Sears Holdings Corporation is an American holding headquartered in Hoffman Estates, IL. is the parental company of retail brands, Sears and Kmart. It was formed after the merging of Kmart Holdings Corporation and Sears, Roebuck and Co. Besides the Sears and Kmart, the Sears Holdings also own the brands Craftman, Kenmore and DieHard. It has 3,472 retail locations under the operating of Sears, Kmart, and other subsidiaries. The businesses of Sears Holdings cover retail, home services, auto centers, pharmacies etc. Their business reached 49 states in the U.S. Moreover, they also have businesses in Canada. At the same time, Sears Holdings also owns a huge number of real estate(Sears Holdings Company, 2016).
If we only look at the numbers shown above, it seems this company did a really good job. However, the fact is
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First, it is true that the whole retail industry environment is in the recession, it had some influence on Sears Holdings. The whole industry is eroded by e-commercial. Nearly all the participants are suffering. But it had a higher loss than other companies. So it is not the main reason of Sears Holdings closed such many stores. If it can be operating under an advanced management system, they can deal with this problem easily and even complete its transition before the recession.
Second, Sears Holdings holds its asset too long. As we learned in finance class, the most important for a company is the cash. However, the huge amount of cash is tied on their properties. Because of this, they have less liquidity to deal with the problem like the current situation. Moreover, besides slowing down their growth, it also makes them too heavy to transit from their original business. This unhealthy financial structure brings them in an unsustainable economic
Sears Holding Corporation is the fourth largest retailer in the United States and Canada. Their supplements include Sears, Roebuck and Co. as well as K-Mart. “The closing of the merger between Sears and K-Mart took place on March 24, 2005. Sears has more than 4,000 retail stores across the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico, and Guam. Sears offers products and services through over 2,700 branded and affiliated stores. Sears operates 894 broad-line stores and 1,354 specialty stores. Sears’ broad-line stores are mall-based locations. The specialty stores include Sears Hometown Stores that are mostly independently owned, Sears Home Appliance Showrooms, Sears Hardware Stores, Sears Auto Centers, and The Great Indoor Stores (Sears Holdings, 2011).”
When Wal-Mart establishes itself in a town, it makes its competitors to close their businesses since they cannot compete in the current market. There are several businesses that go out of business when this company sets up a branch in the town. However people don’t agree with this since customers are the ones who go to purchase goods from Wal-Mart. If there are people who should be blamed are the customers since they flock into the retail market to buy from them. This is the reason why these retail businesses are out of business. The reason that makes customers go to shop at Wal-Mart is that, there is ample parking, low prices and they also provide superior goods and services to the customers.Down town destruction started earlier before Wal-Mart was established. Wal-Mart is trying to bring with it new technologies that are aimed to cope with the current technologies. We ought to find new ways of doing things and this is exactly what is happening with Wal-Mart. For instance, Wal-Mart might be embracing technology to supplant it. Internet shopping might be some of the new business technologies that they are trying to embrace.
My company of choice for this report is Macy 's. 'The Magic of Macy 's ', as the company advertises it, has inspired me to shop there, take advantage of their incomparable discounts and great online shopping experience. Macy 's, Inc. is one of the largest department store chains in the United States of America. Macy 's manages stores under the Macy 's and Bloomingdale 's brands. I enjoy shopping at both of the company 's store brands, Macy 's and Bloomingdales. Bloomingdales provides a more personalized experience
Case Study of The Home Depot Preface This Essentials of Strategic Management assignment has been made by three persons which have been working together and individually to finish the assignment properly and in time. Secondly, we would like to thank the company whose websites we were able to visit and use, to get additional information that we could use for leading the assignment of Home Depot to a successful ending. We can say, that it was a pleasure to work on this assignment and would, in the third place, like to thank each other. The persons who worked on this assignment, for the effort and time that is put in the assignment, that brought us to this finished version.
Some core competencies that must be exploited are: Brand Kmart is an existing well-known and trusted national brand in USA Kmart has private label and designer clothing that is well endorsed Infrastructure Kmart has a large number of well-located, low-cost, leased stores in urban far away from competitors through out the country ( Appendix B ). Staffing Confidence by the market in Kmart is created by the achievements of its staff and management. With the turn-around strategy in place, new blood has been put into the top management structures. In any renewal there will be retrenchment as unprofitable stores are closed. This can be used as an opportunity to retain and move high performing staff to where they are needed and to get rid of non-performing staff. Anderson the chairperson of Kmart is well supported by Wall Street and the board of Directors. These new staff members enter the company with needed skills to address problems in certain areas that previously were poorly managed such as inventory control and merchandising. Store locations, layout and Performance Stores conveniently located away from competitors like Wal-mart and Target therefore less to compete for customers face-to-face. There are 250 non-performing stores who have already been identified as being more cost effective to close than continue with running costs. Expertise exists in-house for the planning of store layout and appearance to meet different customer segments. This concentration of effort will enable focus on key areas Technology Kmart has already invested in good retailing systems. The system can be use to control inventory, supplier payments, track customer buying and monitor income versus profit margins across all stores. Research and Development The planning department is well established and in cross-functional to provide various perspective. The planning department to ensure that strategies at all levels are executed can further use the access to past data and knowledge of changes in buying patterns. Financial Backing JP Morgan Chase has agreed to support Kmart to avert the current threat of closure due to bankruptcy.
