The Business Level Strategy Of Staples

They closed 122 stores in 2014 and plan on closing another 50 to 75 in 2015. The annual report does say they plan on opening a number of new store in 2015 but does not give a number. They also say they are planning on renovation store but again list no number as to how many. They have invested in technology to improve their supply chain and productivity. It also implies they will be cutting hours for employs to save

Well, if one believes what some are saying on Facebook, then yes. However, the Menomonee Falls, Wis.-based retailer only announced it planned to close 18 underperforming stores this year when it released its first quarter earnings Thursday. “The specific locations will be announced by the end of March.”

Today’s office superstore industry in the United States provides a convenient one-stop shopping experience for small businesses and individuals with home offices. The main competitors in the industry are Office Depot, Staples, and Office Max. All of them offer a variety of office supplies, as well as computers, office furniture and other business related items.

Lowe’s is the 14th largest retailer in the United States and is presently planning aggressive expansion, opening a new store on average every three days. Lowe's revenue growth is primarily a function of penetration of the market increase resulting from a burst of new locations instead of the same store sales. Although Lowe’s has grown tremendously, it remains half the size of Home Depot and has serious debt burden that increases its risk level drastically. Lowe’s is Home Depot’s largest competitor because both companies have the same products, services, and enormous warehouse formats. In this major retail market Lowe’s and Home Depot stores go toe

All companies need to be competitive in order to survive. Not only do they have to come up with a competitive plan that will attract new customers but also to keep current customers. Just like the movie You’ve Got Mail with Tom Hanks (Joe Fox) and Meg Ryan as Kathleen Kelly. They each have their own bookstore located near each other in New York.

The Staples located in the Largo Mall is a good example of a business that embodies the target market characteristics. The mall is a great location for a business that is specialized in office products that are readily accessible to their target audience of other businesses. This particular Staples offers its target customers the convince of product accessibility because there are so many businesses located within the same parking lot of the business. Therefore, this Staples is directly reaching its target audience. The size of the business is appropriate for the location with an abundance of customer service representatives available to offer assistance to customers. Also, the Staples in the Largo Mall has limited competition because most

The intensity of rivalry and the threat of substitutes are strong components for J.C. Penney to consider as they continue to strive for increased revenue and market share. Their two primary competitors are Macy’s and Kohl’s, both of whom have fiercely competitive strategies to be strong retail operations. For instance, while Macy’s offers a multitude of promotional deals and is working hard to choose products based upon demographics and geographic segmentation, Kohl’s is attempting to reduce their inventory levels and improve their marketing strategies in order to become a stronger competitor in the department store segment of the retail industry. In order to compete with their competitors, J.C. Penney aims to focus on their previously successful promotions and home department segmentations by bringing in new reputable designers in order to attract a larger customer base. Due to the fact that the intensity of rivalry and threat of substitutes are both moderately strong in the retail department store industry, J.C. Penney ought to be diligent in their implementation of strategies in order to achieve success in the retail business.

Business level strategy refers to the integrated set of actions a firm uses to gain a competitive advantage by exploiting core competencies in specific product markets. HP is trying to gain competitive advantage through differentiation by becoming a smaller more agile force in the industry that will bring more modernized systems such as cloud and digital systems vice using antiquated IT infrastructures. The HP Enterprise will differentiate from its competitors by providing services within four component areas; transform, protect, empower, and enable which are indicative of the way the market is headed and meets the customer need. An example of an HP intended and realized business strategy is acquiring Eucalyptus, a provider of open source software for building private and hybrid enterprise clouds. This acquisition is a realized result of a three year planned strategy. (HP,

The retail industry is highly competitive, with few barriers to entry. Each Company competes with many other local, regional and national retailers for customers, associates, locations, merchandise, services and other important aspects of the Company’s business. Those competitors include other department stores, discounters, home furnishing stores, specialty retailers, wholesale clubs, direct-to-consumer businesses and other forms of retail commerce. Some competitors are larger than JCPenney, have greater financial resources available to them, and, as a result, may be able to devote greater resources to sourcing, promoting and selling their products.” There are many factors that characterize competition, including advertising, service,

However, if the merger is approved, Florida and Palm Beach County economic officials will fight to keep the headquarters in Boca Raton (Pounds, M.H., 2015). If the transaction is dealt, customers would have no other alternatives as the merger would create a monopoly which eventually would not benefit customers. Furthermore, if both companies were to merge, bigger national customers who buy on a contract basis would have no other alternative. American Antitrust Institute is not the only organization to voice out their concern about the impeding acquisition. The American Postal Workers Union asked regulators from antitrust to nix the deal as it protest stores, saying there is no doubt a monopoly would be created by joining the number one and two office supply retailers in the United States (Pounds, M.H., 2015). Recently, the falling of Staples and Office Depot’s stock on a new report that the office supply retailers’ mergers bid may be rejected by the Federal Trade Commission. This proposed acquisition of Boca Raton-based Office Depot is not favoured by FTC Bureau of Competition Head Deborah Feinstein. Staples’ was trading at US$12.43, fell 5.83% to US$ 12.75 while Office Depot’s stock fell 4.08% to

Staples are used by many people that have important jobs and they are used for many different reasons. There are different kinds of staples to including, surgical staples, packing staples, wide crown staples, medium crowned staples, narrow crowned staples, and fine wire staples. The staple is sent out by a staple gun or a stapler. The staple is also usually two pronged. The staple was invented to hold paper together and it joins and binds things together. Staples were a replacement for paper clips because they are more sturdy and more permanent. Now staple can be used for wood, boxes, roofing, and masonry. They have been a very revolutionary tool and they have also been very helpful. Staples have also been used for very important things that

     Porter’s five forces of competition framework can be a valuable tool in analyzing an industry. Porter’s five forces of competition include: competition from substitutes, entrants, rivals, supplier power, and buyer power. We will now analyze the retail grocery industry according to Porter’s five forces. (this is straight out of the Barnes and Noble report I wasn’t sure if we should cite this or not)

Intensity of rivalry among competitive firms. In the past, Staples has been successful in fighting against its competitors with its low prices and brand loyalty, but recently against Amazon there are bigger obstacles to overcome. The rivalry with Amazon, Walmart, Target and wholesale clubs is intense as they have more resources to use against Staples, such as the range of its customers and a thriving business line. Therefore, seeing that the rivalry is intense, it presents a threat to their profitability (Hill et al., 2015, p. 51). From this perspective, the competitive rivalry will be considered as high for Staples.

Staples is the #1 office supply superstore operator in the US. selling office products, furniture, computers, and other supplies through its chain of some 2,280 Staples and Staples

Staples was created to supply small business with office products that would be offered at smaller quality merchandised, lowest cost, and this is a new avenue that no other company have marketed, or expanding upon the industry of being profitable. There are no other businesses to leverage a business model of to ensure the vision of Mr. Stemberg would positive to work and be profitable. Also, having the ability to advocate for change in the way other business was operating, increase the awareness of the benefits of sale of small quality, branding the company, marketing the opportunity, as well as ensuring the consumer that the new office supply product would be beneficial for