Johnson had several highly ambitious ideas to reinvent J.C. Penney stores. The former CEO ultimately failed at reenergizing the company. All of his ideas were not bad but he failed because he ignored parts of the three core processes of business: People, Strategy, and Operations.
Johnson failed at the people process of implementation. Johnson was a new CEO at J.C. Penney. During his transition into the position he did not move the company’s headquarters in Plano, Texas. Instead upper management conducted business through telecommunications. He did not have the backing of lower level employees in order to implement such an ambitious plan. Many of the employees that were previously employed with J.C. Penney were replaced with executives that Johnson brought with him to the company. These new executives as well as Johnson had not gained the trust and respect of the lower level employees before they begin to make changes within the company. This made Johnson an ineffective leader therefore failing at management.
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Penney was doomed to fail. Johnson came into a new company with a set of ideal all his own and began to implement. He ignored the core customer base that J.C. Penney established. These customers may not have produced huge profits but they were keeping the company afloat throughout the years. The consumers at J.C. Penney were mostly middle class working families accustomed to sales. Taking away the coupons was met with large amounts of opposition that the company was not ready for. Best Price Friday’s was a good idea, but did not take into account busy families that normally shop on Saturday. Consumers retaliated by shopping at other stores and online causing even more loss in profits for J.C. Penney. Johnson simply did not take into account the long term impact his decision would have on the
On April 4, 2008 Goldman, Sachs & Co. submitted a prepared prospectus for Dollar General Corporation. According to the prospectus, Dollar General is the largest discount retailer in the United States by number of stores. They serve a broad customer base and majority of products are priced at $10 or less and approximately 30% of products are price at $1 or less. They believe that their combination of value and convenience is what has kept them ahead of their competitors since opening in 1955. Dollar General has had substantial growth in recent years, growing their number of stores from 5,540 as of February 1, 2002 to 8,229 as of February 2, 2007. This growth encouraged Richard Dreiling,
JCPenney is a chain of American mid-range department stores that is based out of Texas that started over 100 years ago. JCPenny has been successful for most of its time up until the last three to four years. The company is trying relentlessly to overcome the lingering effects of the makeover that former CEO, Ron Johnson, had implemented in order for the company to take a new direction in hopes of increasing sales. The new CEO, Myron Ullman, has taken a close look into the markets demographic segmentation along with the income segmentation in order to attempt to return the retailer back to its old self, which is to appeal to middle-market customers. A couple issues of major concern for the company are the dissolving of Johnson’s Boutiques, the price of their products, and overall revenue.
When Jim Kilts showed up at Gillette in 2001, the first outsider to run the Boston-based company in more than 70 years, he found a business with great brands losing market share. Its acquisitions of Duracell and Braun were not delivering. Sales and earnings were flat, the company had missed its earnings estimates for 15 straight quarters, the stock had plummeted, and Wall Street had lost patience. Yet two-thirds of the top managers were getting top ratings. People were being rewarded for effort; performance, under Mr. Kilts regime, became the new measure.
J. Crew, also known as J. Crew Group Inc., is a private label company known for its preppy fashions that are fashionable yet costly. Essentially, the company was owned by the Cinader family for most of its history. Mitchell Cinader and Saul Charles founded the company in 1947. It was originally known as Popular Merchandise Inc. doing business as the Popular Club Plan, in which Mitchell’s son Arthur was the overseer. The company sold women’s clothing through in-home demonstrations. In the early 1980’s, Cinader and Charles observed catalog retailers such as Land’s End, Talbots and L.L. Bean reporting rising sales in revenue. With intentions to increase sales and duplicate success of these well known companies, Popular Club Plan began its own catalog (http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/j-crew-group-inc-history/).
David Johnson was an asset to Campbell's because he was more experienced internationally. Unlike McGovern, Johnson shifted the company's focus from acquiring small, fast growing food companies to growing sales and increasing market share in it's more acknowledged brands. Johnson hoped his strategy would increase the confidence of the heirs of Campbell. Johnson restructured the six business units created by McGovern, to three divisions: domestic, bakery and confectionary and international grocery. Like McGovern, he also wanted to increase sales in the international division. However, instead of acquiring domestic companies, his strategy was to better market it's products overseas while preparing foods that would cater to each countries tastes and preferences. This shows us that Johnson used the transnational mindset for developing internationally.
