Why Can 't Kmart Be Successful While Target and Walmart Thrive?
What drives some companies to succeed while others languish? Successful companies develop a system of a few truly unique capabilities that help them create differentiated value for their chosen customers.
Retailers provide many case studies in capabilities-driven success, one of the most compelling of which is the big discounter triad of Walmart, Target and Kmart. And in this fourth-quarter retail season, we thought it would be helpful to take a closer look at what really distinguishes these competitors because they provide valuable insight into the key components of a winning corporate strategy.
We believe that all successful companies — Walmart and Target included —
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Walk through a Kmart store and you 'll discover designers like Jaclyn Smith in the low-budget ambience of a warehouse. They carry Kenmore appliances, which may require high-touch sales assistance that many Sears customers expect and many Kmart stores lack. In short, Kmart has not established an identifiable way to play that reflects both customers ' needs and its own capabilities. Harry Cunningham, the founder of Kmart, allegedly admitted that Sam Walton (the founder of Walmart) "not only copied our concepts, he strengthened them."
The lack of a clear concept about how to reach the market, in our view, is the single most important factor in explaining why Kmart 's fortunes have fallen so far, compared to its two rivals. Without a clear way to play, and capabilities to support it, a company cannot achieve the coherence it needs to truly excel at what it does, and thus outpace competitors.
http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2010/12/why_cant_kmart_be_successful_w.html
Kmart (sometimes stylized as K-Mart), is an American chain of discount stores headquartered in the United States. The chain purchased Sears in 2005, forming a new corporation under the name Sears Holdings Corporation. The company was founded in 1962 and is the third largest discount store chain in the world, behind Walmart and Target, with stores in the United States, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Guam (which houses the world 's largest Kmart).[2] As of January 29, 2011, Kmart
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
Kohl’s is an American department store, founded by Maxwell Kohl in 1962. In 1946, Maxwell operated his first store which is known as Kohl’s Food Store. After the success of Kohl’s Food Store, he opened his first department store which is Kohl’s Department Store (present). Since that year, it has been operating in the retail industry and it offers clothing, furniture, accessories, electronics, and house ware products. During the 2000s. Kohl’s has expanded nationwide in the United States. Also, Kohl’s is the second largest retail store in the United States. In addition, the target group of Kohl’s are upper middle and upper class individuals especially families.(Gennrich, 2012)
Kroger, a grocery store that is slowing evolving into a Walmart or Target was started up by Barney Kroger. Barney used his life savings that consisted of $372 to open the very first Kroger store in downtown Cincinnati. Barney lived by his motto “Be particular. Never sell anything you would not want yourself “. Kroger has an established business ethics and they also have core values set in place. To help support their employees they also have an established labor union along with other strongly supported policies. Kroger was able to achieve its growth by merging with other successful companies.
The intensity of rivalry and the threat of substitutes are strong components for J.C. Penney to consider as they continue to strive for increased revenue and market share. Their two primary competitors are Macy’s and Kohl’s, both of whom have fiercely competitive strategies to be strong retail operations. For instance, while Macy’s offers a multitude of promotional deals and is working hard to choose products based upon demographics and geographic segmentation, Kohl’s is attempting to reduce their inventory levels and improve their marketing strategies in order to become a stronger competitor in the department store segment of the retail industry. In order to compete with their competitors, J.C. Penney aims to focus on their previously successful promotions and home department segmentations by bringing in new reputable designers in order to attract a larger customer base. Due to the fact that the intensity of rivalry and threat of substitutes are both moderately strong in the retail department store industry, J.C. Penney ought to be diligent in their implementation of strategies in order to achieve success in the retail business.