The first Kmart store was opened in Garden City, Michigan., in 1962 (the same year that Wal-Mart and Target began operations) by the S.S. Kresge Co., a five-and-dime chain that was founded at the turn of the 20th century in Detroit by Sebastian Spering Kresge. By the end of 1963 Kmart had 63 stores converted from Kresge's. By 1977, Kmart generated nearly all of Kresge's sales, and the company changed its name to Kmart Corp. Kmart sold the remaining Kresge stores in 1987.
How does managerial planning for Project Impact take place at different levels within the organization?
By the 1980s, just before the rise of Wal-Mart, Kmart had become complacent. It believed it would be the king of discount retailing, now and forever. It didn't perform an accurate SWOT analysis, but to be fair, who could have seen the rise of Wal-Mart to the position of the world's number-one retailer? Still, as Wal-Mart built new stores in town after town, supported by cutthroat pricing and solid logistics, Kmart's complacency would cost them. Part of the problem was that as Wal-Mart was pouring money into information technology (IT), Kmart's IT budget continued to shrink – not just once, but several years in a row. While Wal-Mart's logistics and supply chain management got sharper, Kmart's stagnated. And while Wal-Mart was able to squeeze more value out of its stores and its systems, Kmart lost ground. By the time Kmart had finally decided to start devoting more resources to IT, it was so far behind Wal-Mart that catching up would have been a near-impossible task without the recession in the early part of this decade. With the effects of the recession taken into account, Kmart instead was consigned to also-ran status among discount retailers.
In 1897 Sebastian Spering Kresge opened five-dime stores in Memphis and Detroit with John McCrorey as his partner. Two years later the partnership broke up and each person kept one city. Mr. Kresge kept the Detroit store and began expanding from there onward. In 1912 the company became incorporated as S.S. Kresge and was the 2nd largest dime store chain with 85 stores and annual sales of more than $10 million. In 1918 S.S Kresge was listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Throughout the decades, Kresge rapidly expanded eventually opening the first Kmart store in 1962 in Garden City, Michigan. By 1966 there were more 160 Kmart stores in the US and Canada. In 1968 Kmart began airing TV commercials. In the 1970s, Kmart continued to expand opening 270 stores in 1976 alone. In 1977, S.S. Kresge changed its name to Kmart because 95% of its sales were coming from that branch. In the 1980s and early 90s, Kmart diversified by adding other retailers such as Walden Book Company which was the number one bookstore chain in the US. The Sports Authority in 1990, 90% stake in OfficeMax and the Borders bookstore in 1992. Also in 1990 Kmart opened its first Kmart Super Center in Medina, Ohio. Whatever was left of the Kresge locations in the US was sold to S.S. Kresge's former partner's store chain McCrory's. Between 1994 and 1995 earnings began to fall for Kmart causing them to sell off their other operations, OfficeMax, The Sports Authority, PACE, Borders and its US automotive service Centers. Also in that time period, more than 200 US stores were closed. Fast forwarding to the future, Kmart launched www.bluelight.com which is now known as www.kmart.com in 1999. In 2002 Kmart filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy which was the biggest retail bankruptcy i...
Over the last several years, Sears has continued to watch its stores decline towards the brink of death. Since 2012, Sears has lost more than $9
The name of the merged company will be changed, it won’t be called Sears. The acquisition of Sears costs Kmart an organization billions.... ... middle of paper ... ... It sells brand names like Kenmore, Craftsman and Die Hard.
Should Kmart and Sears keep their own identities and have unique competitive strategies, or should they be combined in some way with a new overall corporate competitive strategy? Please defend your answer.
Sears began as a small retailer but as the years have gone by, they have become
While both companies belong to the retail industry (where sales of products and services are the source of business), Sears and Wal-Mart have very different business models.
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. is a renowned retail goods superstore that sits atop the Fortune list at number one. It would be very difficult to find an individual who is unaware of Walmart’s position as the largest brick-and-mortar retail chain in the world. The company has thrived over the past few years and is continuing to grow by effectively managing its store operations and distribution strategies. One of the major contributors to the business consistently meeting market expectations is directly attributable to their management approach. Walmart has revolutionized the way retail companies manage their supply chains in more ways than one. But, perhaps the most revolutionary was the practice of unprecedented coordination with suppliers (Chekwa,