SWOT Analysis 19 4.1 JCP 20 4.2 MACY’S 21 5. Recommendation 22 Reference: 24 1. Introduction With the shopping season approaching, the retail industry is drawing attention again from the business world especially when the recession still undergoing in the States. The retail industry experienced a long history before developed to the scale of today. Although it not always brings surprise to the fasting changing business world like new technology, it is crucial not only to the GDP and also important to everybody’s daily life by always being with consumers.
The Fulfillment Partner Business segment refers a 3rd party liaison between customers in search of low prices and retailers & manufacturers that are looking to liquidate. The company’s strengths includes: strong branding and excellent marketing via TV, radio, and print. The company’s weaknesses includes: 1) Poor global economic conditions have affected consumer demand for the kind of goods that Overstock.com sells. 2) Overstock.com spends large sums of money on search engine promotion since search engines such as Google have become the increasingly popular way of searching for merchandise versus an established platform such as Amazon. WalMart Inc. WalMart Inc. is the world’s largest retailer and grocery
The company had stores on every corner, which resulted in high costs. Once the industry started evolving with new technologies, these stores became sunk costs for the retailer. Online-only retailers who enjoyed much lower costs than the brick and mortar stores were able to profitably charge customers a lower rate; however, at the same time, Blockbuster Video was saddled with the high costs of labor as well as the physical stores. It was not long before Blockbuster’s costs became too much for the retailer, as they were forced into bankruptcy. Today’s market landscape looks much differently than it did when Blockbuster Video was at its peak.
The Challenge of Cultural Pluralism: Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Abstract The wave of business globalization has prompted corporations to expand business in the international market. In the United States retail industry, Wal-Mart is considered as a retail giant due to the company’s successful business over the years. However, Wal-Mart’s attempt to apply the same successful strategies in unmodified manner to the international market turned out to be a complete failure in some foreign countries. One of the reasons that Wal-Mart was unable to succeed is inability to manage divergent cultural paradigms. This paper includes identification of the cultural problems facing multinational organizations and the analysis of commingling differing cultural paradigms within multinational organization.
A Consultation Report for Harveys Furniture Store Executive summary This report was commissioned by the CEO of Harveys, the biggest UK furniture company, who plans to expand its business by entering the Chinese, Chilean, Japanese and Indian, market. It is undeniable that firms from developed countries face several challenges with these expansion plans. The research indicates that there is a variety of furniture companies that attempted to internationalize in emerging markets and they failed. The report uses the cases of IKEA and Home- Depot, companies which have been successful all over the world but whose strategies did not fit these markets. Through these cases, Harveys can learn from the mistakes of other furniture companies by focusing on the localisation of its products and tapping into the local turbulent market and avoiding cross cultural lapses.
Doing this allowed Home Depot to attract new customers because of the new, innovative products they now stocked. (Constantineau) With the addition of HR managers in each store, proper training and the evaluation process became a focal point. Pre-Nardelli, there were 157 employee performance evaluation forms in use. He cut that down to two, one for management and one for regular employees. Distinguishing itself from competitors is a constant battle, and the macroeconomic environment may shift against the corporation.
Corporate and Business Strategy: Team Case 2 Date: 3/8/2009 Re: Competitor Analysis: Wal-Mart Company and Dell After a thorough analysis focusing on key strategies of Wal-Mart and Dell, which are outlined in the following pages, our final conclusion is that many of their competitive advantages cannot be easily replicated. However, several of their successful strategies outlined below could be implemented to help make XYZ companies more profitable. Matching Dell Between 1994 and 1998, Dell Computer Corporation grew twice as fast as major competitors in the personal computer market. Dell achieved this feat by successfully implementing the “Direct Model,” a strategy relying on the direct delivery of customized PC’s at a relatively low price. Competitors quickly recognized Dell’s success; however, none were able to successfully restructure their operations to reach the profit levels that Dell achieved.
Another problem is that there is no growth in your field if you work at Wal-Mart. It does not have a union, meaning its workers are not protected and don’t receive benefits. According to “What’s Good for Wal-Mart” by John Miller Wal-Mart on average pays its employees 12.4% less than other grocery stores and retail stores. Being the second largest job supplier in America I believe it should pay its employees more money. Wal-Mart is also starting eliminating the small
Andersen's remaining leadership disputed that the firm emphasized the selling of services over audit quality, replacing partners who were strong auditors but didn't generate enough revenue. By 1994, two-thirds of Andersen's revenue came from the consulting side. Coinciding with that shift, the influence of the firm's in-house ethics watchdog dimmed. Inside Andersen, the pragmatists carried the day. Partners throughout the sprawling Andersen Empire could see changes coming.
The case Cold Storage vs. Knitwear talks about the conflicting interest of two friends Ajay and Durgesh who along with their fathers plan on starting a new business. Both the families have conflicting business ideas with one supporting Knitwear while the other supporting the idea of Cold Storage. Cold Storage * Profits from this business were assured as plant would operate at full capacity * High demand for the business * Not enough competition in the market * Higher profitability can be achieved by buying food in peak season and selling in the off season * Low managerial problems if facility rented out * Limited scope of expansion * More problems could emerge if entered trading business Knitwear * Lower investment in fixed assets * Intense competition in the industry would be great threat * Full capacity production would be achieved in the 3rd year of production * Huge promotional efforts would be required * Variations in raw material prices would affect the profitability of the business. As there is in intense competition, the bargaining power of the suppliers would also be high, which is bad for the business that is totally dependent on the raw materials * Ajay and Durgesh are the only two people who would be running the business and it would be hard for them to take care of both the production and the promotion side of the business At the first glance on the data, it can be seen that the Cold Storage business is way attractive that the Knitwear but nothing can be said for sure unless further analysis is done for each. Therefore, for analyzing the attractiveness of the two businesses, the following ratios were calculated.