Company Background
According to the Kroger business web page, in 1883 Barney Kroger invested his life savings of $372 to open a grocery store at 66 Pearl in downtown Cincinnati. The son of a merchant, he ran his business with a simple motto: Be particular. Never sell anything you would not want yourself. It is a motto that has served him well for the next 120 years. Today, Kroger has grown to 2500 stores with $70 billion revenues, 40 food processing plants ranging from bread, milk, soda pop, ice cream and peanut butter. Kroger operates under two dozen banners, has acquired warehouses, trucking companies, and has over 14,400 private-label items (The Kroger Co., 2012).
Barney was always on the cutting edge of retail. Kroger quickly grew to 40 stores by 1902 with about 1.72 million in annual sales, and in 1904 Kroger bought 14-meat markets and for the first time ever a consumer could buy meat and groceries under one roof. On its 25th anniversary, Kroger ventured into streamlining shipping and bought 200 horses and wagons to deliver to its locations. By 1913, in an attempt to streamline again, Kroger had replaced the horse and wagons with 75 model T trucks. In 1916 Kroger offered a new concept of self-serve; this meant for the first time ever a customer could shop inside a store (The Kroger Co., 2012).
However, today Barney would not recognize his company. The business strategy that Kroger has used for the last 20 years is one of acquisition, realizing the time of the super giant corporation was upon them, and the only way to survive in this market place was expansion. Kroger adopted a strategy to buy the competition and add its distinctiveness to its own culture. After over 100 years the Kroger Company merged with the Dillon Comp...
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The Kroger Co. (2012). Kroger’s corporate home on the web. Retrieved January 8, 2012, from http://www.thekrogerco.com/
Marketingteacher.com (2012). Kroger SWOT. Retrieved January 8, 2012, from http://marketingteacher.com/swot/kroger-swot.html
Retail Industry (2012). Kroger supermarkets mission statement - being the leader with values. Retrieved January 9, 2012, from http://retailindustry.about.com/od/retailbestpractices/ig/Company-Mission-Statements/Kroger-Mission-Statement.htm
Robbins, S. P., & Judge, T. A. (2011). Organizational behavior (14th ed.). New York, NY: Prentice Hall.
Welsh, G. R. (2011, December 27). Kroger shooting raising a number of issues [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://advanceindiana.blogspot.com/2011/12/kroger-shooting-raising-number-of.html
According to the Kohl’s Corporation Hoover Report (2014), in the late 1920s, a man named Max Kohl opened a grocery store in Milwaukee, Wisconsin (Hoover Report, 2014, pg. 9). By 1938, Max and his three sons had developed his store into a successful chain and incorporated the business. Max Kohl had experienced enough success by 1962 that he opened a department store right next to his Kohl’s grocery store. In 1972, Max Kohl and his family’s “65 food stores and five department stores were generating about $90 million in yearly sales” (pg. 9) In the same year, the British American Tobacco’s Brown & Williamson Industries (BATUS) purchased 80% of the Kohls’ two operations. Six years later, BATUS proceeded to purchase what remained of Kohl’s. In the early 1980s, BATUS decided that “Kohl’s discount image did not fit in with BATUS’s other retail operations” and decided to ultimately separate the two operations in order to put them up for sale (pg. 9). The president and chief executive officer at the time, William Kellogg, “and two other executives, with the backing of mall developers Herbert and Melvin Simon, led an LBO (leveraged buy-out) to acquire the chain’s 40 stores and a distribution center” (pg. 9). By the time Kohl’s managed to go public in the year 1992, they “had 81 stores in six states, and sales topped $1 billion” (pg. 9). At this time Kohl’s began its expansion and within the next five years managed to top sales at two billion dollars. Kohl’s then “acquired a former Bradlees store to enter New Jersey and opened stores in Washington, DC; Philadelphia; New York; and Delaware” (pg. 9). The following year Kohl’s managed to expand into Tennessee by adding new stores. The company named Larry Montgomery CEO in 1999 and short...
