Analysis Of Sears Holding Corporation ( Shld )

Sears has made several attempts to improve their business, most of which involved selling off assets and closing stores. Sears has sold off all properties they once owned to Seritage and also sold their Craftsman tools brand to Stanley Black and Decker. Another strategy Sears has tried to compensate for their losses is closing stores. Sears has closed around 100 stores and continues to close more. It was released that Sears is expected to close another 63 stores (45 Kmart and 18 Sears) by the end of January 2018. Sears has made some attempts to improve by involving and trying to draw in new customers with social media challenges, free home delivery, or rewards programs. For example, this year Sears is hosting a social media challenge called

For the company to ensures success in its operations there is need to cultivate customer loyalty and facilitate efficient supplies, differentiator linkage between operations and buyers must be put in place. This will be facilitated through some ways. To cater for customer needs the company will have to ensure it adopts a competitive pricing strategy against the existing competitors and new entrants in the market. The company has a lean pricing policy and to take advantage of its off- price apparel strategy. The customer’s loyalty has to be sustained through the low prices they enjoy

The industry we have chosen is the department store-retail industry. Within this industry, we have chosen the department stores of JCPenney and Macy’s. We find this industry, as well as these two companies, interesting from a strategic perspective. JCPenney has recently undergone a massive strategic restructuring in regards to its pricing, brand offerings, and store layout, pushing it away from the typical department store strategy of discounts and coupons. Its new strategy has become much closer to Wal-Mart’s strategy of every day low prices. Macy’s, on the other hand, has restructured with a push from the economic

The following pages focus on providing a strategic analysis of Sears Holding Corporation. The introduction reveals the issues that the paper addresses. The Company Presentation section reveals important facts in Sears' evolution. The Strategy Debates Section discusses theoretical issues applied to the situation of Sears. This is followed by the Strategic Decisions section that provides a series of recommendations that can help Sears improve its situation. The Implementation Challenges section provides important issues that can be considered challenges of strategic implementation.

Sears Holdings is a relatively new company, having only been created in November of 2004 (Barbash & Barbaro, 2004). At that time, Kmart Holdings purchased Sears, Roebuck, and Co. The corporation decided it would operate stores under both names, and the merger was officially completed in March of 2005. The shareholders voted to close the deal, or it would not have been able to take place. Now the company is called Sears Holdings, and it operates both Sears and Kmart stores (Barbash & Barbaro, 2004). The company also markets both brands without blending them or favoring one over the other. There were several reasons why the companies chose to combine.

This article discusses the future and current condition of Sears Canada. A major reason for the decline in shoppers are the competition of online shopping retailers. This in turn forces sears to cut costs, downsize staff, refresh marking strategies as well as business models. Sears showed signs of progress when it introduced discounted luxury lines including apparel and more goods. Nevertheless, the company will run out of money faster then they can purchase goods. Mall landlords are also in a tight situation to find contenders to fill the empty Sears spaces.This in incredibly more difficult because retailers are more concerned increasing their online sales. Big foreign retailers are not interested in expanded to Canada. Sears had some success

The company I looked into is the Sears Holding Corporation. On http://searsholdings.com/invest/annual-reports there are annual reports that show how the company is doing and gives an investor the chance to see if they want to invest in this company. Sears has their annual report for 2015, and just looking at the common stock prices for high there is a loss of 20.99, and for low a loss of 15.08. The document also states that it” has not paid cash dividends over the most recent fiscal years and does not expect to pay cash dividends in the foreseeable future.” To many this would not look good if the common stockholders are not getting their dividends paid. The annual report also goes into Revenue and Comparable Store Sales and etc., none of the

Sears Holding who is the parent company of Sears and Kmart. Sears is a retail store focused on connecting the digital and physical shopping experiences to serve customers anywhere and anytime they wish to shop.

