Target Corporation Business Analysis

Target Corporation was incorporated in Minnesota in 1902, and continues to be headquartered for target’s corporate. In addition to Minnesota, Target has another headquarter in India which is located in Bangalore with over 2500 team members . The company stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker TGT. From now on, we will refer to this company as Target.

During the last Christmas season, Target announced that their data security was breached. According to David Lazarus in Los Angeles Times, Target stated that roughly 110 million customers’ information was illegally taken from their database. The information included their credit/debit card info, phone numbers, and email addresses. Target is one of the most popular grocery stores in the U.S.; they have a substantial amount of consumers. Because of this incident, consumers' trusts for the store have been decreasing. Worrying about losing its customers, the company offered a free year of credit monitoring and identity-theft protection, so the customers will feel more secure. Not only Target, some other large retailers also faced the same issues. They want their customers to trust that the companies can protect private data. However, should we not worry? Data breaches have been going on for about a decade, but we have not seriously thought about the issue. In order to protect people’s privacy, the federal government should make new laws concerning companies’ handling of customer information.

As one of the largest American retailers, The Target Corporation offers home goods, clothing, electronics, food, and other household necessities at competitive discount rates. Founded in 1902 originally as a department store in the midwest, it has since branched off and grown to offer more to the common people. The company in its long run of upscale discount retailing has proved to be a worthy investment, but has since fallen in it stature. The mass amounts of goods and services generates a high-net of profit, but its recent spike in prices on some of their products. a security breach, and the state of the economy have attributed to a loss in clientele. Therefore. the Target Corporation is not worth investing it, based on the current shape of the economy and its continuous errors towards its once loyal customers.

In December 2013, the CEO, Gregg Steinhafle, of Target announced that their company was affected by a data breach that occurred between November 27 and December 15, 2013. “Target disclosed that online thieves hacked into its computer system, stealing credit card or personal information from more than 100 million customers. Both personal data and credit card information may have been stolen from about 12 million people” (Abrams, 2014). The outcome of this breach has cost Gregg Steinhafle his job, as well as the trust of Target’s consumers, investors, and close to $150 million in breach-related costs. This breach is considered one of the largest retail data breaches in U.S. history due to the amount of personal data and credit card

Every bit of data helps criminals develop more tactics for either impersonating victims or luring them to give up more sensitive information.. The Target breach ranks as one of the most profound of our time. The scandal has triggered at least two class action lawsuits, drawn state investigations, and damaged Target’s bottom line. The company cut its fourth quarter

arget, the second-largest discount retailer in The United of America, had started its journey as Dayton Dry Goods Company in 1902 by the founder, George D. Dayton. Now the company is in the front line of the discount store industry as well as variety stores industry. Target has huge market share in US market and with strong distribution channels increases sales after each year so that they are able to donate huge amount (over $150) of profits to different schools in US. Target focuses on quality products rather than cheaper one. So that products are more expensive than its competitors. Target does not believe in brand awareness and does not have much international distributors as much as Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. or Costco Wholesale’s. Still

The Target data breach remains one of the most notable breaches in history, it was the first time a CEO of a major corporation was fired due to a security event. The breach received an enormous amount of attention, it caused corporations and individuals to change the way they think about information security and data protection. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas 2013 hackers gained access to 40 million customer credit cards and personal data of 70 million Target customers. The intruders slipped in by using stolen credentials and from there gained access to vulnerable servers on Targets network to launch their attack and steal sensitive customer data from the POS cash registers. All this occurred without a response from Targets security operations center, even though security systems notified them of suspicious activity. The data was then sold on the black market for an estimated $53 million dollars. However, the cost to Target, creditors, and banks exceeded half of a billion dollars. This report will review how the infiltration occurred, what allowed the breach to occur including Targets response, and finally who was impacted by the security event.

It is Target since its inception in 1962 has turned out to be more or less effective in making a real image in the US and as a store that works to its best. People take this store as a partner in many aspects living with their family or friends to work ways out as intended to. There is an image that this company has had to keep looking aside to a fact that it is a necessity.

