Sears Holding Company

Through analysis, it is evident that the company must be restructured entirely through the implementation of a differentiation strategy. This strategy will focus solely on transforming the company into a retail chain providing competitively priced appliances, electronics, furniture and home décor. While maintaining a strategically competitive price point, Sears will be able to maintain competitive prices to draw consumers

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.

point of sale system. The POS system is a perpetual inventory counting method that electronically records items immediately upon their point of sale (Stevenson, 2015, pg. 552). In other words, as a cashier scans a customer 's groceries, each scanned item is automatically recorded in the system and deducted from the store’s inventory. Implementing a point of sale would benefit a business’s inventory management function in several ways. First, the POS system will provide managers with a continuous flow of updated information (Stevenson, 2015, pg. 552). As a result, the information will provide more accuracy when used for sales forecasts and analysis, which substantially affect inventory decisions. Continuously, this inventory system would also allow greater flexibility in the sense that it can be wirelessly linked to the main company’s inventory system, creating a network of the company’s inventory systems. The POS system is capable of tracking many operations at once and can be modified according to management’s needs (MacCarthy, n.d.). This flexibility would undoubtedly benefit a large company like Wegman’s with many store locations. Lastly, the system is able to help businesses maintain a high level of customer service. Because the system gives customers a receipt with the price and quantity of each item purchased, the customer is able to see exactly what he or she purchased. This practice

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,

Another thing Wal-Mart uses is many of their departments are cash wraps. Most of these cash wraps tended to be things like batteries, gum, candy, and soda. With Wal-Mart being such a large store, many departments also have their own checkout counters that allow customers who are only looking for certain items to be able to get in and out. Wal-Mart also uses end caps on almost every aisle in the store. These end caps are usually impulse buy items that are offering special promotional prices. Another thing that Wal-Mart does is that it shelves their items based on frequency. The most popular items or the items that most consumers buy will be located in the beginning of the aisle and at eye level, while other infrequent items are placed lower on the shelves and more towards the end of the aisle. To accurately keep track of what items need to be restocked or what items are selling the best, Wal-Mart uses a planogram. The planogram they use utilizes SKU’s and will allow for employees to figure out exactly where everything goes and when it needs to be restocked.

4. Relations with Suppliers- Wal-Mart has in place a system that helps to achieve their goal of lower prices. This Information Technology system includes computers, networking, and internet that cuts inventories and waste and helps with speedy delivery. This system also helps Wal-Mart to keep in constant contact with suppliers by transferring the data that suppliers need so they know what Wal-Mart needs. Wal-Mart also works with suppliers to improve their production and squeezes the best prices out of its supplier. The video referred to Wal-Mart as the customer’s agent. All of this focus Wal-Mart puts on suppliers reduces costs and lowers prices. Wal-Mart’s technological/logistical leadership remains unmatched by competitors (Web, 2005).

Sears Holdings Corporation is a company that came from two very well known organizations, Sears and Kmart. Both companies go back even farther than the 1900s and unfortunately both companies experienced financial difficulty at one point. With the merger Sears Holdings Corporation has the experience of both organizations as well as their different style of operating. Along with an improved customer base and a new outlook Sears Holdings Corporation is experiencing financial growth.

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.

Sears Holding Corporation – Strengths and Weaknesses Strengths Trademark and proprietary Brand The Sears Holding Corporation sells trendy and profitable brands such as Kenmore, Craftsman, Diehard and Lands’ end. The corporation is one of the top retailers in the home appliances, lawn and garden equipment, tools and automobile service and warranty. The Sears Holding Corporation’s number one strength is that they own these brands which are popular amount consumers.

