Best Buy Gov To Launch Web Site, Release GSA Schedule

As a parade of consumer-electronics companies edge in on the government IT market, one in particular stands to pose the biggest threat to VARs catering to the sector. Best Buy Gov quietly emerged at the end of 2004 to little fanfare, but plans to up the ante this summer with a Web site and its own GSA Schedule.

Best Buy Gov LLC launched in October 2004 as a wholly owned subsidiary of the consumer electronics giant.

"This is the first time I'm talking about it publicly," says Bill Shafley, president of Best Buy Gov, "but it's not a new market for us. It will grow with the new subsidiary, but already we sell to an incredible number of military bases."

Shafley is not new to the government IT market. He worked at GTSI for just over a year, then moved to CDW to help get its own government subsidiary -- CDW Government, of course -- off the ground. Before accepting the job with Best Buy, he worked for MicroWarehouse, which CDW purchased.

"I was hired by Best Buy, based on my background, to create a subsidiary capable of targeting the unique needs of education, state, and local and federal government," Shafley says. While no physical headquarters for the subsidiary has yet to be constructed, the company leverages its retail stores and service centers in the Beltway and across the country, as well as Shafley himself -- already stationed in the Washington, D.C., area.

Best Buy Gov will roll out a Web site within the next two months, Shafley says, and a GSA Schedule later in the summer. The company is also working closely with the Small Business Association -- and plans to partner specifically with small and small disadvantaged veteran-owned businesses to help provide some of the value-add required by government customers. In addition, Best Buy Gov will provide services of its own; the parent company currently employs between 7,000 to 10,000 service personnel, which will likely grow as the subsidiary gets off the ground. At the same time, focus will remain on consumer electronics -- though the line between that and other technology products often blurs, Shafley says.

"People expect products to click in to one another, but there's a lot of confusion from end users about what to buy to enable that integration. For that, I put Best Buy in a category of teacher."

The creation of the subsidiary follows a change in how Best Buy does business, moving to a multichannel model and targeting markets with the necessary resources to be successful.

"In the retail world, a lot of the policies that go on really hamper a company's abilities to play -- to get a GSA Schedule, for example. Success by those trying to break in will be determined by whether companies do this organically or go out and hire experts in this marketplace and educate themselves. We've all seen people try to enter this market and fail."