Last week, I wrote about Best Buy’s £20 billion turnover and 150,000 employees.

The stores are spread across the world from the US to China and now Best Buy is coming to Europe following its £1·1bn investment in Carphone Warehouse.

At the end of the last Knightline, I promised to reveal Best Buy’s “secret weapon”. It is an internet social networking website called blueshirtnation.com that only Best Buy staff can access. The style and content of the site has been created from ideas put forward by employees.

This special private networking site has generated thousands of conversations across the company. A cashier may ask a general manager a question on company policy or employees who are into baseball or any other activity can form sub-groups of their own within blueshirtnation.com.

Many excellent management ideas have percolated their way upwards and have been adopted by the company. For example, it was suggested that as one of Best Buy’s themes was connectivity, every employee should have an @bestbuy.com email address. This was adopted and now every employee can talk to customers about the advantages of “being connected”.

Staff turnover among blueshirtnation website members is also very low at eight per cent, compared with previously, when 40 per cent left after their first year.

As well as exchanging ideas and inspiring loyalty, there are other bonuses for the company: there has been a huge increase of participation in the retirement plan (known as a 401K in the US). Following discussions on the website, many employees are now paying three per cent of salary into the scheme and Best Buy tops this up with an extra two per cent.

As well as inspiring loyalty in employees, Best Buy uses the methods created by the Dunnhumby marketing company to first identify the type of customer and then to retain them with loyalty schemes.

Best Buy’s Centricity marketing splits customers into five groups called, Barry, Jill, Buzz, Ray and small businesses.

Barry: affluent professionals who want the best and demand excellent service.

Buzz: younger males who want the latest gizmos and entertainment.

Ray: family-oriented man who wants the latest technology

Jill: mother who wants the latest hi-tech equipment for her children.

Once Best Buy has an address, customers are divided into these groups and sent targeted special offers. Sometimes promotions are co-funded with non-competing brands. For example, a luxury car giveaway attracts Barry types, whereas promotions tied to Good Housekeeping, Food and Wine, and Sports Illustrated would court Jill, Barry and Buzz, respectively.

This activity is backed by a series of quirky TV ads. These adverts are very unusual and I have posted some examples under the Blog section at www.ERTWeekly.com.

The saddest thing about John Browett’s much anticipated DSGi review was the number of local papers that ran stories about the possible closure of yet another store in their particular high street.

The review itself lacked dramatic moves, but was a clever document. It put 77 Currys stores on notice of closure, so no doubt the staff will be motivated to work even harder to be picked as a “winner”. Similarly, it places pressure on the landlords to sharpen their pencils in the hope that they can retain Currys as a client.