Critical Thinking And Problem Solving

Within every organization there are advantages and disadvantages as well as strengthens and weakness. One of the biggest weaknesses of the Target Corporation is that all of their operations are located in the US. The organization would benefit more if they engaged in business with multinational countries. Wal-Mart has more than 11,000 retail stores in 27 multinational countries. If Target is ever going to move out of their second place position behind Wal-Mart there are going to need to expand globally. The Target Corporation is still trying to recover from the embarrassing financial disaster they made when they tried expanding their brand in Canada. Target spent 1.8 billion for 222 locations in Canada. Unfortunately, this merger

Target Corporation is a retail company that provides a wide variety of products, such as clothing, housewares, groceries, entertainment, as well as a large selection of other products. Target aims for a wide customer base, providing customers with everyday products. It seeks to attract a younger, more educated, and affluent clientele. Their suppliers include many name brands for all products, including 3-M, General Mills, Massimo, and Apple. Target has also created their own brands, such as Up and Up and Archer Farms. In July 2014, Brian Cornell was named the company’s next Chairman of the Board of Directors and CEO, and his transition was effective on August 12, 2014. He has over 30 years of retail and consumer products experience in various roles at Pepsi Co, Michaels, Wal-Mart, and Safeway. Cornell said, “I will focus on our current business performance in both the U.S. and Canada and on how we accelerate our omnichannel transformation.” (Target, 2014.)

In 2013, Target Corp., the company that prides itself on offering quality, upscale, and trendy merchandise at lower costs, had anticipated a historic year. However, after purchasing Canadian retailer Zellers’ 273 locations and finally executing plans to expand outside the United States, both company and stockholder optimism vanished. In late 2013, news of a massive data breach affecting nearly 110 million consumers turned out devastatingly bad numbers in the fourth quarter—some experts even calling it the second largest retail cyber-attack in history.

For over 50 years, Target has provided American consumers with quality products delivered with “a unique shopping experience” (“About Us”, 2015). The retailing giant, second only to Walmart Corporation, secured a Fortune 500 ranking of 36 this year making them one the Top 100 companies in the U.S. (“Target”, 2015). 2014 was a tough year for the company marked with many pivotal moments including the installment of a new chief executive officer.

Target has been around for quite some time and has definitely made some mistakes in the past. Unlike some businesses who consistantly make the same mistakes over and over, Target has moved past these mistakes and learned from them. The company attempted international expanision to Canada in 2011 and with poor planning the expanision failed. Over 124 stores opened within a 2 year period and experienced they experienced several problems with how quickly the transition happened. The locations that they picked were not buildings that supported Target’s merchandising, and the move into Canada happened so quickly that the shelves were not appropriately stocked. The compnay also did not do anything to compensate for the competition that Wal-Mart supplied them with in the Canadian market. With all that being said, Target closed it’s doors in Canada and kept all its retail stores in the United States. Even

In 2014, Target headquarters discover its annual results which were US $ 941 million loss in Canada. They launched a YouTube campaign apologizing to the Canadians consumer for the inconveniences caused and admitting their bad strategy used in the Canadian market. They tried with this public expression to improve the relationship with the consumers. After this, new team starts to work hard on the data analyze and make new decisions about better segment stores and moving inventory. Also, they improve the system identifying wrong data and improving supply chain process. Even though at the end of 2014 the company

The current economic recession has taken a toll on corporations. Those who survive stay within their financial means, are innovative in retaining and attracting customers, and use technology to distinguish themselves from their competitors. Target Corporation is a company that possesses all of these characteristics. While some companies have cut payroll or ceased to exist, Target Corporation has survived in the economic recession and is positioned to gain further market share as economic conditions continue to improve.

Starting on Nov 27th, 2013 Target had a security breach that began stealing millions of customers data in the U.S. After spending tens of millions of dollars dealing with this crisis they now have to wait until this holiday season to really see if it is over or there needs to be more time for the trust to be earned back.

