Presentation of Mission – Vision Elements

The company knows the demands of the customers and they are well orientated in the service and the knowledge of the products and this is the element that makes them prosperous. Jean’s Rare Find Books belief in customer service and satisfaction enables a comfortable and peaceful atmosphere and in return produces a strong customer loyalty for the company. Customer satisfaction and customer retention externally and internally is measured by the perspective of the customers and thus implements the reason for the company’s prosperity. Customer perspective is a key factor on how the customer views the company.

Barnes and Noble is dedicated to providing "the best specialty retail business in America. " B&N certainly delivers on its promise, offering over 1 million book titles on demand with unmatched customer service. The B&N dedication to providing superb service with an unmatched number of options serves as an example for industry competitors on how to operate successfully with the customer in mind. Let's examine the specifics of the Barnes and Noble mission statement.

In contrast to Borders Group, Barnes & Noble which is a leading bookstore in the US recorded an 11% increase in their share value in the past year with the introduction of their e-book reader “Nook”. It is clear that Barnes & Noble were not “Myopic” in their approach and were able to retain and even grow their customers as well as profits by embracing a new product.

The bookstore chain has been decreasing in profit in the US over the past 20 years. Most of the books retailers are shutting down their operations and only a few are still operating in the country. Barnes and Noble has become the largest bookseller in the book retailers industry. The firm has integrated its business philosophy into web presence though eBook marketplace. This business strategy assisted the firm to be able to reach a large scale customers and remain as a strongest competitor in the book retailing market.

Strategic planning is a critical element of an organization’s annual business plan. A strategic plan consists of a number of components. In addition to analyzing a company’s strengths and weaknesses, a strategic plan also includes implementation and control techniques. While this may seem easy enough, implementing a strategic plan into an organization can be challenging. Barnes and Noble, like a number of corporations are seeking ways to improve productivity and profitability. This essay will identify business alternatives for the bookseller which will enable them to diversify their product offerings.

When I walked into Barnes & Noble, it gave me a home-like environment. Their shelves hold 20 to 200 thousand titles of books. Groups of couches and chairs are placed throughout the store to sit in while reading books and magazines. I feel like they wanted to give the store a home feeling as if you were just sitting in your own home reading a book. I know when I started to walk around the store it made me feel like I was at home. As I started to look around at books, I noticed a couch. I went and sat down for a bit, overviewing the book. Another feature I noticed about the store was people on their Nook. They have Wi-Fi to browse the internet for books to add to their Nook.

Just like every other successful company John Lewis also has a mission statement. It allows the company to highlight their values and provide a brief summary. Their strategy is to keep their employees or ‘partners’ satisfied so business continues to improve and succeed. This is noticeable as one takes a stroll through a John Lewis retail stores and takes in the strong atmosphere of staff passionately explaining to customers about their products. (Full mission statement can be found in appendix 1). Their strategy is based on three independent objectives – partners, customers, and profit.

All companies need to be competitive in order to survive. Not only do they have to come up with a competitive plan that will attract new customers but also to keep current customers. Just like the movie You’ve Got Mail with Tom Hanks (Joe Fox) and Meg Ryan as Kathleen Kelly. They each have their own bookstore located near each other in New York.

The mission statement is the vision of the founder. A man who recognized the glaring holes in the food market industry, and filled them with his passion to make food shopping a customer orientated experience.

The first challenge is the concentration in retail market, where the English-Canadian market only has one national bookstore chain, which is Chapters/Indigo. This was not an issue in the past, where in comparison to 1985, there were three national bookstore chains. The concentration in retail markets provides lower prices for consumers, but for competition it implies that there are less traditional bookstores available. One benefit of having a concentration in retail market would be the expression of chain and non-traditional sectors are more of an opportunity for publishers, seeing that retails have expanded the national retail space for books and thus having attracted new customers for books.

However, Amazon.com made this chain or supply useless. At amazon.com, unlike traditional bookstores, there are no bookshelves to browse. All contact with the costomer is either through its web site or by email. At the firm’s web site, customers can search for a specific book, topic and etc. Customers can browse, fill up a virtual shopping basket, and then complete the sale by

1-In order for Barnes and Nobles to use the Value Chain and Competitive Force Models they needed to be ingenious with their tactics. First, publishers are on B&N side and they are doing everything to make sure that B&N stay at float because they are basically their “bread and butter”. So B&N is securing supplier intimacy with the publishing companies which will lead to strengthening its loyalty relationship with its customer in the store and digitally. Second they are securing their niche in the market, they are doing this by having the stores advertise and communicate to their customer that a there is a specific book that “is a big deal” and B&N is offering an extensive inventory of physical books and it enhance its core competency. Microsoft announced in 2012 that they would be investing $300 million in B&N Nook tablet, e-reader business and its college division. This will enable them to included Windows 8 operating system in Nooks application; this is a space where it will have a product differentiate.

Better World Books (BWB) was founded in 2002 as a B corporation, meaning it targets successful performance in three fundamental areas: financial, social, and environmental endeavors. BWB has grown successfully since its creation as a small, socially motivated firm to one of the larger, more successful corporations of its kind. Despite the impressive and inspiring performance and growth through creative expansions, BWB acknowledges the changing conditions of the used book marketplace and is pleased to outline a brief review of current strategy and recommendations for supporting operations moving forward.

Barnes & Noble are taking different tacks with regard to agreements with authors agents, and publishers. Amazon is pulling content off the market and padlocking it to their Kindle. In response, Barnes & Noble is refusing to stock Amazon published titles in its brick-and-mortar stores. Barnes & Nobles' investment in the well-received, well-reviewed Nook appears to have been a solid business decision, the ripples of which will continue to be felt for some time. In fact, the Nook is the proverbial finger in the dike as the waters of Amazon continue to threaten the very infrastructure of the publishing business by eroding the relationship between publishers and bricks-and-mortar stores.

Barnes & Noble, Inc. operates as a content, commerce, and technology company in the United States. It provides access to books, magazines, newspapers, and other content through its multi-channel distribution platform. The company sells its products directly to customers through its bookstores and on barnesandnoble.com. Barnes & Noble conducts its online business through Barnes & Noble.com, one of the Web’s largest e-commerce sites, which also features more than 3 million titles in its eBookstore.  Through Barnes & Noble’s NOOK eReading product offering, customers can buy and read eBooks on the widest range of platforms, including NOOK eBook