Some of Target’s strengths are its growth. In less than 100 years, Target has grown to over 1,790 stores and over 300,000 employees. MBA-Lectures says that “97% of American consumers are familiar with Bullseye” (SWOT Analysis of Target Corporation (2010, September 19.)). Knowing the logo and mascot of any company is a huge deal for the company. You may see a bullseye somewhere else, such as a dart board in a toy store, and think of Target. In 2009, Target was listed 28 on the Fortune 500, making it the second largest retailer in the United States behind Walmart. Shopping at Target does not mean you have to actually physically drive to the store. Target has an online website and a mobile app so people can shop anytime, anywhere (SWOT Analysis of Target Corporation (2010, September 19), Target Corporation SWOT Analysis, USP & Competitors (2011-2016)).

Problem In order to stay competitive in times of economic troubles, Target heavily invested in store brands which now account for 20% of Target’s sales volume (Kotler & Armstrong, 2014, p. 264). Despite success with designer labels and in-house brands, Target’s yearly total sales decreased by 1% and net profits decreased by 33% over the prior year’s sales and profits (Kotler & Armstrong, 2014, p. 264). With the continuous loss of sales to competitors such as Walmart and dollar stores, Target’s store brands proved successful in keeping the company afloat in the competitive discount retailer industry (Kotler & Armstrong, 2014, p. 264).

To restrict the number of data breaches discussed, the limitations of the data breaches’ characteristics include data breaches that were publicized and covered extensively by news reports and social media and that have a record of compromising more than fifty million private records. Of those data breaches, three infamous data breaches that will be discussed are the Target data breach that occurred in 2013 and the Home Depot and Sony Pictures data breaches that both occurred in

In late 2013, news headlines and social media outlets were reeling with the news that Target encountered a cyber-attack that breached the credit card accounts of millions of customers who shopped within the brick and mortar stores during the holiday shopping season. Hackers not only gained access to credit cards numbers, but also other personal data such as email addresses and names (Kinicki & Williams, 2016, p.38). The Target case study explores the dilemma that Target CEO Gregg Steinhafel faced with how to rebound from the very damaging breach. Against the advance of top advisors to Mr. Steinhafel opted for full disclosure to the public. Though a very risky choice, Mr. Steinhafel made a very appropriate decision from a business perspective,

Target sales are common in Christmas and Halloween but there is more rush on Easter and St Patrick Day especially on the online retailer that you would certainly want usage of and buy from an online and web source where purchases are useful and hold a lot of weight through procurement’s you are to adhere to with web usage you can attain and make discounted buying patterns with usage and selling as consistent whenever buying is imminent when you are reliably purchasing at cost reduced methods you only would ascribe and attain with a logical settlement you will need recourse adopted by buyers who purchase with vouchers from Target store.

By obtaining all of Targets subsidiaries, this has created and added a huge value to the company by making Target stand out amongst the crowd with their even larger than ever array and assortment of products that they carry all year round. Target sells products for the bedroom, bath, kitchen, along with home furnishings and many, many more.

Today, we live in a technologically based world in which almost everything we do is done through computer-based technology. Communication, marketing, and even transactions are all done through technology. The danger of having all of your information online is that once something is on the internet, it is permanent. Whether it be your home address, phone number, or simply pictures of you and your family, you can never really remove anything. This can be both positive and negative. Negative because if your information slips into the wrong hands you can get into trouble. And this can be positive because with all kinds of people around the world posting information on the internet, it brings everyone a little closer together, making it easier to connect with people from all over the globe. One negative effect of the internet making the world a smaller place was Target’s data breach a few years back. In mid-December of 2013, Target experienced a crisis when criminals had forced their way into Target’s system, gaining access to many guests credit and debit card information. As the investigation continued, it was later determined that certain guest information, such as names, mailing addresses, email addresses and phone numbers were taken as well. Target has built its reputation of customer satisfaction over the years by providing excellent service to customers and having better discounts than their competitors,