Bernard Kroger's Impact On The Succession Planning Process

Kroger Supermarkets were started in 1883 by Barney Kroger in downtown Cincinnati. Mr. Kroger started his business with the motto: “Be particular. Never sell anything you would not want yourself.” Through the years Kroger has strived to uphold this motto to its customers and to provide great service, the freshest products and expansion to meet the needs of their customer base making it one of the world’s largest retailers. Kroger now has over 2,600 stores in 34 states with $108.5 billion in annual sales. Kroger operates 37 food processing facilities and Kroger was the first grocery retailer to use the electronic scanner.

Kroger’s, City Market, Kings Shoppers, Harris Teeters, Ralphs, and Smiths are a few companies directly or through subsidiary’s operations under the company’s umbrella of the 2,796 grocery supermarkets throughout 35 states and the District of Columbia that have helped shaped and developed the Kroger and Baking Company into one of the largest businesses in the United States based out of Cincinnati Ohio. (GuruFocus.com) The Company’s portfolio extends to the implementation of 2,255 pharmacies making it the fifth largest pharmacy business in the nation. (Kroger Company Fact Book) As a result of being the fifth largest pharmacy in the nation, the company recently acquisition and merged a deal with ModernHealth in

Mr. Kroger ran his business with a simple motto, “Be particular. Never sell anything you would not want yourself.” (The Kroger Company). Another amazing fact, “Kroger became the first company to operate its own bakeries in 1901.” (The Kroger Company) In this research paper I will cover what I have learned about The Kroger Company, the company history, company products, company services, company marketing, and the company financial profile as of today. Furthermore, after my research on the Kroger Company I will conclude that Barney Kroger is a successful entrepreneur. The Kroger Company is a successful business all the way around.

Kroger has a unionized workforce puts it at a competitive disadvantage when compared with its peers Wal-Mart, Sears or Target. Its competitors enjoy lower labor costs and other operating efficiencies. This environment often includes time-consuming labor negotiations and the formulation of agreements in order to avoid work stoppages. Each work stoppage comes with the potential to impact the bottom line.

Justin began his career with Kroger in March of 1993 as a Courtesy Clerk. Since then he has held various positions with the company including Cashier, Booth Associate, Drug G/M Manager, Co-Manager, Store Manager and his current role as the District 5 Operations Coordinator. Justin was a Key Retailing Confirmation Store Manager for six years. He has received multiple awards for his yearly sales improvements and EBITDA. Justin has also served as a Store Manager Mentor and served as the District Mentorship Chairman.

Another goal for Kroger is to transition to a 100% cage-free egg supply chain by 2025. There are other goals that Kroger will achieve by 2020, but there are goals that Kroger has already accomplished. It is good for a company to have goals, especially specific goals that are great for the consumers and the world. The CEO of The Kroger Co., Rodney McMullen, issues his annual letter to shareholders. The letter is long, but the high points of his strategy was: “Execution of Kroger’s Customer 1st Strategy”, “12 consecutive years of same-store sales growth”, “Growing the core business”, “Moving beyond the core with new services and strategic partnerships”, Innovation across all levels of the business”, and “Continued attention to philanthropy and sustainability”. Kroger has a lot of subsidiaries. The “Kroger Family of Companies” are 8451, Baker’s, City Market, Copps, Dillons, Food4Less, Food Co., FredMeyer, Fred Meyer Jewelers, Fry’s, Gerbes, Harris Teeter, Jay C, King Soopers, Kroger Personal Finance, The Little Clinic, Mariano’s, Metro Market, Owen’s Market, Pay Less Super Markets, Pick ‘n Save, OFC, Ralphs, Roudy’s, Ruler Foods, Smith’s, Turkey Hill, and VitaCost. Most of these are food stores, but it is interesting to see Kroger Personal

The Kroger Company team consists of a diverse group of people, some who have many years of experience within The Kroger Company and have moved up within the organization, and others who have held senior level management positions within other companies. As a result of the executives having expertise in their field, the organization utilizes a functional structure. The senior management team has several levels that start with the Board of Directors and then moves down to the CEO, W. Rodney McMullen. McMullen is then responsible for the four Executive Vice Presidents who, in return, are responsible for the Senior Vice Presidents and Group Vice Presidents. As a result of this hierarchy, the company is considered a tall organization.

