1.Rivalry Is High Because H&M As A Fast Fashion Retailer

Rivalry: The rivalry in the retail industry is medium/high. Even though there are may retail companies in Australia with similar product offerings, only few belong to David Jones strategic group. On the other hand, the high fixed cost and industry overcapacity will eventually lead to the exit of the weakest market players.

Macy’s Inc. competes with other major players in the Department Store Retail Industry as well as with discounter, luxury stores, specialty stores, mail order and pure play internet retailers. Key competitors include Sears, J. C. Penny, Kohl’s, Nordstrom,

The Bargaining Power of Suppliers (Moderate): Most of the industry’s products are sourced and manufactured by a network of third parties. The supplier group is diluted compared to the industry; KMD alone has over 45 suppliers. There is credible threat of suppliers adopting forward integration resulting in loss of major suppliers and emergence of new competitors for the industry. Highly effective and specialised products will pose high supplier switching costs for industry firms.

Global sourcing is a technique of strategic sourcing in the global strategy, which is an effective approach as a part of organization’s procurement section. The objective of global sourcing is to develop global efficiencies in the delivery of a product or service for the firms achieving a sustainable competitive advantage and this is an important weapon have been focused in the 21st Century. The well-known organization, Hennes and Mauritz (H&M) is one of the largest international fashion retail and production house with the great deal of businesses all over the world. In the today’s competitive market and

In this report, values and culture of H&M will be clarified at the beginning. Following that, PESTEL, Porter’s five forces, and VRIO analysis will be elaborated. Three new strategies will be tested and one relatively appropriate strategy will be used to make action plan.

Bargaining Power of Suppliers: The bargaining power of suppliers in the industry is low. There are numerous suppliers in this industry, and the large department stores have the ability to negotiate for the lowest prices. In addition, the switching costs are low, as the products are not highly differentiated. There are a large volume of purchases in the industry, allowing the department stores to exert even more power over the suppliers.

* Procurement: As it is the second Europe’s cloth retailer company, for the production H&M uses a lot of material and workers so its mains recourses are material, labour and energy. That is why small changes in prices can affect the company’s profit a lot, and the fact that it does not own any manufactories causes some problems in controlling the production’s prices. However, not owning the factories can be an advantage in some cases. Indeed, if a problem appears, H&M can easily change its suppliers. Moreover, due to its huge size, H&M can easily manipulate with its suppliers to have the best quality at the lowest production’s price.

The industry does not possess major threat from new entrants due to strong barriers to entry and strong competition for retail space. There is also a strong rivalry between competitors as limited space is being contested by major players alongside

The intensity of rivalry and the threat of substitutes are strong components for J.C. Penney to consider as they continue to strive for increased revenue and market share. Their two primary competitors are Macy’s and Kohl’s, both of whom have fiercely competitive strategies to be strong retail operations. For instance, while Macy’s offers a multitude of promotional deals and is working hard to choose products based upon demographics and geographic segmentation, Kohl’s is attempting to reduce their inventory levels and improve their marketing strategies in order to become a stronger competitor in the department store segment of the retail industry. In order to compete with their competitors, J.C. Penney aims to focus on their previously successful promotions and home department segmentations by bringing in new reputable designers in order to attract a larger customer base. Due to the fact that the intensity of rivalry and threat of substitutes are both moderately strong in the retail department store industry, J.C. Penney ought to be diligent in their implementation of strategies in order to achieve success in the retail business.

Companies like Under Armour, Nike and Adidas/Reebok have high threats of substitute´s products. These companies share the sport apparel industry and are vulnerable to competitive pressure from the actions of buyers whenever they view that their products can be substituted for others. The availability of substitutes invites the costumer to compare performance, features, and ease of use as well as price. Under Armour’s major competitors are Nike and Adidas/Reebok because they have a similar or competing product offerings. The top sport apparel brands offer similar products and that is why each one of them needs to keep a high standard and produce good quality products in order for customers to keep buying their product.

Threat: Forces shaping the Nordstrom’s strategy is that it is operating in highly competitive environment, where apparel sold by it is not only competing with large organized departmental chains but, also from small independent boutiques in the U.S. As a result competition has become very stiff in retail

Even though H&M follows a strategy which differs significantly from Inditex’s approach it is the closest competitor from the financial point of view. H&M differs from Zara because it outsources all of the production, it is more price oriented and spends more money on advertising. But both companies are based in Europe, are fashion forward at lower price retailers, and have a strong international expansion strategy. Exhibit 6 indicates that the financial results of Inditex and H&M seem to

One the main features of H&M is the rapidity of shifts in demand and respond to customers’ needs. In fact when necessities of customers change, in only three weeks H&M can create new items. A normal clothes company needs six months to create new collections or articles. That’s why H&M does many researches all the time to find out new tendencies or variations of styles, giving shoppers last tendencies clothes.

The H&M guarantees value for their low pricing. This strategy of low prices has made the company very successful in emerging markets, according to Jepeson (2014). From the research conducted H&M seems to be practicing a cost based pricing model. The two major constituents of the brand pricing is the high fashion and the lower cost. The company collaborates with renowned designers in order to offer innovative product design but manages to keep prices low through the manufacturing

New entrants The risk coming from new entrants is low, except perhaps, for the development of niche brands that can slowly earn a position. The strong financial resources and the "story" of the brand that is needed to succeed are two elements that create a barrier. Bernard Arnault explained that a brand needs a heritage; you can not cross cut and succeed (Thompson, Strickland & Gamble 2005 and Antoni 2003). Furthermore financial resources are very expensive since lenders perceive that the expected margins are difficult to get; thus it is hard for smaller companies to access financial markets (Colonna 2003). The "entrepreneur / designer" will need to look for a "godfather"the support from one of the big groups. As Muriel Zingraff, Harrods' director, observed, "We may have more patience with smaller brands if they are owned by a parent company, such as LVMH or the Gucci Group."(Sherwood 2001, p. 6) Additionally the