Sears Merger

On the first hand, we formulated a pre-merger analysis in order to have a better understanding of the deal. We identify the state of the Canadian economy and the industry trends of grocery-retailing and pharmaceutical-retailing, as well as Loblaw and Shoppers financial and operational situations prior to the announcement of the deal. The macro and micro analysis helped us identify the true motives

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 is similar to any other organization, and that they are also seeing challenges at the corporate level of their business. A challenge that they have to face is ensuring quality and variety of the products that are being sold in their stores. This is an issue that could lead to great declines in sales if not properly handled. Many individuals do not take into consideration all the different aspects that happen

There are certain benefits that derived from the merger, which would also boost the operations and financial performance of the organization.

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.

With the exception of ROE, most financial ratios and even absolute values bear testimony to Wal-Mart’s recognition as the leader in the retailing industry. The reason behind Sears’s higher ROE can be explained by a comparison of the 3 ratios that constitute the ratio known as DuPont identity that is profit margin, asset turnover and equity multiplier. While both firms had similar profit margins, Wal-Mart’s asset turnover was 2.8 compared to Sears’ 1.1 due to the firm’s effective utilization of assets and lease agreements to facilitate revenue generation.

Typically, the concept of organizational change is in regard to organization change, as opposed to smaller changes such as adding a new person, modifying a program, etc. Examples of organization-wide change might include a change in

Since 1992 when Arthur C. Martinez was brought on board to head Sears’s retailing operations, credit sales, especially through the use of the company’s own proprietary credit card, boost the sales of the company greatly from 1993 to 1997. The new card accounts between 1993 and 1996 were increasing by roughly a 50% rate every year. Besides the company’s own credit cards, the third

Leading and managing change require a solid theoretical foundation. This assignment will research the theoretical elements of change and change management. Addressed will be the following: Organic Evolution of Change, Formulating Strategic Development Approaches, Leadership and Management Skills and Gathering and Analyze Data. As societies continue to evolve and changing demand creates the need for new products and services, businesses often are forced to make changes to stay competitive. The businesses that continue to survive and even thrive are usually the ones that most readily adapt to change. A variety of factors can cause a business to reevaluate its methods of operation. According to literature from the past two

Sears and Kmart, two of America’s oldest and most distinguished retailers became part of Sears Holdings in 2005 after they experienced years of deteriorating sales and profits. Sears catalog and mail order firm was established in 1893 and six years later in 1899, Kmart opened its doors (Sears Archives, 2015). Sears initial target market was the farmer and other rural dwellers who only had access to a limited number of goods in the local general store of which most were overpriced. They began their catalog as a way to provide a variety of goods of good quality at a reasonable price selling everything from clothing to buggies, kitchenware to farm equipment, and hunting supplies to patent medicines virtually everything needed for life in the

Immediately following the grand opening of the first Kmart stores the company decides to expand into 17 other locations. This would then make corporate sales exceed $483 million and move Kmart into the top rankings for retail stores. As the revenues continue to come in by 1980 the company would have 2,000 Kmart stores opened. During the 1990’s the company buys various smaller corporations such as Builders Square, PACE Membership Warehouse, Walden Book Company, PayLess and even the very known Sports Authority. But around this time Walmart then grows rapidly and becomes the top retail store because of their variety of departments in one store.

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 Kmart

The main objective of this report is to gain a better understanding of large scale organizational change. The different changes implemented by General Motors company in an attempt to cope with the economical crisis of 2008 is a perfect example of this concept.

In order to survive and prosper in a rapid changing environment of business world, organization is often required to generate fast response to changes (French, Bell & Zawacki, 2005). Change management means to plan, initiate, realize, control, and finally stabilize change processes on both, corporate and personal level. Change may cover such diverse problems as for example strategic direction or personal development programs for staffs. In this

Week 3, the lecture on Managing Change describes organizational changes that occur when a company makes a shift from its current state to some preferred future state. Managing organizational change is the process of planning and implementing change in organizations in such a way as to decrease employee resistance and cost to the organization while concurrently expanding the effectiveness of the change effort. Today's business environment requires companies to undergo changes almost constantly if they are to remain competitive. Students of organizational change identify areas of change in order to analyze them. A manager trying to implement a change, no matter how small, should expect to encounter some resistance from within the organization.