Business And Financial Performance : Big Lots, Inc.

1. Political: “issues affecting our international vendors could materially adversely affect our business and financial performance.”(Page 8.)

Political: this inturns the legislation and government rules of the country that may influence and pose as a threat to the business,

Best Buy Co., Inc. is a multinational company in the United States and it deals, with consumer electronics, and accounts 19% of the business. The company also operates in Mexico, Puerto Rico, China, and Canada. Some of the subsidiaries of the company include CinemaNow, Geek Squad, Pacific Sales, and Magnolia Audio Video and operates in both Future Shop label, and Best Buy in Canada. Best Buy Co. Inc and its subsidiaries operate more than 1,150 stores internationally and domestically. The company also operates more than 100 “ZoomShops” or Buy Express Automated retail Stores, operated by the Zoom Systems, in both malls and airports in the entire country of the U.S. The company is headquartered in Richfield, Minnesota, U.S (Scott,

Compare and contrast macro political risk with micro political risk. Discuss policies to combat their impacts on international business activities.

It is clear from the list above that political factors often have an impact on companies and how they do business. Organisations need to be able to respond to the current and anticipated future legislation, and alter their marketing policy appropriately.

In December of 2013, target corporation faced a serious security breach where over 40 million credit cards were stolen from different target stores. This paper is going to explore the problem, the background information about the problem, the controls that could have been in place to prevent the issue, the intended plan of control and the associated risks involved.

Big Lots, Inc. has not always been known as the company we know today. The original company was founded by Sol Shenk in 1967, who was an entrepreneur that had an interest in major bargains and closeouts deals. In the beginning, Sol Shenk’s business consisted of making closeout deals mainly with automobiles and automobiles parts (Big Lots , About Us (2018).

This paper explores seven references that report the results from research conducted on-line regarding the 2013 Target breach. According to the website “Timeline of Target 's Data Breach And Aftermath: How Cybertheft Snowballed For The Giant Retailer” (2015), the breach occurred November and December 2013 in which customers who shopped at Target locations credit and debit cards were breached and their personal information was exposed. Upon their investigation, it was determined their point of sale system was hacked. “Wikipedia” states point of sale system which is used by third party vendors has cash registers as well as barcodes which stores customer’s information. The website “What is Packet Sniffer” (2016), Packet Sniffing may have been a way the attacked happened. “RAM Scraping Attack” website indicates what RAM means and how this type of attack happens. “What is a Firewall in Networking and How They Protect Your Computers” (2014), “What is Endpoint Security? Data Protection 101” and “Why SSL? The Purpose of using SSL Certificates” websites each provide ways to reduce and/or prevent future attacks.

The Target data breach remains one of the most notable breaches in history, it was the first time a CEO of a major corporation was fired due to a security event. The breach received an enormous amount of attention, it caused corporations and individuals to change the way they think about information security and data protection. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas 2013 hackers gained access to 40 million customer credit cards and personal data of 70 million Target customers. The intruders slipped in by using stolen credentials and from there gained access to vulnerable servers on Targets network to launch their attack and steal sensitive customer data from the POS cash registers. All this occurred without a response from Targets security operations center, even though security systems notified them of suspicious activity. The data was then sold on the black market for an estimated $53 million dollars. However, the cost to Target, creditors, and banks exceeded half of a billion dollars. This report will review how the infiltration occurred, what allowed the breach to occur including Targets response, and finally who was impacted by the security event.

In December 2013, Target was attacked by a cyber-attack due to a data breach. Target is a widely known retailer that has millions of consumers flocking every day to the retailer to partake in the stores wonders. The Target Data Breach is now known as the largest data breach/attack surpassing the TJX data breach in 2007. “The second-biggest attack struck TJX Companies, the parent company of TJMaxx and Marshall’s, which said in 2007 that about 45 million credit cards and debit cards had been compromised.” (Timberg, Yang, & Tsukayama, 2013) The data breach occurred to Target was a strong swift kick to the guts to not only the retailer/corporation, but to employees and consumers. The December 2013 data breach, exposed Target in a way that many

While all of these technologies have enabled exciting changes and opportunities for businesses, they have also created a unique set of challenges for business managers. Chief among all concerns about technology is the issue of information security. It seems to be almost a weekly occurrence to see a news article about yet another breach of security and loss of sensitive data. Many people will remember high profile data breaches from companies such as T.J Maxx, Boston Market, Sports Authority, and OfficeMax. In the case of T.J. Maxx, a data breach resulted in the loss of more than 45 million credit and debit card numbers. In many of these incidents, the root cause is a lack of adequate security practices within the company. The same technologies that enable managers can also be used against them. Because of this, businesses must take appropriate steps to ensure their data remains secure and their communications remain

Best Buy, a familiar retailer in the technology world, is struggling to stay on top. Online and mass stores have cornered the market in terms of convenience, customer service and price matching. The recent closing of over two hundred stores alongside falling sales has experts predicting that the giant won’t be in business long. Using a results-only work environment (ROWE), Best Buy has removed the customer from the equation and forced many employees out. A marketing disaster, Best Buy must change its marketing strategy from sales-based to a customer-based to stay afloat.

The company Amazon.Com Inc. an e-commerce based industry can be affected by the country’s political external factors for example:

Social issues include population demographics (such as growth rate or age profile), employment patterns, income levels and population health and education. The above affect the pricing of the product and how the product is advertised, for example. Cultural behaviour is not always easy to analyse as it comprises many underlying assumptions which are hard to change intentionally but which evolve over time (Mullins, 1985). Methods of conducting business are altered by these cultural concerns.

Before credit and debit cards were developed, merchants would issue a line of credit to customers who did not have the funds to purchase their items. This credit processed involved using a ledger to record the amount owed for the items purchased. In today’s vastly growing economy, credit and debit card use plays an ever-present role in society. “Credit and debit card acceptance enables merchants to sell goods and services to customers who increasingly choose electronic forms of payment over other payment types” (“Payments 101”, 2010). Everything from purchasing house hold items such as grocery’s and furniture, to minimal tasks such as paying for parking for an hour, credit and debit cards provide people with more freedom when it comes to having access to funds and making purchases. Along with the rise of credit and debit cards, in a computerized and technological world where information is valuable, securing credit card information has its challenges. Validation and encryption are important practices that ensure the security of debit and credit cards, and they play a key role in providing the customer with assurance that their funds and bank information is confidential and secure. This paper will begin by explaining how credit and debit transactions take place and will go into further detail about the security, validation, and encryption processes that take place throughout the transaction. For the purpose of this paper the term credit cards will refer to both credit and