The Johnson & Johnson Corporation has conducted business for over 60 years utilizing their credo in implementing their obligations to all of the stakeholders across the globe. Mr. Johnson attempted to share his philosophy, but it took him an additional 8 years to publicize his corporate credo and management to put it into action. “He believed that by putting the customer first the business would be well served, and it was” (Hartman et al., 2014, p. 165). The Johnson & Johnson’s reputation and credo was tested during the Tylenol crisis when a product was use...
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
2) Information systems plays a very significant role in Albertson's business strategy. From corporate office functions to customer interactions, they are committing to providing leading edge technology. They are taking their core business functions and enhancing them with technology from, not only their own industry, but also others. One example of this is the store sending text messages to customers when their pictures & prescriptions are ready. While IT plays a big role, Johnston's second major area of concern is the "brain power" at the executive level in the company. By hiring some of the smartest, experienced people in the industry, Johnston is also relying on brilliant ideas and smart executive plans/projects to propel his company to the head of the industry.
In John Kotter’s article, the first error mentioned I believe is one of the most important of all the steps. Not establishing a great enough sense of urgency is a very common error. Without this, a company usually has no idea how it has already started the failure process. In the reference to the NEWC, Gregory Peck’s character Andrew "Jorgy" Jorgenson is the benevolent and folksy leader who is very near and dear to the small Rhode Island company. He is in a sense the hometown hero. Even his nickname, Jorgy, shows the affection that the workers established and personal relationship they with their boss. From his speech, it is clear that he and everyone else knew NEWC was in trouble financially. During Jorgenson’s appeal to the shareholder, he spoke as a friend and not as the leader of the company.
A1: Dollar General's main business strategy is to focus on being the leading distributors of consumable basics, with 30% of the merchandise at $1.00 or less. Dollar General believes in maintaining an assortment of consumable merchandise and making shopping for everyday items hassle free and simplistic.
On January 22, 2002, Kmart filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection becoming the largest retailer ever to do so in U.S. history. Most industry analysts attributed the immediate cause of the company's bankruptcy filing to a dull holiday season and stiff competition from WalMart and Target as the chain's more fundamental problem. But competition wasn't the root cause of Kmart's consistently poor performance. The real reason for Kmart's poor performance is that Kmart never had a marketing strategy. Kmart completely misunderstood its market and was positioning itself in the wrong direction. Also, on the strategic side, there are issues of where stores were located. On the whole, Kmart stores did not seem to be sited as well as the stores of the competition. Then there was the issue of technology. While Wal-Mart was becoming the relentless efficiency engine that we know today by investing in technology and streamlining the supply chain, Kmart held back. As Wal-Mart developed an infrastructure that enabled it to lower prices, Kmart slipped into a price disadvantage. This paper discusses these strategic problems that led to Kmart's poor performance.
Marks & Spencer is one of the UK's foremost retailers of clothing, foods, homeware and financial services, boasting a weekly customer base of 10 million in over 300 UK stores. Marks & Spencer operate in 30 countries worldwide, and has a group turnover in excess of £8 billion. It has specific values, missions and visions. It’s main vision is ‘to be the standard against which all others are measured’, it’s main mission is ‘to make aspirational quality accessible to all’, and it’s main values are quality, service, innovation and trust. (www.marksandspencer.co.uk).
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...
Poor organizational management, failure to innovate and adapt to the environment, and an outdated brand image have all contributed to Sears massive decline. By not setting a clear organizational strategy, executives of Sears strayed away from innovation, allowing for competitors to attract Sears loyal customers to their organization. In addition, the outdated brand image of Sears has failed to meet the ever changing customers of today’s society. Overall, there are many reasons that have led to the downfall of a once powerful retail giant.
In the case of Dayton Hudson Corporation, the company fell into a situation of a hostile takeover attempted by the Dart Group in 1987. At that time, Kenneth Macke was the CEO of the Dayton Hudson Corporation and sternly disagreed with letting the company fall into the hands of the Haft’s. Macke’s decision on what could be done to terminate the takeover turned the circumstances over to the hands of the state of Minnesota where Dayton Hudson’s headquarters resided. Macke requested a special session of the legislature to revisit the Minnesota corporate takeovers statute. This proved to work in Dayton Hudson’s favor and a statute was enacted that left the decision of a takeover up to the Board of Directors of the company.