Company's Portfolio Into Hard Goods

Macy Inc. (M) has a cost structure that can best be viewed using SWOT analysis, which is a way of evaluating the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to the corporation. Macy’s strengths include customer loyalty, a recognizable store name, use of technology, a substantial supply chain, its comprehensive size, and the locations of its stores. In total, these strengths enable Macy Inc. to provide a unique service that offers a characteristic their competitors do not have: merchandise tailored to the customer by store and climate zone. Macy’s main weakness is its cost structure: costs are high compared to their competitors due to a complete operational transformation that includes localizing merchandise by

1. Given the SWOT analysis presented in the case, what are IKEA’s key competitive advantages? What strategic focus should the company take as it looks to further expand into the U.S. market?

Before analyzing the staffing and other related issues, we discuss the strategy and competitive dimensions of Zappos.

​Competition within the internet sales industry is fierce and innovation is the way internet retailers are looking to grab the top spot. Internet retailers such as Walmart are following in the path of competitors and building fulfillment centers left and right to allow for faster delivery to customers. Many internet retailers have explored the possibilities of drone delivery, using customers to deliver products to other customers on their way home, and allowing customers to pick up products out of lockers in stores so they don’t have to wait in line; these competitive strategies internet retailers are seeking to implement illustrate how far firms are willing to go to gain the upper-hand on one another (Forbes, 2012).

In IKEA, the Unsolicited Proposal came from many directions. Firstly, in 1952 the boycott by Swedish retailers to IKEA, obliged to IKEA to seek new sources of furniture. Second, the Swedish furniture market demand fall by the early 1970s. Third, IKEA had identified as we said before two big markets to

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 services and products offered by IKEA provide value to its customers in various ways. For one, the products and services are very affordable. The products and services are not priced highly and therefore, the average customer can enjoy them. At the same time, the products are of high quality. From IKEA’s slogan “low prices but not at any price”, it is clear that the company prices its products lowly but that does not mean that the quality is compromised. IKEA satisfying its customer’s needs through providing them value for their money as they provide quality products that will last for a long time, and at affordable costs. The fact that the company has set the minimum acceptable standards for its wood, implies that it is also keen on quality and on the environmental impact of its action of making furniture ( Edvardsson, Enquist & Hay, 2006).

it is important to identify key strengths of the company over upcoming threats and weak points. Macy’s differentiate itself from competition with upscale “Celebrity” brand exclusivity, merchandise based on local preferences, and unique store design atmosphere. Based on analysis performed the company weighted strategy is to move towards the online and technology advances with maintaining Macy’s upscale storefront culture, integrating new product offerings with revising promotions to satisfy its target market and expanding operations to a new markets with present demand. From opportunities analysis strategy can be divided in three fragments

These objectives are reasonable. However, objectives should be specific and measurable. Some alternative objectives would be to focus the Company's resources toward achieving profitability by the fourth quarter of 2000 (an annual objective), and to increase profitability by 5 percent per year for the next 3 years (long-term objective). These objectives would give meaningful, measurable goals that management would need to obtain, or it would require management to re-evaluate the Company's objectives or the Company's strategy to achieve the objectives. With the aforementioned objectives in mind, the Companyneeds to implement a strategy to achieve the desired results. It is necessary to evaluate alternative strategies before selecting the actual strategy to implement. The SWOT or TOWS, SPACE, Grand Strategy, IE, and QSPM Matrices are tools to help in the evaluation and selection of alternative strategies. The matrices indicate that Amazon is in a strong competitive position, and that the Companyshould build and grow. The matrices indicate that, despite Amazon's financial position, the Companyhas some distinct competitive advantages in a high-growth or unstable industry. Some strategies for companies that fit this profile are backward, forward and horizontal integration, market penetration, market development, product development and joint venture. One strategy that would fit into

Competition among retailers is aggressive, as the demand side of the industry is driven by consumers who expect to get the best value for their money. “Competitive advantage is anything a company has, or does better, that customers value but the competition cannot match” (Romero, 2005). Walmart has a sustainable competitive advantage over other retailers, largely due to their centralized focus of cost leadership and differentiation strategies.

As IKEA stores are located away from the urban areas, many customers may only patronize the stores during weekends. Hence, the store may be relatively quiet during the weekdays and highly packed with shoppers over the weekends. In the case of IKEA, although it adopts the self-service concept in their stores, it actually still maintains a high level of contact with their customers. To ease and facilitate consumer’s shopping, IKEA provides catalogues, measuring tapes, shopping list and pencils. In addition, IKEA stores are designed to have a ‘family shopping experience’ with customer services and facilities such as a restaurant, day care facilities and a Swedish shop. Parents can leave their kids in a supervised play area, or keep their children with them in pushchairs provided (Slack, Chambers and Johnston, 2007). The key point about IKEA is that it is different to the rest of its industry. In typical furniture stores similar products are grouped together and the final delivery of products to customers may take several weeks.

IKEA is the largest furniture chain in the world, and in 2011 the Swedish company operated over 270 stores in 25 countries. In 2011 IKEA sales soared to over $35 billion, or over 20% of the global furniture market. Most of its stuffs believed IKEA will massive growth throughout the world in the coming decade because IKEA could provide what customer wanted: good design, and good made contemporary furniture with an affordable price. In one word, IKEA’s global approach focuses on simplicity, attention to detail, cost consciousness, and responsiveness in every aspect of its operations and behavior. (Jones, 2013)

Throughout the past several years, since our companies merged, both organizations have benefitted from each other’s pool of core competencies. As a result, consideration has been made to move the merger further by combining our two web presences. Up until now, we have been able to share each organization’s strengths while keeping each company dynamic separate to allow us both to succeed in terms of what we do best. For example, although Amazon.com is fantastic in its ability to provide vast product lines, speedy delivery, and customer convenience, Zappos.com prides itself on a different approach. Zappos.com prefers to focus upon developing rapport and deep customer

I. Introduction 1. There are several basic approaches to competing successfully and gaining a competitive advantage, but they all involve giving buyers what they perceive as superior value compared to the offerings of rival sellers. 2. This chapter describes the five basic competitive strategy option for building competitive advantage and delivering superior value to customers – which of the five to

According to this case, and concerning about the strategy that Best Buy has created, retailers can similarly create a retailer-led product strategy to leverage their customer knowledge for product differentiation and to understand what the needs of the customers are; they must discover what satisfies the customer and what not. In addition, the retailer can seek for news partnerships, new stores, new countries and new categories and services in order to increase their net sales and their share market. It’s very important invest in marketing study aiming to discover what the other companies are doing. Besides, with the time, the smaller retailer can increase significantly even more than the