From I, Cringley:
In Minneapolis, Best Buy is known as a body shop. Â While they have something like 1000 IT workers, most of them are temporary contractors. Â They come and go. Â The number of IT people who are Best Buy employees is very small. Â Too few to effectively set direction or do things well. Â Best Buy depends on an army of consulting firms to do its IT planning and projects. Â They do what they are asked to. Â Unfortunately there is a big disconnect between what the business really needs and what IT is doing.
Never let a consultant handle your core business. Â Every retailer needs to be in the IT business. Â Walmart pioneered IT for retailers, what, 40 years ago? Â All Best Buy had to do is follow.