Swot Analysis Of Penney Company, Inc.

Together the two heads of JCPenney (JCP) originated from successful corporations and are currently fuelling such achievements into JCPenney. JCP’s restructurment occurred in February 2012 and has changed the assessing arrangement inside the store. The store has been imparted a new style with changes in marketing, rating, store location and administration. All of these variations have been developed to improve the company’s performance.

In 1858, R.H. Macy founded R.H. Macy and Co. in New York City. From a dry goods store, he expanded his store occupy a total of 11 buildings which all offered different categories of merchandise. Here, R.H. Macy created what we now know as the department store (The History). Macy’s Inc. has grown and currently operates over 700 department stores under its various names (About Us). JC Penny Co. Inc. was founded in 1902 by James Cash Penny. JC Penny Co. Inc. was alike Macy’s Inc., however, they offered a catalog to better compete against department store like Montgomery Ward and Co. They currently operate around 1,100 stores worldwide (The Editors). The traditional department store format that Macy’s Inc. and JC Penny Co Inc. utilize has become

HISTORY : In 1902, James Cash Penney, in partnership with two other associates, opened the Golden Rule Store in Kemmerer, Wyoming. At the time it was uncommon to charge the same price to each and every customer; however, Penney preached the slogan "one price charged to all," regardless of customers' social status. After buying out his partners (in 1907), Mr. Penney opened two more stores. At present, J.C. Penney has more then 1400 department stores in the United States, Puerto Rico and Mexico, making it one of the largest retailers in the world.

The industry we have chosen is the department store-retail industry. Within this industry, we have chosen the department stores of JCPenney and Macy’s. We find this industry, as well as these two companies, interesting from a strategic perspective. JCPenney has recently undergone a massive strategic restructuring in regards to its pricing, brand offerings, and store layout, pushing it away from the typical department store strategy of discounts and coupons. Its new strategy has become much closer to Wal-Mart’s strategy of every day low prices. Macy’s, on the other hand, has restructured with a push from the economic

CEO Johnson’s time with JC Penney’s was short lived and only lasted 17 months. The three core processes of business that he ignored was People, Strategy, and Operations. From the people aspect, he missed several key details. Johnson just assumed that people thought JC Penney’s prices were too high, so he lowered them and quit having sells (Tuttle, 2013). He also drove customers that had been shopping there for years away. With too many changes happening at one time, loyal customers did not agree with the changes and started shopping elsewhere.

JC Penney was founded in 1902 by James Cash Penney and William Henry McManus in Kemmerer, Wyoming. JC Penney & Co. was founded in 1902 by James Cash Penney and William Henry McManus. The original name of the store was The Golden Rule. The name itself set the standards by which the company operated and continues to operate today. By 1912 there were 34 Golden Rule stores, but the following year the name was changed to JC Penney. In two years, from 1915 to 1917, the company grew from 83 stores to 175. This expansion made it the second-biggest retailer in the country by 1970.During the postwar economic boom of the 50s and 60s, many Americans moved to suburbs, and so did JC Penney. It took advantage of the retail space offered by the boom in shopping malls and became the anchor store in them. Today, most JC Penney stores are located in suburban shopping malls. Recently the chain has been following a retailing trend in opening standalone stores.

As one of the major retailers in the United States, JCPenney has 1,104 department stores in 49 states and Puerto Rico as of February 2, 2013. The key success of its business is tremendously depending on the sales performance. However, the retail business is highly competitive, with low barriers to entry and low profit margin. Due to large sales plunge in 2012, the company is in financial trouble. The thorough analysis of JCPenney’s financial statements is vital to judge the future performance of its business.

JC Penney had to undergo and withstand several competitive issues to include changing of brand image, selling strategy and marketing strategy. JC Penney also had to account for Environmental Factors to include: a population that continued to age and also unemployment rates. JC Penney tried to influence customers by portraying an everlasting sale. No matter how hard JC Penney tried to market their products, if people didn’t

The culture at J. C. Penny before Johnson can be described as inclusive and employee centered. The organizational culture can perhaps be described as a hierarch culture. A hierarchy culture has an internal focus and produces more formalized and structured work environment (Kreitner, p. 70). The founder, James Cash Penny, managed his stores under the philosophy of providing the best customer service at the best price. He truly believed in giving his customers the best deal possible. The company continued to thrive under this basic tenant, but started to lose its market share and overall appeal in the early 2000s as the internet and small specialty stores like H&M and the GAP started to attract more of their customers.