Today, in this world of advanced technology, an unhappy customer will tell "a million of their closest strangers”.2 Present marketing world is very competitive and dynamic. However, promoting competition in the markets directly or indirectly serves consumers through protecting consumer interests and increased economic efficiency. In this situation, every organization anticipates competitors’ moves and tries to capture the market over the competitors. Products or brands by themselves do not automatically usher in customer loyalty or strengthen customer relations. In today’s world, customers look for products that best suit their needs and purpose in terms of price, features, quality and appearance. They expect to be treated as "kings" and to receive sales and service support, along with definite solutions to problems from retailers, dealers or channel partners. From customer point of view, the company or brand exists only to create value for them and to provide them with results. In the fast-changing global economy, the focus must be on the way in which the nature of value is changing, involving new ways to determine price of goods, innovation and emotion. The implication of these new forms of exchange is a transfer of power from the producer to customer.

Sears had a very long history of high earnings and establishing itself within the U.S market back when it first started, however, Sears’ retail business started to lose traction and experienced a great reduction in profits around the 1980s. Other retailers, like Wal-Mart and K-Mart, were gaining more customers in the market share leaving Sears with a smaller piece of the pie. Sears tried the installation of adding brands that did not have its name and an “everyday low price” policy on all of its products to bring back customers (Sharp Paine). Ultimately, these changes failed and Sears was reporting nearly 50% loss in earnings and the merchandising group to around 60% in losses of earnings. Sears then started to shift its focus to focus on profits at every single level within the organization, even if that meant letting people go from their jobs. In 1991, Sears revealed a new compensation system as a response to Sears’s competitive pressures to help increase profits in its stores nationwide. Before, auto mechanics were paid on an hourly wage with expectations of meeting production quotas. But this compensation plan changed with an additional commission component with the idea that mechanics were now being paid a base salary with a fixed amount of money for meeting production quotas for every hour. This even applies to auto service advisors who had originally just received a salary, but now commissions and sales quotas were introduced to them as well. This example

Store brands saw a rise during the recession, but many consumers continue to buy them. With the recession over, consumers purchase store brands for different reasons other than cost savings. Store brands are now competing with national brands. Both, store and national brands, need to focus on what they can do for their consumers and offer them value plus brand promises. How is this accomplished? This paper explains the causes behind the rise of store brands and how national and store brands create brand loyalty by focusing on consumer needs as they compete for consumers, along with how brands achieve success.

It is very important for retailers to define their target markets and decide the types of strategies that they will use to serve their markets as well. Organizations can become very competitive when trying to separate themselves from one another and come up with different ways to attract the most reliable customers. The third step in the marketing planning process is to develop marketing strategies: target markets and the marking mix. In this process “marketing managers develop their actual marketing strategies—that is they make decisions about what activities they must accomplish to achieve the marketing objectives.” (Solomon, Marshall, and Stuart 82) The type of marketing strategy that a retailor develops is based on their products, policies, and design. Therefore, it is essential for managers to advance their marketing strategies over other organizations to ensure that they are not the same as their competitors.

price is lower. The short-term sales gain is mostly or all at the immediate expense of other brands (Grover and Srinivasan, 1992). What is important is that the effects are only related to the subject’s brand loyalty level. That is, promotional activities that are not price-orientated lower the

According to Kern and Rucci, Sears developed a conceptional model of performance that links employees, customers, and shareholders in a causal chain. The model is known for three C’s, creation of a compelling place to work, compelling place to shop, and a compelling place to invest” (Kirn,Rucci, Huselid,and Becker,1998). In 1995, Sears put together a team of skilled econometrics to help gather data from 800 stores throughout the system (Kirn,Rucci, Huselid,and Becker,1998). The analyses gathered confirmed that Sears corporate financial performance is the issue that is lagging the organization behind but this information didn’t really provide detailed information. After experimenting, Sears was able to create a conceptual model of a casual chain, involving employees, customers, stakeholder (Kirn,Rucci, Huselid,and Becker,1998). The strategic

Universal Journal of Marketing and Business Research Vol. 1(1) pp. 017-043, May, 2012 Available online http://www.universalresearchjournals.org/ujmbr Copyright © 2012 Transnational Research Journals