Sears Internal And External Analysis

One threat to SHLD is its competition with many retailers because it is not very differentiated from its competitors and lacks brand loyalty, thus nothing is stopping the customer from overlooking Sears and visiting a rival retailer. Another threat is a downturn in the economy which could wreck havoc on SHLD’s financial position.

Over the last few years, it has been predominantly evident that Sears Canada has been not performing relevant to the standards present within the competitive industry. The market of retail department stores has dramatically changed since the time the corporate entity first began. To stay relevant within today’s retail industry, Sears Canada has to change their current operations. In today's market, the power of value-driven consumer products has been dominating the industry due to their affordable prices and emphasized popularity. Sears Canada has failed to distinguish themselves within the industry as either an affordable or a high quality department store. With emerging high-end retailers like Nordstrom, Holt Renfrew, the Hudson's Bay Company, and the rise of online discount retailers like Amazon and eBay, Sears can not afford to flood both market segments. This has become a major issue that Sears Canada is facing, as the company will need to differentiate themselves from their competitors by focusing their resources in the home improvement industry.

Sears has faced a lot of problems in recent years. Their sales have fallen and the federal courts have gone after them,

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.

The retailer will continue to see aggressive competition from Target, Wal-Mart, JCPenney, Kohl’s, Macy’s, Home Depot and Lowes. These companies are some of the national retailers that Sears will have to contend with in order to survive. According to Sears Holding 2011, annual 10K Report with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Home Depot and Lowes are the company’s most fierce rivals of the major appliance category in which Sears accounts for nearly “16% of its entire revenue” (p.5). This fierce market positioning battle between its competitors will be a major obstacle for Sears to overcome. Sears continues to try to move forward as the company’s efficiencies in fixed assets continued

The firm was facing the problem of differentiating itself from the competitors who were already adapting to the market and making more sales and profits in the overall industry. This made the firm to change its strategies in order to be able to adapt to the already changing market in the traditional departmental store business.

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.

Using a consequentialist perspective, I can understand to a certain degree why Sears implemented their new productivity incentive plans in all of their auto centers. This approach focuses on the results, or consequences, of the action or decision. Upper management’s primary goal was to increase profits as much as possible after years of declining sales and profits. In order to achieve this result, they decided to develop more of a commission based pay for everyone involved in the auto center in order to motivate employees to achieve higher sales. Using this new approach would likely result in positive results for all stakeholders

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

We have something in common; I enjoy shopping at sears as well since they have also relieved me save money. Yes, I have experienced their strengths and I decided to share them, SWOT since I have recently purchased a washer and dryer from them. Moreover, the store is extremely accessible since they have retail stores, online and cell phones as stated. Furthermore, they have call centers, which helps their customers with several problems that they may me encountering. In addition, I believe Sears may have different competitors, for example, Walmart, Amazon, Target and numerous mores. However, what makes them unique is that the company stands as a leading retailer of tools, lawn and garden, fitness, and automotive repair equipment.

Strategic Planning is one of the most fundamental factors in the success of an organization. This research project will discuss the importance of strategic planning as well as the different components of strategic planning. Many organizations fail to accomplish their goals and tasks due to the lacking of strategic planning. In order for their businesses to be successful, organizations need to be well informed about how the strategic planning process works.

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 grew up to the world’s largest retailer by expanding annual sales through diversifying sale products, such as apparel, cosmetics, jewelry, electronics, household appliances, cookware, bedding and hand-tools. This article shows that Sears suffered from a cost increase in 1997, including lawsuits, credit collectibles and sales in Mexico. Besides, the flexible payment facility that Sears offered is also a reason for cost increase. These problems brought Sears with bad debt and hence decreased the cash flow. The problems of the company came from the liquid market security, so I emphasize the flowing concepts:

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).