Walmart, one of the top retailers globally entered Germany in the 1990’s by acquiring two local retailers. It was not quite successful and the inflexibility and inadaptability of Wal-Mart marked its end in the Europe’s biggest economy and the company had to pull off in 2006. It was seen that Walmart was extremely rigid and stubborn and did not make any attempt to learn the culture, rather they forced English language and American way of doing business as the official culture which was one of the major causes of failure.
Hudson Bay Company is also entering Germany with almost the same strategy, by acquiring the successful German retailer, Galeria Kaufhof. However, Hudson Bay will have to be extremely cautious and learn from the challenges that
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It will also focus on forming a strategic alliance with Kaufhof during these six months and market and advertise about the same using social media. It can come up with great offers and early discounts in the initial few weeks so as to draw more customers and form an attractive image.
Medium Term, which would mean from the end of the short term to a year from now, will witness Hudson Bay to be purely established in Germany with majority of its employees being local and a few from US units who would effectively cooperate with the local employees and customers (London & Hart, 2004). This period will also see a good amount of transfer of skillsets from Hudson Bay to Kaufhof and vice versa.
Long term, which is over a year from now to probably the next three years, the company will now become fully adept with the local issues and any kind of problems. Effective solutions with the right employees can be implemented to overcome any challenge. Kaufhof and Hudson Bay can together witness a growth in profits and share them efficiently amongst each other. By the end of the second year, Hudson Bay can also propose to acquire Kaufhof if need be to run independently and increase its investments in the
The Chesapeake Bay is a 200-mile-long estuary extending from Norfolk, VA to Havre de grace Maryland. On average this bay contains about 68 trillion liters of water. This bay is the largest estuary in North America. It inhabits more than 3,000 species of plants, animals, and fish. “Since the early twentieth century, the Chesapeake Bay has experienced serious environmental degradation. Problems include large reductions in sea grass, reduced amounts of finfish and shellfish (especially oysters and crab), seasonal depletions in dissolved oxygen, and increases in sedimentation.” (Atkins & Anderson, 2003) These changes are brought on by pollution (Eutrophication and Toxic Contamination), development, deforestation, and agriculture. And according
If Parkland wants to achieve the aggressive growth that the board desires his ability to improve the capabilities and the operations of the company will be one of his greatest barriers. Due to the affluent nature of the customers and the possible variety in the product Parkland should focus on improving the company’s organizational capabilities. A new plant will eventually be needed but that decision can be delayed if Charles can streamline its operations. Parkland needs to institute policies that will measure productivity and develop an accurate method of forecasting sales. This will result in lower inventory carrying costs, fewer out of stock issues, and fewer backorders that need to be filled. If Charles can reduce the number of back orders and out-of-stock products it can focus on a single product line at a time which will reduce the frequency of expensive switching costs.
1) What accounts for Deutsche Brauerei’s rapid growth in recent years? Specifically, what policy choices account for this success?
Henry Hudson was an English explorer, who sailed along the North East coast of North American. His early life is unknown, for there is not even a record of the year he was born. His final days are a mystery, after his mutinous crew set him adrift in the bay that bears his name, June 1611. It is believed that he could have been the grandson of a London alderman who helped found the Muscovy Company, which is a trading company. Hudson took four voyages beginning in 1607 and continued to1611, making claims for the English and the Dutch. At one point, he was arrested for working with the Dutch, because in those days working for another country was considered treason. Hudson was also known as the grandfather of the English whaling
Wal-Mart is a brand that is well known around the world, especially in the USA. It has gradually developed into the largest retailer in the world. Wal-Mart’s globalization efforts have been happening rapidly. But have they been successful in all aspects of their international expansion or not? This is the main thought that is going to be discussed in this essay. The questions I will be looking at are based on a case called “Wal-Mart takes on the world” from the book of International Business The Challenge of Global Competition eleventh edition – Ball, McCulloch, Geringer, Minor, and McNett. Questions are the following:
Walmart faced strong entrenched competition in Canada and Europe. In these developed countries, they couldn’t gain critical mass through internal growth, so they had to acquire companies that have been in the market already. They acquired Woolco, a money losing operation, applied many of the American business practices, and within a few years, the Canadian operations were successful. They have 317 stores, and they account for more than 35 percent of the Canadian discount and department store market. In Europe, Walmart entered Germany by acquiring the Wertkauf hypermarket chain in 1998 and entered the UK by acquiring the 229-store ASDA group. They the leader and are now losing ground to Tesco. A major problem for Walmart in the European market is overexpansion. Accompanied with the famous “Always low prices” approach, they met large resistance from the competition and regulators. Large price wars began because Walmart was accused of underselling the competition. They struggled to build a strong competitive base in German losing more than $1 billion. They were unable to create a competitive advantage, so they sold their operations to a competitor, Metro. They also faced problems in Korea, so
Deutche Brauerei is a family run German Beer Company. It is owned entirely by 16 uncles, aunts, and cousins from the Schweitzer family. The Schweitzers are brewers, not marketers or finance people, so they have hired Oleg Pinchuk to help with the marketing aspects and Greta Schweitzer, Lukas Schweitzer’s niece, to give financial expertise. The company’s agenda includes: approval of the 2001 financial budget, declaration of the quarterly dividend, and adoption of a compensation scheme for Oleg Pinchuk. Greta also wants to study the company’s reliance on debt financing and whether or not Deutsche’s aggressive penetration of the Ukraine helped the company.