Walmart’s approach means frequent, informal cooperation among stores, distribution centres and suppliers and less centralized control. The company’s supply chain allowed consumers to effectively pull merchandise to stores rather than having the company push goods onto shelves by tracking customer purchases and demand. Through the use of universal product codes, implementation of Retail links at the store, use of RFIDs and smart tags, suppliers and manufacturers within the supply chain synchronize their demand forecaste under a collaborative planning, forecasting and replenishment scheme, and every link in the chain was connected through technology that includes a central database, store-level point-of-sale systems, and a satellite network. As per report, there was a 16% reduction in out-of-stocks with the use of RFIDs and pointed out that the products using an electronic product code were replenished three times as fast as items that only used bar code technology. These strategies have made Walmart to be the dominant force over other competitors with information and technology helping its supply chain strategy attain greater

Sears has been around in business ever since 1886. Sears also owns and operates Kmart. Over the past few years Sears has been struggling massively to stay in business. All the other successful retail stores such as: Target, Walmart, Amazon and are making it almost impossible for Sears to further expand and come back into the limelight. Home Depot seems to completely replace and almost prestigiously demolishing the most tradition icon store, Sears. Sears in the past year has lost about 60 million dollars forcing them to planning to close about 200 Kmarts and Sears stores. Sears has already closed 278 stores across the United States in just the past two stores. Stock rates for Sears has been down by nearly 40% as of 2017. The company isn't planning

However, Sears’ weaknesses in apparel might have a much more detrimental effect on its future, far outweighing its strengths. Sears market share in apparel is on the decline in every major category, as can be seen in exhibit 1. If we say the needs of Sears customers in the apparel market, which is a new emerging demographic of more youth oriented consumers, is focused on trendy styles, then Sears has a significant weakness in that it is not among the top choices amongst the competition by any means. In the high end market, competitors such as Holt Renfrew, Harry Rosen, The Bay (which has taken back lost market share under the guidance of CEO Bonnie Brooks) and the impending arrival of Nordstrom’s really have the clientele loyalty and market share, leaving no room in this market for Sears. In the discount market, Wal-Mart has the obvious market share lead by far, and we cannot underestimate the impact Target will have when it arrives. Reports suggest Sears and Wal-Mart have the most to lose when target arrives , as can be seen in exhibit 2. 20% of survey respondents feel Sears will lose “a lot” of sales when Target opens, 50% feel that Sears will lose some sales, and over 70% feel Sears’s sales will be negatively impacted by Target. As we know, Sears has seen sliding sales since 2006 and Target Canada will definitely add to that. Again, Sears really has no room in this market either. When one factors in other competitors that the younger population are

Discussion Question: Which parts of the value chain does Wal-Mart target in order to achieve a low-cost advantage over its rivals? Answer: Wal-Mart has an extensive real-time information sharing network with vendors to make the supply chain much more efficient. It targets purchasing, store delivery, procurement practices that leverage the company’s relative buying power, investment in a large fleet of trucks for distribution of inventory, optimization of the product mix, use of security systems, preferred real estate rental and leasing rates, and lowering labor costs.

As we can see Sears owns different companies/products within its business. Another strength is that this company has many employees because it has so many different locations around the U.S. By having lots of locations you are going to have many employees, which is great. In one article I read I was able to see some of the weaknesses. As stated, “Sears Holdings spent $5.8 billion buying back shares from 2005 to 2010, draining the company 's capital. Now, it has a major cash flow problem” (Rittenhouse, 2017). This shows that this company has to buy back it shares because if it does not they will lose more money than they are even producing. Another weakness that I read was, “From allegedly rude employees to poor customer service, even loyal customers have lost trust in the company” (Rittenhouse, 2017).

A few reasons as to why Wal-Mart became a leader in the retail industry is due to their practices in obtaining competitive advantage by offering the lowest prices for the market. Wal-Mart built their practices by giving suppliers transparency to meet the demand of customers and granting them long-term relationships by purchasing goods in bulks. In addition, their turn times on inventory are three-five days faster than regular competitors. The inventory shelves are similar to Honda since they only hold up to four hours of inventory in their manufacturing site. Also, Wal-Mart holds their own transportation which is why they can manage their costs efficiently for the company. Their transportations system constitutes links between suppliers, distribution centers and retail stores. They have restrictive criteria for drivers where in order for them to be hired they would have to be accident free for a consistency of minimum 300,000 miles accident free. The supply chain practice that they have gained since they began the business was strategically faster and cheaper than all competitors. 85% of Walmart’s inventory is taken care of by their own transportation system and only about fifteen percent is taken care of by the suppliers through cross-docking. Wal-Mart uses