Jeorgios Coucounas
Rutgers Business School
Ravi Vadapalli
Keep this story going! Share below!
The program works with under served youth in giving them access to technology to inspire children to pursue a field in technology. The Program consists of three parts. Geek Squad Academy, Teen Tech Centers, and Career Pathway Program. GSA targets middle school children with 2 day technology camps. The Teen Tech center continues the journey with an after school program that provide children technology to work with. The Career pathway program can follow students past High School with career based training.
The idea emerged through the Community Relations department to give back to the community. Best Buy has a program which is called Geek Squad Academy, and they wanted to create a program to help the kids break into the growing STEM career field. The goal started with targeting middle school kids with bringing them technology through Geek Squad Academy. This developed into the Teen Tech Center which gives kids long term access to technology. The last part, is the Career Pathway where young adults will learn life skills for breaking into the job force. The team considers the program to be “accidental genius”. The purpose for this innovation is to spark an interest in a technology field.
The Signature Program team in the CR department was involved with the creation of the Signature Program Pathway. The department further developed the Pathway through the Geek Squad Academy events, as well as from surveys they’ve taken from the employees of the events as well as the attendees. Best Buy also held summits with employees to get feedback and enhance the project.
The innovation is directly linked to the UN Sustainable Development Goals of Quality Education, Decent Work and Economic Growth, and Reduced Inequalities. This link is directly mentioned in Best Buy’s Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability Report
By 2020, 77 percent of all jobs will require some degree of technical skills. At the same time, there are 5.5 million 16-24 year old teens and young adults who are neither working nor enrolled in school. The Signature Program Pathway was created to address this problem, as well as addressing the technology education gap. This program consists of three parts, Geek Squad Academy for ages of 12-14 to increase interest and awareness in the tech-related careers.
The Best Buy Teen Tech Centers for ages of 13-21 to improve access to training, credentialing, and employment. Finally, the Career Pathways for ages of 17-21 to support tech career progression. The impact on the communities is significant, in 2016 Geek Squad Academy was in 29 cities and they inspired over 5,600 people. Also, 394,000 youths served through local Best Buy Grants.
From the standpoint of business, in the short run Best Buy will garner more possible customers from their involvement with the youth of their community. The parents of those youth will be more open to shopping at Best Buy and possibly buying products. Good publicity attracts consumers to being more open to doing business with Best Buy thus allowing for more products to be purchased and allow Best Buy to make more revenue.
From the long-term perspective, Best Buy will have an abundance of loyal customers that will choose to shop at Best Buy rather than other competitors along with a long-term rise in company revenue which would then be implemented towards tackling new frontiers or expansions in fulfilling the needs of its customers and providing new or more products.
Get stories of positive business innovations from around the world delivered right to your inbox.
Andrea Riehl, Manager, Community Relations
