Jc Penny Case Study

They changed their strategy to customer service and a broader merchandise mix than the smaller local stores could match. They have continued to grow and are now the third largest retailer in Brazil.

In hopes of revolutionizing the JCPenney brand, Ron Johnson was hired as the new Chief Executive Officer. Ron Johnson had goals of “operating with fewer layers of management” (Bhasin, 2012). Johnson announced that the home office would be making reductions and that one of JCPenney’s call centers would be closing as well. This meant that many store managers would be laid off. Surely, it was traumatic for “employee morale when a company makes big job cuts” (Bhasin, 2012). Job cuts give employees the impression that they do not have job security where they are working. The job cuts were being based on year-end performance appraisal ratings, however; someone who received a higher rating than others was still laid off anyway (Bhasin, 2012). As a result of this, Johnson completely eliminated performance appraisals. He continued to make cuts, eliminate commission from the shoe department, and transfer workers to different stores. The main problem with all of this was that there was no warning. (Did I contradict myself?) For example, a former manager stated “the store managers had a broadcast in secret 2 weeks ago, but we weren’t aware what it was about until they started calling us into their offices” (Bhasin, 2012). This negatively impacted the company because JCPenney became a discouraging work environment. All of these job reductions decreased organizational commitment and job

James Cash Penney and two partners opened the Golden Rule dry-goods store in 1902 in Kemmerer, Wyoming. The following two years they opened another two stores in other parts of Wyoming. In 1907, Penney bought out his two partners and took on new ones. By that time Penney had 34 stores and had $2 million in sales. The firm was incorporated in 1913 as the J.C. Penney Company Corporation. The company moved headquarters to New York City the following year and in 1915 stores had opened in Mississippi and Wisconsin. In 1917 Penney became chairman of the board and had opened 175 stores and Earl Sams became president of the company.

In the past, JCP had, on average, one price campaign every day. The stores were full of sale signs and retail rise was getting out of control. JCP partnered with numerous exclusive collaborations which was hoped to bring about an expansion for the firm. However, due to the economic slump, the oversaturation of the market, and an expected lack of quality in the goods from the consumer perspective, JCPenney’s success was degrading in contrast to its competitors. (Sloan, 2010).

In 1858, R.H. Macy founded R.H. Macy and Co. in New York City. From a dry goods store, he expanded his store occupy a total of 11 buildings which all offered different categories of merchandise. Here, R.H. Macy created what we now know as the department store (The History). Macy’s Inc. has grown and currently operates over 700 department stores under its various names (About Us). JC Penny Co. Inc. was founded in 1902 by James Cash Penny. JC Penny Co. Inc. was alike Macy’s Inc., however, they offered a catalog to better compete against department store like Montgomery Ward and Co. They currently operate around 1,100 stores worldwide (The Editors). The traditional department store format that Macy’s Inc. and JC Penny Co Inc. utilize has become

2) JC Penney's most immediate goal is to maintain its present customer base and to attract new clients. They can do so by introducing higher-scale brands to their stores in order to attract another category of customers, in other words, customers who are drawn to premium brands. Therefore, JC Penney's brand image will be enhanced; its reputation will be improved. Introducing premium products, and attracting customers who have higher purchasing power will bring in higher revenues to the company.

CEO Johnson’s time with JC Penney’s was short lived and only lasted 17 months. The three core processes of business that he ignored was People, Strategy, and Operations. From the people aspect, he missed several key details. Johnson just assumed that people thought JC Penney’s prices were too high, so he lowered them and quit having sells (Tuttle, 2013). He also drove customers that had been shopping there for years away. With too many changes happening at one time, loyal customers did not agree with the changes and started shopping elsewhere.

Historically, J. C. Penney’s strength had been communicating the relationship between quality and value, in a way that the customer could understand. J. C. Penney lost this connection when we

J.C. Penney’s used the linking strategy of having thousands of seemingly unrelated web sites that would link to the J.C. Penney website. Most of those links had really descriptive word choice, meaning if you wanted to look up furniture, casual dresses, phone cases, etc. they would all be linked to J.C. Penney’s. It was almost like someone had arranged for all of those sites to go to J.C. Penney’s website, and would help them out even more by making them be in the top five websites that pop up on google searches. They are ranked so high because when people look something up that J.C. Penney supplies or even has something close to it, their name will pop up because they have all those keywords connecting to their

As one of the major retailers in the United States, JCPenney has 1,104 department stores in 49 states and Puerto Rico as of February 2, 2013. The key success of its business is tremendously depending on the sales performance. However, the retail business is highly competitive, with low barriers to entry and low profit margin. Due to large sales plunge in 2012, the company is in financial trouble. The thorough analysis of JCPenney’s financial statements is vital to judge the future performance of its business.

In the article JC Penny’s New Image: Why the Re-Branding Will be Successful, the author focuses on how JC Penny is changing it’s way of marketing. Former Apple employee Ron Johnson, became the CEO of JC Penny, and had many ideas for how to rebrand the company. He changed the way JC Penny promotes products, simplified the pricing, the presentation of the company, the retail setting, and the personality of the store. Johnson reduced the number of promotions a year from over 590 to 12. In addition, Johnson created a 3-tier pricing system.

JC Penney had to undergo and withstand several competitive issues to include changing of brand image, selling strategy and marketing strategy. JC Penney also had to account for Environmental Factors to include: a population that continued to age and also unemployment rates. JC Penney tried to influence customers by portraying an everlasting sale. No matter how hard JC Penney tried to market their products, if people didn’t

Johnson’s everyday and monthly pricing robbed the customers the thrill of urgency. Failure to understand JCPenny JC Penny like Walmart and Macy’s follow at market pricing strategy. While Apple on the other hand has successfully followed skimming strategy.

The company began in 1971 in Seattle, Washington with one retail store and it grew to over 2,600 stores in 13 countries by the early 2000’s (Schultz, 2011). They now have operations and retails stores in more than 50 countries around the world (Harrer, 2011).

JC Penney Co. Incorporated was founded in 1902 in Kemmerer, Wyoming by James Cash Penney and William Henry McManus. Today JC Penney offers a range of family apparel, jewelry, shoes, accessories, and home furnishing products through a chain of department stores and their company website. JC Penney, headquartered in Plano, TX, operates in the United States and Puerto Rico, with a total of 1,108 stores. JC Penney also offers its products through a catalog channel. Each channel serves the same type of customers and provides generally the same merchandise mix. JC Penney’s business is conducted through a single segment, but revenues are reported by product category. In addition to their product categories, the