Best Buy Co. Inc. has announced plans to partner with Accenture to help build strategies for diversity & inclusion, as well as technology.

“Our primary goal is to create the best possible experience for our customers and our employees who serve them directly, and this collaboration will help drive that important work forward. We’re excited to work with Accenture to advance technology innovation and build an even stronger technology team at Best Buy," said Brian Tilzer, Best Buy’s chief digital and technology officer.

According to a joint press-release, over the next five years the companies will focus on several key areas:

• Building and growing diverse talent. Best Buy has an ambitious goal to hire 1,000 employees to its digital and technology team, and it has committed that 30% of these employees will be diverse — specifically Black, Latinx, Indigenous and women. Accenture will support Best Buy in this work by helping recruit, train and hire new talent.
• Investing in technology innovation. Accenture and Best Buy will jointly invest in technology innovation focused on helping Best Buy create enhanced customer experiences, drive incremental value from its existing operations and accelerate growth in key areas like health and membership programs.
• Investing in learning and development. Accenture will provide Best Buy access to its world-class learning and development programs, including its extensive library of online training courses and its intensive, 12-week training boot camps for emerging talent.

Dublin-based Accenture will help Best Buy reach its goal of helping recruit, hire and train new talent. In August, Best Buy said it was going to hire 1,000 technology employees over the next two years, and promised that 30% of them will be people of color or women.

Accenture is giving Minnesota-based Best Buy access to its learning and development programs, including an extensive library of online training courses and intensive boot camps for emerging talent.

“Together, we are creating a fluid, reimagined collaboration model that is anchored on shared success, beliefs and ways of working,” said Rob Birdsong, a managing director at Accenture and the company’s client account lead for Best Buy. “This new model will help us redefine the way we partner with Best Buy, bringing them the best of Accenture’s skills and capabilities, with a focus on building and growing Best Buy talent.”

This isn't the first time Best Buy and Accenture have teamed up. Over a decade ago, Accenture expanded its Twin Cities workforce after absorbing much of the technology work for Best Buy, but Best Buy took that work back in-house years later.

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