Joshua Kennon (2007), stated that “The board of directors is the highest governing authority within the management structure at any publicly traded company and is usually made up of the directors who are elected for a specific number of years by the shareholders”. According to Wikipedia,” A board of directors is a body of elected or appointed members who jointly oversee the activities of a company or organization”.

The Board of Directors are in charge of determining the corporation’s leadership structure on an annual basis and determine if the board will be led by an independent Chairperson or an independent Lead Director. The board has decided that Ronald Sargent, the CEO of Staples, will remain and the Chairman of the board. The Board of Directors is broken down into five committees made up of around three or four board members. Each committee has there own responsibilities and are in charge of making critical decisions that they must assure is communicated properly throughout the entire company. This leadership structure assures that the Board of Directors has a proper balance of leadership roles that allows for a system that prevents any conflict of interests that may come from having the CEO serving on the board.

A key Emergent strategy to Kroger Co. was to be a leader in pharmacy care. Kroger is the fifth

However, the online marketing has been posing problems to Wal-Mart such as maintain tidiness due to the large customer base, delivering grocery products, restocking the shelves, integration of online and physical stores, employees satisfaction among others. The problems have been making Wal-Mart Company less effective in satisfying the demand of the customers which make them find products from the competing companies. Therefore, as resources managers of the company, it would be important to address the issues to the employees, and together we can find solutions to the problems based on the current conditions (O'Neill et al. 2016). Furthermore, it would be important to choose a leadership strategy that works for different sectors in the organization. The efforts would aim at achieving the goals and objectives of the company and develop a strategy that would allow the company to grow and adapt to the current condition.

Getting the right people on board is more important than having a strategy (Collins, 2001). Kimberly-Clark has been adamant about keeping great people in on their team. Even when Smith sold the paper mills he kept the best people even though they knew nothing of consumer products business (Collins, 2001). Smith continually reviewed company leadership. Those who met his specifications got promoted and those who didn't were let go ( insert). He also instituted programs to strengthen Kimberly-Clark employees. He formed the Educational Opportunities plan to provide continuing education to all workers as well as the Health Management Program to improve worker mental and physical health (insert). Smith's belief in having great employees and trying to make those employees even better has had a

Succession planning is the latest area of corporate governance to come under the spotlight from investors and regulators. For too many companies it is an Achilles’ heel – they get caught unprepared when a senior executive leaves which pushes up costs and can impact performance when they make a sub-optimal appointment as a result of flawed processes. Top-level executive pay is driven up when succession plans fail and boards find themselves hunting hastily for candidates.

Built on the idea of change, the roots of succession planning (SP) lie within anthropology and the study of kinship (Fox, 1967, pp. 16-7, 1993; Fortes, 1970, p. 305; Parkin, 1997, pp. 22-3, 127). Early work into business succession by authors such as Christensen (1953), Gouldner (1954), Trow (1961), and Guest (1962) helped to fuel its dissemination into a wider management context, which in the present day encompasses leadership planning, change management, human resources, and indeed almost any area of business involving change. While it may not have received as much attention in the general management literature as one might expect, it is unarguably a critical issue for any corporation, team, or individual, to consider

Succession planning, which is often also referred to as knowledge management, is one of the ways in which information is kept within an organization even though the people who work within that organization come and go. Those who make policies in business, and those who make policies that assist other businesses, have started encouraging businesses in recent years to learn to help themselves through succession planning and the management and transfer of knowledge, specifically between people who are leaving the organization and people who are just entering that organization (Dyck, Mauws, Starke, & Mischke, 2002). One of the reasons for this encouragement is due to the fact that an adjustment of roles through the transferring of knowledge is an important way to help any business move through a change of ownership or simply a shift when a long-time employee leaves the company.