Sears Case Study

In 1950, Sam Walton purchased a store and opened Walton’s 5 & 10 in Bentonville, Arkansas. This later became the home office of the now multi-billion dollar company. As business became more successful, Walton opened more stores and renamed the chain “Wal-mart.” Now, Walmart has stores all around the globe, with 5,229 stores in the US alone. It is considered the largest retail company in the world.

Sears, Roebuck and Co began in the 19th century and sold farm supplies and consumer items as a small mail order company. The first Sears retail store opened up in Chicago on the 2nd February 1925 in the building named the Merchandise. This store had included a soda fountain and an optical shop. The first detached and separate retail store opened up on the 5th October 1925 in a city called Evansville in Indiana. During the summer season in 1928 3 more Chicago department stores opened newly, one on the 63rd and Western a second on the south side at Kenwood and 77th, and the third at north side at Lawrence and Winchester Street. In 1929

Sears and Wal-Mart are both nationwide retailers, but their similarities are only skin deep. Sears started to lose its dominance in the early 1980s. In an attempt to boost the dwindling market share, Sears started to issue proprietary Sears Card, which gave customers payment flexibilities. A new slogan focusing on the "softer side of Sears", and a revised product mix, were created to appeal to the middle-class female shoppers.

By 1895, Sears’s mail order business was gaining market acceptance and the Sears catalog expanded to 532 items consisting of ‘soup to nuts’ products for their customers (Sears Archive, 2012), supporting the theory that early innovators do not have a restriction on what they bring to market (Innovation Zen, 2006). Sears’s core competencies are innovation, selling, advertising, and merchandising (Sears Archive, 2012).

On July 27, 1981, Adam Walsh who was only six years old and his mother, Reve Walsh, went shopping to a Sears Department Store located in a shopping mall in Hollywood, Florida, where he disappeared on that same day. His mother left him unattended for about eight minutes at a video game display inside the Sears Department Store and warned him not to wander around, but when she had returned from inquiring to purchase a lamp, Adam was not there anymore. Mrs. Walsh was only about 150 feet away from him when Adam was kidnapped in front of a lot of customers and employees of the Sears store. The movie focuses on the hopelessness of the John and Reve Walsh as they discover that the authorities and the own police department were not being helpful to

Stable cash flows with estimated total revenues increasing from 559.9 million in 1978 to 937.8 million in 1984 (Note also its strong intellectual property as shown by its

Lowe’s serve DIY customers and also provides installation services and other services such as electricians, painters, plumbers and landscapers. Average Lowe’s has two kinds of stores, a 117,000 square-foot and the other one is a 94,000 square –foot. This remodeling of the stores layout was done in 1980s, after the arrival and success of the biggest rival “Home Depot”. A typical Lowe’s store carries approximately 40,000 items. These items include other brands too such as allen + roth, Kobalt and Utilitech. Lowe’s product line includes products for home decoration, house maintenance, repairing, remodeling & redesigning, and constructing a new house or office. Items that may not be available in the stores are still available to customers by placing special orders. The installation services of Lowe’s are available for more than 40 product categories. Installation services contribute to the net sale too with the greatest sales coming in flooring, millwork, and

Stable cash flows with estimated total revenues increasing from 559.9 million in 1978 to 937.8 million in 1984 (Note also its strong intellectual property as shown by

The following pages focus on providing a strategic analysis of Sears Holding Corporation. The introduction reveals the issues that the paper addresses. The Company Presentation section reveals important facts in Sears' evolution. The Strategy Debates Section discusses theoretical issues applied to the situation of Sears. This is followed by the Strategic Decisions section that provides a series of recommendations that can help Sears improve its situation. The Implementation Challenges section provides important issues that can be considered challenges of strategic implementation.

Sears Holdings is a relatively new company, having only been created in November of 2004 (Barbash & Barbaro, 2004). At that time, Kmart Holdings purchased Sears, Roebuck, and Co. The corporation decided it would operate stores under both names, and the merger was officially completed in March of 2005. The shareholders voted to close the deal, or it would not have been able to take place. Now the company is called Sears Holdings, and it operates both Sears and Kmart stores (Barbash & Barbaro, 2004). The company also markets both brands without blending them or favoring one over the other. There were several reasons why the companies chose to combine.

Sears Holding Corporation is the fourth largest retailer in the United States and Canada. Its subsidiaries include Sears, Roebuck and Co. as well as K-Mart. The closing of the merger between Sears and K-Mart took place on March 24, 2005. Sears has more than 4,000 retail stores across the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico, and Guam. Sears offers products and services through over 2,700 branded and affiliated stores. Sears operates 894 broad-line stores and 1,354 specialty stores. Sears’ broad-line stores are mall-based locations. The specialty stores include Sears Hometown Stores that are mostly independently owned, Sears Home Appliance Showrooms, Sears Hardware Stores, Sears Auto Centers,

Due to slow sales and less traffic at both Sears and Kmart, the two have decided to merge creating one entity named Sears Holdings. Kmart has agreed to buy Sears for $11 Billion. This puts Sears Holdings at the third largest retailer behind Wal-Mart and Home Depot. Although Wal-Mart is a direct competitor with Kmart, Sears Holdings goal is not to compete with Wal-Mart directly, but find areas that have been overlooked by other retailers, and take advantage of the expanded line of products the new company has to offer. Sears has had higher sales than Kmart, so hundreds of Kmart’s will be transformed into Sears stores. As of now, most of Sears 870 stores are only found in malls. The new strategy would be to open Sears stores in current

Wal-Mart is one of the most successful retailers in the world (Wal-Mart corporate 2012). Currently, there

1. What ratios are MOST important in assessing current and predicting future value creation for Sears? For Wal-Mart?

There are so many organizational behavior concepts to take into consideration for the success or failure of any organization, business or company. The way these concepts are handled by management and employees will either keep the business open or these same concepts could end up in closure of this same business or organization. Management and employees are the people who will make the "win or lose" situation occur. Communication, motivation, and power and politics are some of the concepts that will cause a business to succeed or fail. Businesses must be competitive to stay alive, or these same businesses will