Recently Target experienced losses in many of their stores across Canada, prompting the CEO to close all of them. This has now left Target dependent solely on the macroeconomic situation within the United States. Target is located in forty-seven different states across the United States with its highest presence in California, Florida, Texas, Minnesota, and Illinois. This can be a concern for Target because it cannot be helped by any international locations if the domestic economy takes a negative turn, resulting in significant drops in production in its

Target Corporation is involved in offering everyday essentials and fashionable differentiated merchandise at discounted prices. The Corporation operates in two main segments: Canadian and United States. The Canadian segment provides retail operations in Canada while the U.S segment encompasses all the firms’ retail operations plus digital sales. Through a network of about 1801 stores in U.S and Canada targets sells an assortment of general merchandise and food. Its key brands include Wine Cue, up & up, Gilligan & O'Malley, Boots & Barkley, Embark and Spritz and Archer Farms (Target Corporation, 2014).

“In the fourth quarter alone, Target Corp. said its Canadian segment suffered a US$ 329-million loss before interest and taxes. The retailer generated US$ 623 million of sales in Canada but said it struggled with gross margins of 4.4%, reflected efforts to lower prices to clear excess inventory.” said Linda Nguyen from The Canadian Press. In January of 2014 Target’s Canadian arm released stats from their first year as a multinational brand. The results seemed to shock those who aren’t active shoppers, but many who visited Target locations, found them to be uninhabited with noticeably higher prices than the U.S.. Retail consultant Maureen Atkinson mentions how difficult it is for any retailer to survive in todays market. Retailers are all steadily competing for the consumers dollar, which makes newcomers lives exponentially more difficult. "There have been fundamental issues here (with Target)," said Atkinson, who is with the Toronto-based firm J.C. Williams Group. “They have to do better." Although professionals have justified the potential reasoning behind Target Canada’s lack of success, it does not seem to fully justify something as severe as a US$ 941 million loss. As of March 2014, it was released that

Losses at the company’s new Canadian operation should be reduced in fiscal 2015. Last year, Target opened 124 stores in the Canadian market. Due to start-up expenses, and intensified competition from Wal-Mart Canada and Canadian Tire, Target’s losses there were equivalent to $1.13 a share, and the pretax deficit was $415 million in fiscal 2014’s first half. Due to a very low gross margin of 18.5%, versus 30% for its U.S. stores, and poor leveraging of fixed expenses, the Canadian chain’s operating margin was negative 33.1%. As the new CEO Brian Cornell aiming to restructure the Target Canada operation, Target’s losses in Canadian market should be reduced.

Target will be downsizing their headquarters in Minneapolis and they are going to be closing stores in Canada and focusing on the united states. They are planning to focus on the younger generation. This is in hopes of making their stores a destination shopping place for people. Target has lost footing in the branding department and will be working on name branding with their food and clothes divisions. Due to the credit and debit card scandal of 2013. That caused a financial hardship for target and customers. Not knowing if they can trust a Target to keep their credit and debit information secure, in this modern day of hackers. Target is also upgrading technology to overcome the stigmatism of 2013 security breach.

Target is the second largest retailer in the US (Bhasin, 2017). It tried to expand into Canada, but failed in 2015, when it was forced to abandon the Canadian expansion and close down 124 stores (Pestle, 2015). The 2013 data breech of Target’s customer’s credit and debit card information may still be impacting its reputation among consumers (Bhasin, 2017).

speed at which the company opened their stores up. This didn’t let Canadians grow into the new lifestyle to shop at Target and instead the company collapsed on itself within a year. The second issue is the lack of product availability for customers to purchase. Due to the speed of opening, Target didn’t properly achieve their equilibrium of merchandise to sell and instead left many customers disappointed with the lack of quality service. The third issue is the prices compared to Target’s US stores. There was no foresight into the comparison of quality, price and service which would become evident once they entered the Canadian market. The fact that