Before their re-branding efforts JCP was perceived to be a low quality and low cost department store. Their core target consumers were mainly working or middle class suburban women. These women were predominantly stay at home or full time working mothers. They were able to buy brand named clothing, accessories, and home decor, for themselves, their husbands, and their kids, in one convenient location for a low price. Majority of these women were able to find deals and coupons through the daily newspaper. The JCP brand embodied a sincere type personality. Their stores used warm but bland color schemes and had a familiar and friendly environment

J.C. Penney Corporation, Inc., is an American retail company that is founded by James Cash Penny in 1902 and its business is mainly in men, woman and kids clothing, jewelry, cosmetics, home needs like furnishings, cookware etc. Penny called his first stores as “The Golden Rules” which was the foundation of his business. The headquarters of the company are located in Plano, Texas. At present this company is called as J.C. Penney Co. and is operating in 1104 stores through out the United States and Puerto Rico. Myron Ullman is the present CEO of the Company.

JC Penney Corporation (JCP) is a more-than-one-hundred-year-old company which has got into trouble in the late 1990s and the early 2000s, but a dramatic turnaround happened after the good leadership quality of few key people, Questrom and Castagna between year 1999 to 2004; Mike Ullman and Theilmann between year 2004 and onwards. The contributions of Questrom and Castagna were more on optimizing business operation while Mike Ullman and Theilmann were more on changing the organisational culture. Shortly after joining as chairman and CEO of JCP in December 2004, Mike Ullman along with his top management team took various initiatives to change the climate and culture of JCP from the rigid one into more flexible and democratic

CEO Ron Johnson had a reputation for innovation (Kinicki & Williams, 2013). Therefore, hiring him to turn around the fading JC Penney retailer was understandable. “The hiring alone of Ron Johnson caused Penney’s stock to rise 17%” (Reingold, Jones, & Kramer, 2014, p. 84). Johnson came in determined to revolutionize the retailer (Reingold, et al, 2014). He was going to eliminate the constant sale promotions and change the entire dynamics of the shopping experience within the store. He based this strategy off his experience within the Apple Company; unfortunately, Johnson ignored the three core processes of business. “A company’s overall ability to execute is a function of effectively executing according to three processes: people, strategy, and operations” (Kinicki & Williams, 2013, p. 178).

The first store of J.C. Penney Company was opened in Kemmerer, Wyoming, on April 14, 1902, by James Cash Penney. In 1913, the company was incorporated under the new name, JC Penney Company. JC Penney is one of the largest veteran retail chain in American which has 110-year-old. The highest sales at all-time was $32.5 billion and the company occupies a large share of market in department stores. Then the market changed, the shopper has spent less time at the mall and more time at the discount store, like Walmart and Target. At the beginning, JC Penny did not find this problem, since 2005, the sales had been decreased, they loosed a lot of money. Then JC Penny hired a new CEO, Ron Johnson, discovered this problem and did some change. The new CEO had made a new strategic plan, and a major price-based campaign to revamp JC Penney’s image. In the end, the new strategic plan was not working, it cannot help JC Penney keep the customer. In this case, we should discuss the JC Penny’s new strategic plan, based on price change and change the company’s traditional operation.

In conclusion to the summary of the article, I believe that Jcpenney could have done some things differently that could have helped and still improve this company. First, I believe Jcpenney should have consider the fact, when CEO Ron Johnson was considering the new pricing strategy was that Jcpenney and Apple were two completely different types stores. Apple is about the coolest and latest technology while Jcpenney is about fashion and home goods. I believe that Jcpenney should have capitalize on what they had and emphasizes that could get a better deal by shopping at their stores.