Target’s business-level strategy is one that does not strictly focus entirely on one plan to gain a competitive advantage over competition. It encompasses various strategic and meticulous planning and decision making that is implemented in order to position the company at the top of the retail industry. With competition from the likes of Wal-Mart, Sam’s Club, and Costco, Target uses several clever and “out-of-the-box” ideas to attract consumer attention and ultimately increase market share within the industry. Most of the company’s ideas centered more on the differentiation of products and services provided to customers than lowering prices. For quite some time, the company’s plan was to not compete head-to-head with Wal-Mart in terms of lowering prices but instead to provide their customers, who they identify as “guests”, with a special experience every time they visited a Target location. One idea that was implemented was to market and sell upscale, trendy clothing and unique merchandise at discounted prices.1 This strategy, known as the “cheap-chic” strategy, focused on providing good quality clothing from various well known designers and fancy products from high-profile manufacturers for prices lower than their competition. This plan was vital because it began essentially began the concept of customers referring to Target as “Tar-zhay” which according to Patrick Barwise and Sean Meehan, who are university professors, as a “connote its trendy sensibility”. Target
The financial data will support the strategy as the ratios and numbers show that Macy’s has resources and capital available for the implementation. Evaluation of external and internal factors positively presenting an opportunity for Macy’s to use designed strategy to and keep competitiveness in the industry. Summarizing Macy’s is a well-established organization with over 150 successful years in business that still has an ability to compete with leaders in the industry if the right
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
Macy's Inc. is one of the nation's largest and well known department store chains. Started over 150 years ago, Macy's has continually generated excellent returns for its shareholders and employees. Currently, in the midst of a global recession, Macy's has generated huge profits with same store sales increasing 5.3% year to date. In 2012 same store sales increased 4.6% in the month of February alone (Macy's Inc., 2012). In fact, throughout the duration of 2012, Macy's is projecting even larger profits for its underlying business operations. Even though Macy's has experienced success with both its assortments and brand, its competitors haven't faired so well. Sears, due in part to part to a lackluster holiday season, has been forced to close nearly 120 locations to generate excess liquidity in an effort to shore up its balance sheet (Isidore, 2011).Other competitors who cater specifically to the middle class consumer have also lost significant amounts of market share as consumers trade down due to the economy. This performance is primarily due to the core functions and operations of the business. Planning, organizing, leading, and controlling. Macy's excels at these forms of management, which has allowed the company to perform at a higher level relative to its peers in the industry.
The article “Is Kmart closing? Sears says no” by Paul Monica is about the recent rumors of the Kmart stores closing down. With Sears stock down 35% many would’ve thought they’d cut the Kmart franchise. However, Eddie Lambert, the Sears CEO, states, “there are no plans and there have never been any plans to close the Kmart format” (Monica 1). This came as a surprise as most have noticed the disappearance of Sears and Kmart’s due to poor sales. Monica believes keeping the Kmart’s open may be a bad idea since we’re surrounded by Amazon and Walmart sales.
You may have gone to a Wal-Mart before, maybe even Publix with their ridiculously exorbitant prices, but have you ever went to a K-mart before? K-mart has been around since 1962, and nobody really knows what the “K” stands for in “K-mart”. Well, the “K” stands for Kresge, named after S.S. Kresge, the person who originally founded K-mart way
Kmart started off on the right foot back in 1899 and was a major player in supplying goods to the consumers from their small five and dime stores. From there they started to expand, they were a provider of low-cost merchandise but once the competition (Wal-Mart and Target) started opening they started loosing the fight. Since that time they have been through many changes and many hard times. By 1962 they started opening full line discount stores which continued to help the company succeed. From 1980 - 2002 five different CEOs ran the company. Some of their strategies were focused on the same track as the one before them while others had to change direction entirely in order to fight to turn the company around. Kmart has suppliers that
Kmart is a huge vintage company that had peeked at one time and now is
The aim of this paper is to highlight the strategic position of the company with an overview of its internal and external environment. The study of its strategy, design and other forces, one can easily gauge why and how target has managed to become the retail giant it is today.
This paper will discuss the kroger company’s strategy and competitive advantage. It will also discuss competition and strategy from rival company Walmart. Research will show whether Kroger uses an offensive or defensive strategic approach to business practices. It will discuss mergers and acquisitions of The Kroger Company (Bethel University, 2017).
The recognized giants in today’s discount retail market are Wal-Mart, Sears, Roebuck and Company, and Target, and this paper compares Wal-Mart and Target. As the competition stiffens to capture market niches, these two organizations are heading for a showdown. This work demonstrates distinctive differences in company culture, promotion within the organization, lofty goal setting, and leadership styles between these two organizations. Although this paper shows a definite competitive advantage for the Wal-Mart organization, it will also demonstrate that Target