下重注于医疗科技，百思买CEO谈理由

在展望2025年销售突破500亿美元里程碑之际，百思买下注老年人将成为其增长的主要引擎。

百思买这家零售商，多年来主要以售卖消费电子产品而闻名，比如电视机、摄像机和电脑。如今它的目光已经投向体量巨大、价值达3.5万亿美元的医疗保健市场，视之为下一个主要营收来源。

具体来说，在美国，65岁及以上的人口在未来数十年将翻倍，他们中的许多人即便有慢性病，也希望待在自己家中，正是这让百思买的首席执行官科莉·巴里看到了巨大潜力，这家位于明尼苏达州里奇菲尔德的公司将把业务多元化。

“我们关注的是一个正在以难以想象的速度老去的人群，数量庞大。”在9月下旬的百思买的投资者日之前，巴里告诉记者说，“人们期望在自己家中老去。”而巴里认为，这正是百思买可以发挥自己优势之处，因为百思买作为零售商无数次地到访各个家庭安装科技设备，从家庭影院到智能家居产品。

巴里在她的前任休伯特·乔利的领导下，对百思买近年来的惊人转型起到了关键的设计作用。她告诉华尔街的分析师们，她想让人们把百思买当作“每户家庭的首席科技官”，解决家庭的各种科技问题，比如WiFi故障，或者在老人很久没有打开冰箱，因而进食不足时，发送警告。

在巴里设计的将百思买从当前的430亿美元销售提升至2025年的500亿美元的蓝图中，抓住医疗保健行业的可观市场份额是其中的基石。9月25日在纽约证券交易所，巴里公布了她的计划，这是她自从今年6月执掌公司以来首次面对华尔街讲演。

最近摩根士丹利的一份报告，支持了巴里在这一行业的雄心：预计医疗保健产品和服务，将在未来给百思买的营收带来数十亿，甚至数百亿美元。

去年为了支撑其医疗雄心，百思买花费10亿美元用于收购，其中大头是收购GreatCall，这是一家为老年人服务的紧急响应系统提供商，服务100万人，去年的营收达3亿美元。

巴里称，她希望百思买能够在五年内为500万老年人提供健康监测服务。百思买最近还收购了Critical Signal Technologies，该公司提供个人紧急响应系统。

百思买健康事业部的总裁阿诗什·萨克塞纳，此前曾经领导公司的战略发展办公室，今年1月开始了健康事业部的新职位。他说，公司现在拥有可以更好地提供健康服务的资源，包括针对性的户内健康保健知识，和预测性的算法。

当然，要达到500亿美元的销售额，百思买也必须扩展其传统的围绕消费电子产品的零售业务，巴里在讲演中坚称，这块业务比人们想象的“更加坚固”。

要增强的还包括服务，比如百思买的完全科技支持项目（Total Tech Support），会员每年支付200美元即可获得无限制的科技支持。百思买的高管称，这一项目从1月的100万会员至现在已经增加到200万会员。这一服务还包括600名接打家庭电话的销售人员。公司称，这一服务的会员会在百思买消费地更多，多7%。

在最新的《财富》最具影响力的商界女性排名中，巴里排名第18位。她表达了她的信心，百思买已经或正在开发一些基于近些年增长的工具，可以复兴一家零售商，而许多人认为零售业在7年前就该完蛋了。

“战略是正确的。”她告诉记者，“我们感觉定位正确，正在去向合适的领域。”（财富中文网）

译者：宣峰

Best Buy is betting on senior citizens to be a major engine of growth as it looks to hit the $50 billion sales milestone in 2025.

The retailer, known for years primarily as a place to buy consumer electronics like televisions, cameras and computers, has trained its eyes on the massive $3.5 trillion health care market as its next big source of revenue.

More specifically, with the U.S. population of people 65 and older set to double in the coming decades, and on the premise that most people, even those with chronic conditions, will want to continue to live in their own homes, Best Buy CEO Corie Barry sees enormous potential for the Richfield, Minnesota-based company to diversify its business.

“We’re looking at a population that is aging incredibly rapidly. It’s massive,” Barry told reporters at late September ahead of Best Buy’s investor day. “People expect to age in their own homes.” And that, she argued, played to Best Buy’s strength given how many homes the retailer visits to install technology, from home theaters to smart home products.

Barry, a key architect of Best Buy’s stunning turnaround in recent years under her predecessor Hubert Joly, told Wall Street analysts she wants people to think of the company as “the chief technology officer for your home” for everything from troubleshooting a faulty home WiFi system to sending alerts if, say, a senior hasn’t opened the refrigerator in some time, and therefore eating sufficiently.

Grabbing a sizable share of the healthcare technology industry is a cornerstone of her roadmap to get Best Buy from about $43 billion in sales now to $50 billion in 2025, a plan she unveiled on September 25 at the New York Stock Exchange in her first presentation to Wall Street since taking the reins in June.

A recent Morgan Stanley report supports Barry’s bullishness on the sector: the firm estimates health care products and services could add billions, perhaps even tens of billions of dollars, to Best Buy’s revenues over time.

In the last year, to support the health side of those ambitions, Best Buy has spent $1 billion on acquisitions, the bulk of that on GreatCall, a seller of emergency-response systems for the elderly that serves 1 million people and last year garnered $300 million in revenue.

Barry said Best Buy hopes to be providing health monitoring services to 5 million seniors within five years. It also recently acquired Critical Signal Technologies, which provides personal emergency response systems.

Best Buy Health president Asheesh Saksena, who had previously headed the company’s strategic growth office and started in his role in January, said that the company now has resources to better serve healthcare customers, including healthcare specific in-house expertise and predictive algorithms.

Still, getting to $50 billion will also require Best Buy to expand its traditional retail business centered on consumer electronics, an industry Barry defended in her remarks as “more stable” than people think.

Moves to bolster that include services such as its Total Tech Support program, where a membership costs $200 a year for unlimited tech support. Best Buy executives said the program has 2 million members now, up from 1 million in January. The service includes 600 salespeople who make house calls. Customers of the service spent 7% more at Best Buy, the company said.

Barry, who was ranked No. 18 on Fortune’s new Most Powerful Women in business list, expressed confidence that Best Buy has or is developing the tools to build on the growth in recent years that revived a retailer many thought was doomed only seven years ago.

“The strategy is the right one,” she told reporters. “We feel like we’re directionally headed in the right space.”