. Best Buy focuses on that aspect as their competitive advantage including product availability. Many stores can carry the products but availability has been a constant struggle for every company including Best Buy.  Best Buy as a company also faces an even bigger competitive market online. You can buy a Hewlett-Packard computer through HP’s website, Amazon, or a number of other online sellers and see what other customers think of the product through their reviews. You no longer have to go to Best Buy to purchase DVDs because you can get them through dozens of online sellers or watch them on NetFlix. You can even buy many of these items online at a discount and in many cases with no sales tax. Televisions and appliances are the two things Best Buy sells that many people are less likely to purchase online. If Best Buy wants to be the number one seller of electronics and electronics related products, they need to focus on dominating online sales for their products. With this Project on the release of the Iphone, we will be looking into two aspects of Operation Management inside a physical store that include Labor Management and Inventory Management. These two functions are the major aspects when to comes to releasing a major product for Best Buy. The two images below are two systems used by our company to forecast labor, and to manage inventory daily inventory.