Lowe’s grew through strategic choice by heavily focusing on key functional areas involving research and development (R&D), marketing, and logistics. Lowe’s important R&D investments included the creation of two prototype stores. The first prototype with 147,000 square feet catered to large markets and the other with 120,000 square feet catered to smaller markets (Rouse, 2005). Lowe’s used these store prototypes to help guide their continued growth and store placement. The prototypes also aided the company in designing future stores more efficiently with respect to energy and sustainability (Lowe’s Companies, Inc., n.d.). Furthermore, Lowe’s marketing strategy concentrated on attracting new customers and enhancing current customer satisfaction. To bring new customers to the store, Lowe’s engaged in a pull marketing strategy (Wheelen & Hunger, 2012). The com...
Fortune 100 Best Companies To Work For. (2014, February 3). Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For . Retrieved April 18, 2014, from http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/best-companies/2014/snapshots/75.html?iid=BC14_lp_arrow1
With consistent growth to accommodate more variety, more merchandise, and the convenience of one-stop shopping, Mr. Kroger may not recognize the Kroger Company today. Under two dozen banners such as City Market, Dillon’s, King Soopers, Kroger, Fry’s and Ralphs the Kroger Company operates 2,439 supermarkets in 31 states, 788 convenience stores under six banners in 18 states, a...
The key issues for K-Mart strategies are finding the right cost level for an opportunity to be aggressive, and differentiating the product for consumer in terms of different consumer and different intangible product attributes. K-Mart and Sears should be combined with a new overall corporate competitive strategy using a cost focus. This may turn out to be the only sensible strategy, and the one which best describes the strategy adopted. Strategies of cost leadership and product differentiation are often described as if they were mutually exclusive you can either pursue one or the other, but not both.
Kroc attempted to describe what had made his business the global empire that it is today. It was not as simple as providing delicious hamburgers, fries and chicken nuggets. Kroc was an ambitious and shrewd businessman that embarked on a vision that followed a strategic plan of expansion that would cover every continent. Kroc not only created a successful company, he also built a global brand and revolutionized the American cultural landscape.
Sears began as a small retailer but as the years have gone by, they have become
Founded by Sam Walton in 1962 as a discount city store in Bentonville, Wal-mart was incorporated as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. on October 31, 1969 as an American public corporation that runs a chain of large, discount department stores. Within five years, the company expanded to 24 stores across Arkansas and reached $12.6 million in sales.Wal-Mart further expands outside America and operates in Mexico as Walmex, in the UK as ASDA, and in Japan as Seiyu. It has wholly-owned operations in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Puerto Rico, and the UK.Presently listed on NYSE, Wal-Mart began trading stock as a publicly-held company on October 1, 1972. According to the 2007 Fortune Global 500, Wal-Mart is the world's largest public corporation by revenue and the largest private employer in the world and the fourth largest utility or commercial employer, trailing the Chinese army, the British National Health Service, and the Indian Railways.Wal-Mart reached a sales milestone in 1979 with 276 stores and 21,000 employees, it reached $1 billion in sales. Having only been in existence for 17 years, the company achieves the quickest ever ascent to the $1 billion milestone.Through out the 1980s, Wal-Mart grows rapidly and by its 25th anniversary in 1987 there were 1,198 stores with sales of $15.9 billion and 200,000 associates. The year 1987 in particular is marked by the completion of the company's satellite network, a $24 million investment linking all operating units of the company with its Bentonville office via two-way voice and data transmission and one-way video communication. In 1988, the founder Sam Walton stepped down as CEO and was replaced by David Glass though he remained as Chairman of the Board of Directors. The y...
Robbins , Stephen P. and Judge, Timothy, A. Organizational Behavior. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey. Prentice Hall. Pearson Custom Publishing. 2008 Print
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Kinicki, A., & Kreitner, R. (2009). Organizational behavior: Key concepts, skills and best practices (customized 4th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Irwin.
Subsidiaries include Sears, Roebuck and Co., Kmart, KCD IP, Shop Your Way, and MetaScale among others.
Challenges in Today's U.S. Supermarket Industry. 2014. Challenges in Today's U.S. Supermarket Industry. [ONLINE] Available at:http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa479076.aspx. [Accessed 31 March 2014].
Robbins, S. P., & Judge, T. A. (2011). Organizational behavior (14 ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
Walmart serves about 14 million customers each day. When Sam Walton founded Walmart in 1962 I’m sure he didn’t expect it to become as big of a retail store as it is now. 42 years after being founded, Walmart now has 4,253 stores across the world, and brings in $405 billion dollars a year. This kind of success doesn’t just happen overnight.