Case Study: Office Depot Essay

(3) In an effort to replace foreign- sourced goods sold at Wal-Mart stores with American-made ones, Wal-Mart developed its “Buy American” program. By 1989, the company estimated it had converted or retained over $1.7 billion in retail purchases that would have been placed or produced offshore, and created or retained over 41,000 jobs for the American work force.

Various television shows have pushed boundaries to create positive differences in social perception of minorities, but only few have had the power and influence to make a noteworthy impact on American culture. Television Comedy has been able to cleverly impact acceptance of American Culture boundaries for years on end. From the show “Good Times” all the way to “The Office”, comedy has been an effective way of creating positive perceptions and acceptance of all different kinds of views on our society. An easily countable number of academic texts give evidence to Black-watched, Black-targeted television narratives. (Marc, 1997). Racially directed comedy television shows have, in my opinion, have been one of the most prevalent types of television

Through the dozens of merchandise sections within these departments, the company is able to offer customers one-stop shopping convenience in addition to the company operating a dairy, bakery, kitchen, and photo plan. These functional approaches incorporate the fundamental concept of integration with combining and coordinating products and services to offer the consumers one-stop shopping (Smith &Albaum, 2005). This type of marketing and operational strategiesprovides the company an advantage in multiple areas of business while contributing to the organization’s direction and mission. Fred Meyer’s organizational structures are effective in the company’s strategy of seeking competitiveness by enabling each department and each product division in response to the local competition with marketing and operational strategies. The position of the company is measuredby concepts of awareness, use, share, and competitive evaluation in determining the appropriate organizational structure to achieve the goals of the organization. This position of the company impacts the organizational functions in accordance to the organizational design and organizational structure. The operational and marketing functions performed by Fred Meyer reflect qualities of the organization geared toward the appropriate organizational design to achieve the direction of the company.

Customer satisfaction is the customer’s evaluation of a good or service in terms of whether it has met their needs and expectations (Vander Schee, 2016). The culture of the organization is to focus on delighting customers rather than on selling products (Lamb, Hair, & McDaniel, 2017). An example of a highly satisfied customer would be Nicole Snow, who owns a small business in Maine. One day she reached out to FedEx on social networks and asked for help in getting her supply chain set up. The team responded immediately and helped her solve the problem (“FedEx,” 2015). Here customer satisfaction is greatly shown the customers’ needs and expectations have been met by

When Pamela began working for HouseMart as an assistant manager she took some liberties upon herself to improve customer service. She instituted training programs for part-time staff to help improve employee knowledge and to aid the communication process between employees and customers. The workshops helped the staff learn more about the products and become more knowledgeable in key areas for it do-it-yourselfers. During her time as assistant manager she also took it upon herself to personally handle customer complaints to make sure that the proper procedures were followed. Her focus on customer service and improving customer-employee relationships helped her improve upon her marketing concept. During Pamela’s time as assistant manager and even in her current position as manager she has made many improvements to the store as a whole; however, not all of these improvements are based on the marketing concept. Her focus on operations and profitability may have detracted some from the marketing concept.

to see where the company is now with the use of a brief Swot analysis.

     The discount retailing industry, in which Wal-Mart competes, suffered slower growth in industry sales and in new store increases by reaching maturity. This resulted in a shakeout that has left the industry very concentrated. These trends are likely to continue due to intensified competition driven by companies seeking to expand market share by gaining efficiencis and economies of scale in distribution and purchasing. Indeed, in 1993 the top 5 discounters accounted for over 70% of total industry sales. Consequently, barriers to entry are high. Other barriers to entry include the high capital expenditure requirements of leasing or buying the

In 1883 Bernard (Barney) Kroger invested 372 dollars that consisted of his life savings to open the first ‘Kroger’ grocery. That first store, located at 66 Pearl Street in downtown Cincinnati, would soon turn into the giant retail chain that consists of nearly 2,500 stores all over the country and most recently produced sales of over 76 billion dollars. Barney Kroger was revolutionary in the formation of the modern grocery, in that he was the first grocer to have his own bakery, as well as selling meat and other groceries all under one roof. Kroger was also the first to manufacture the products that he in turn sold in his own store. This was the beginning of what is today one of the largest food manufacturing companies in America.

The following analysis is written for Dakota Office Products to evaluate current business operations and recommend future actions necessary to ensure company success. In our analysis of the company we will identify inefficient business practices that have led to the companies first profit loss in its history. We will evaluate the company’s current pricing structure, ordering methods, shipping and delivery process, and deficiencies in cash flows.

1. How well do you think Wal-Mart’s earlier, more limited health benefits supported the company’s overall business strategy?

Office Depot achieves its strategy by offering products that are less expensive than its competitors. This allows Office Depot to make sales to the largest possible consumer base and yet, at the same, still differentiating itself by providing more of the problem solving, and innovativeness desired by many corporate and some retail customers. Over the past twenty five years, Office Depot has been able to enter into various global locations and develop or maintained its competitive advantage by following this strategy. In fact, this strategy has paid off well over the past several years. Office Depot consistently ranks high in terms of customer recall of office supplies and business solutions. This quantitative measurement may be used by Office Depot to quantify the Company’s growth in this area.

A Wal-Mart photo lab associate, Claude is facing a difficulty concerning attending his father’s major birthday dinner.( Brotheridge, C. 2005) Claude comes from a tight family, and he didn’t want to miss the celebration. However, there is a conflict between his working schedule and the dinner plan. Owing to the inflexibility of the auto scheduler program and his manager’s non-negotiable management style, he was sure that his manager wouldn’t give him the time off. Additionally, he didn’t want to call a sick day, not wanting to bend the truth. He also couldn’t feel there was a cold coming. Yet, the main problem is Wal-Mart’s organizational management. Managers do not treat their employees with dignity and respect

The Industrial Revolution reshaped the world and expedited how business was conducted through the use of railroads and steam engines. Department stores soon evolved after and revolutionized how shopping was done and centralized a variety of merchandise at one central location (Tayan, 2003). With the introduction of 20th century operational management strategies such as Just in Time (JIT) and Lean Manufacturing, companies had to alter its operational efficiency and the way it conducted its business in order to grow and stay competitive. Costco Wholesale Corporation entered the wholesale club industry in the early 1980s (Tayan, 2003). The idea behind a wholesale club was to maximize profits by minimizing operational costs

A1: Dollar General's main business strategy is to focus on being the leading distributors of consumable basics, with 30% of the merchandise at $1.00 or less. Dollar General believes in maintaining an assortment of consumable merchandise and making shopping for everyday items hassle free and simplistic.

On the other hand, another control system the organization is their rewarding strategy; as they link their performance and abilities to meet goals and targets to pay raise and promotion.