Within less than 30 years, Wal-Mart had transformed from a small rural retailer in Arkansas into the largest retailer in the U.S. In order to continue this rapid growth, the company had started to pursue international expansion grounded in the belief that the firm’s business model of offering quality products at low prices and great customer service would appeal to consumers everywhere around the world (p.8)[1]. China was of particular interest in going international as Wal-Mart’s top management held the opinion that it was the only market in which the firm’s success story in the U.S. could be repeated (p.2/8). However, in 2005 (nine years after its
This report analyzes Kootenay’s current strategic alternatives, with a diagnosis of the company at all levels to formulate the best strategic direction the company should undertake. As a result, the following strategic options were considered and Kootenay is recommended to:
The Hudson’s Bay Company is a global retailer who has been around since 1670, making them the oldest company in North America. HBC is known for their department stores, with more than 480 stores and over 66,000 employees worldwide. In 2016, HBC had $3.3 billion sales in Canada, $6.4 billion in North America, and $4.8 billion sales in Europe. HBC also has a popular e-commerce site which was launched in 2000. In North America and Europe, HBC has 10 banners which are Hudson’s Bay, Lord & Taylor, Saks Fifth Avenue, Gilt, Saks OFF 5TH, Find @ Lord & Taylor, Home Outfitters, GALERIA Kaufhof, Galeria INNO, and Sportarena. These banners had a digital sales growth of 16.6% in 2016.
The Daniel Gill, the chairman and CEO faces the possibility of changing the organizational structure of Europe, Asia/Pacific, and the Western Hemisphere. The current organization includes an International Division which oversees production and marketing for countries outside the United States. The goal of changing the organizational structure of these three regions is to increase sales growth internationally and decentralize responsibility away from headquarters to field operations.
One notable business failure of an American corporation in Germany was Wal-Mart, which was forced to entirely close down its operations despite its many international successes elsewhere. This was rooted in Wal-Mart's inability to understand German labor relations. German trade unions are very powerful, and worker protections are important. Initially, Wal-Mart resisted unionization and tried to keep wages low, but was unable to do so because of political pressure from German trade unions and employee refusal to tolerate such working conditions. "Germany service sector union Ver.di, the largest union in the world, filed a lawsuit against Wal-Mart for not releasing year-end figures that could be used to negotiate wages. This ultimately led brought
The problems arise mainly because the CEO of the Spanish company made his decisions of expansion in Germany on a blue-eyed approach. The idea occur to him when meeting German tourists in Spain that were relax and happy without taking into account that the East Germans were not allowed to travel so far and there are important differences between the mentality of Western and Eastern Germany.
Perhaps the easiest approach to the acquisition of BoatU.S. is to leave BoatU.S.’s current demand and forecast planning untouched and separate from West Marine’s planning processes. This would be inexpensive and non-disruptive to the current corporate culture. The drawbacks, however, could be a slow steady decline in profitability and reliability of the BoatU.S. brand, hence the reason for the acquisition in the first place.
Describe the company and the major initiative(s) they have planned for the next 5 years.