Jason Bonfig, the incoming CEO of Best Buy, told CNBC that his route to growth begins with “going smaller,” before the company swings its bigger plans fully into motion. As he prepares to take the reins, he framed his focus around expanding Best Buy's reach and enhancing the customer experience. The headline idea sounds almost counterintuitive in retail, where leaders usually preach scale, speed, and acceleration. But Bonfig’s point, at least as CNBC describes it, is that getting the customer experience right in the places that matter most may require smaller steps first.

In practice, “go smaller” can mean a lot of things, but the important part is what it is meant to unlock: better customer experiences and broader reach. Bonfig is not presenting growth as purely a numbers game, at least not in the conversation CNBC reports. He is positioning growth as a downstream effect of how customers feel when they shop, browse, get help, or compare options. That is a subtle but high-stakes pivot for a retailer like Best Buy, where the category itself is crowded and customer expectations are constantly resetting, especially around convenience, product availability, and service.

To understand why an incoming CEO would start with experience and reach, look at how retail pressure usually works. Companies do not just lose customers when their products get worse. They lose customers when the whole journey becomes harder: unclear inventory, friction at checkout, slow resolution of problems, or a lack of confidence that someone can help quickly. Improving customer experience tends to require operational attention, not just marketing spend. And operational attention often shows up as smaller, more targeted changes that can be tested, measured, and rolled out without destabilizing the entire system.

At the same time, “expanding reach” is not a vague aspiration. For a company like Best Buy, reach can translate into where customers can buy, how easily they can get what they want, and what experiences they can get beyond a traditional store visit. The retail playbook is increasingly about meeting customers where they are. That means the customer experience cannot be isolated to one touchpoint. It has to connect across channels, timing, and support. If Bonfig’s strategy is to go smaller first, it likely reflects a belief that making each step of that journey smoother is the prerequisite for broader expansion. Reach is what happens when satisfaction becomes consistent enough to scale.

There is also a governance and board-dynamics angle to this kind of message from an incoming CEO. When a leadership transition is on the horizon, boards often look for someone who can both execute and communicate a clear sequencing logic. “Go smaller first” is a sequencing signal. It suggests Bonfig believes the path to growth is constrained by the customer experience, not by ambition. That is the sort of narrative that can reduce internal noise and align teams around a single priority: improve what customers touch first, then expand outward.

None of this exists in a vacuum. Retail is subject to regulatory and consumer-protection expectations, even when the story is mostly about experience. As companies intensify their customer-facing operations, they also attract more scrutiny of how they handle disclosures, returns, data, and consumer rights. While the CNBC source you provided does not mention a specific regulation, the general point for executives is straightforward: customer experience is not only a marketing lever, it is a compliance and operational discipline. Smaller, deliberate changes can be easier to document and monitor for policy adherence than broad, fast experiments.

The second-order implication for Best Buy’s peers is that incoming leadership messages like this can signal where the market is headed. If Bonfig is tying growth to customer experience and framing it through smaller steps, it reinforces a competitive truth many retailers already know: scale alone does not rescue a fractured customer journey. Competitors that focus only on store counts, ad budgets, or broad assortments without investing in how customers feel at each step may find their growth stalls. Conversely, retailers that treat the customer experience as the growth engine can potentially expand reach more sustainably.

For decision-makers watching from the outside, the practical takeaway is the sequencing question. When a CEO says the company must go smaller to keep growing, they are telling you that the early wins will likely be operational and customer-facing, not purely financial. That can matter to investors, employees, and partners because it changes what “progress” looks like in the short term. And it can matter to anyone in retail and adjacent sectors because it sets expectations for how quickly transformation should begin and what areas should be prioritized first. Bonfig’s stated priorities from CNBC are clear: expand the company's reach and enhance the customer experience, starting with going smaller.