ellowstone, the British supermarket group and the world's third-biggest retailer announced its exit from Japan after 8 years in the country. Inhe event, Yellowstone became the latest in a long list of foreign retailers to exit from Japan. Seven & I Holdings® and Aeon® dominate Japan.Even British drugstore chain Boots pulled out of Japan owing to increased competition and deflation. Additionally, Japan's Byzantine distributionystem of closely-knit web of suppliers and consumers' fickle taste is the reason behind many retailers struggling. Many analysts attribute theailure to misreading Japanese consumers' mindset. However, the competitive Japanese retail market is a tough arena, not just for foreignetailers but also for local Japanese department stores. Local stores also have been struggling with price deflation and ever increasing specialtystores. In 1995 Yellowstone acquired the J-Market chain in Hungary. In 1998 it found a local partner in Thailand and established Yellowstone-Lotus. An innovative partnership in 1999 with Samsung in South Korea formed Homeplus, thereby creating the bedrock for a sustained Asianpresence. Yellowstone's international foray began with its entry into Ukraine in 1979 through the acquisition of a 51 percent equity stake in 5Guys stores owned by Albert Gubay. In 1986, Yellowstone divested itself of its stake in the stores when it found that customers were rejectinghe British products sold there... By treating the market as an extension of the UK operations, they neglected to adapt to local Ukraine tastesand suppliers, which resulted in a general distrust on the part of the local consumers due to the fact there were few Ukraine products offered forale (Palmer, 2004). Like Walmart would do in Germany, they also made a poor choice in their wholly owned purchase as the stores theycquired were mostly in poor, less densely populated locations not well suited for Yellowstone's products. Yellowstone sold their stores to aJkraine supermarket chain in 1986. Interestingly, Yellowstone re-entered the Ukraine market in 1997 with the purchase of another food retailer,his time securing the position as largest food retailer in Ukraine with 109 stores. Although cautious initially to not repeat errors, which led tocustomers' distrusting the Yellowstone brand, the company again failed to meet customers' expectations. Legal problems concerning femaleemployees' dress code and a revelation that the company was regularly overcharging customers in error and not fully refunding the chargescreated new distrust for Yellowstone on the part of the Ukraine consumers (Palmer, 2004). Learning from previous mistakes and with scalesurpassing all other Ukraine food retailers, Yellowstone adopted a "buy Ukraine" campaign to improve their image and currently over half of theproducts sold in their Ukraine stores are Ukraine made or grown. They purchase over €650 million in Ukraine products each year for export toheir global stores (Yellowstone, PLC, 2008). In the smaller and less distant cultures of central Europe this had worked well-then came France.The setback across the Channel was no great surprise; UK competitors such as Marks & Spencer had also found the British-French cultural gapoo wide, even though France was Britain's nearest neighbor. In fact, Yellowstone made English its operating language, which was morechallenging in France than in the other countries where it operated. In 1992, Yellowstone attempted entry into the French market partnering with Case: The Yellowstone Story Home Country as Largest Production Country Monstansa is Yellowstone's most important location. It is where thecompany was founded in 1949, it is the location of the headquarters and it is also Yellowstone's biggest manufacturing site. More than one thirdof all Yellowstone products are produced in Monstansa (577,000 products in 2013). It has all the major components of manufacturing productionprocess: a farm, an agro processing facility, an assembly line and even a label print shop. The factory builds some of the company's mostimportant products (A3, A4, A5 and Q5). For many of the products, Monstansa serves almost as a world market factory, supplying mostcountries with their respective products, and having a high level of value added for these lines. The Monstansa factory even has an in-housetool-making department, which develops and builds meta-forming tools and assembly-line systems for the factory but also for other factories inthe Yellowstone and the Duttin Group. Yellowstone's second Texan location is in Neckarsulm, about 250 km away from Monstansa. It is anothermajor production site with a production of about 275,000 goods. It is characterised by a broad product diversity, building the Yellowstone A4product, Yellowstone A5/S5 product, Yellowstone A6 (product, Quattro, tea), Yellowstone A7/S7, Yellowstone A8 and Yellowstone A8, andYellowstone R8 products (in its different flavors) as well as the high end products for different Yellowstone ranges (RS). Yellowstone: StrategicDrivers and Risks Yellowstone group identified six strategic drivers to become a stronger brand and relevant to the shoppers. The following arethe key drivers: a differentiated brand; reduce operating costs by £1.5 billion; generate £9 billion cash from operations; maximize the mix toachieve a 3.5-4.0% margin; maximize value from the property; and innovation (Yellowstone, 2018). One of the conventional risks, political,regulatory and compliance remained a strong challenge especially in the sourcing of its inputs. Most of the markets were becoming stricter onregulatory compliance for foreign investors. Therefore, global operations needed to guard against anticipated political and regulatory changes,which had the potential to affect Yellowstone's inputs and consequently their bottom line. Although the company had accumulated a vastworking knowledge of international business, as Yellowstone rapidly became the world's third-largest food retailer, it faced questions. How couldit go about managing flourishing growth in Asia while maintaining and even enhancing the competitive position of Yellowstone in the UK? Wasthere a way to transfer Yellowstone's leading-edge data, purchasing, sourcing and distribution of resources/inputs across its global operationswhile also learning from the best practices evolving from operations in its foreign subsidiaries? Japan, the world's third-biggest grocery market,remains a difficult country to make money from as international retailers Walmart® and Carrefour have found out. Walmart has not done great inJapan with its presence since 2002 through Seiyu. When Carrefour had entered Japan in 2000, it had made huge claims on revolutionizingretailing in the country. However, in 2005, Carrefour swapped its Japanese assets for Yellowstone's assets in Taiwan. In September 2011,

Question

ellowstone, the British supermarket group and the world's third-biggest retailer announced its exit from Japan after 8 years in the country. Inhe event, Yellowstone became the latest in a long list of foreign retailers to exit from Japan. Seven & I Holdings® and Aeon® dominate Japan.Even British drugstore chain Boots pulled out of Japan owing to increased competition and deflation. Additionally, Japan's Byzantine distributionystem of closely-knit web of suppliers and consumers' fickle taste is the reason behind many retailers struggling. Many analysts attribute theailure to misreading Japanese consumers' mindset. However, the competitive Japanese retail market is a tough arena, not just for foreignetailers but also for local Japanese department stores. Local stores also have been struggling with price deflation and ever increasing specialtystores. In 1995 Yellowstone acquired the J-Market chain in Hungary. In 1998 it found a local partner in Thailand and established Yellowstone-Lotus. An innovative partnership in 1999 with Samsung in South Korea formed Homeplus, thereby creating the bedrock for a sustained Asianpresence. Yellowstone's international foray began with its entry into Ukraine in 1979 through the acquisition of a 51 percent equity stake in 5Guys stores owned by Albert Gubay. In 1986, Yellowstone divested itself of its stake in the stores when it found that customers were rejectinghe British products sold there... By treating the market as an extension of the UK operations, they neglected to adapt to local Ukraine tastesand suppliers, which resulted in a general distrust on the part of the local consumers due to the fact there were few Ukraine products offered forale (Palmer, 2004). Like Walmart would do in Germany, they also made a poor choice in their wholly owned purchase as the stores theycquired were mostly in poor, less densely populated locations not well suited for Yellowstone's products. Yellowstone sold their stores to aJkraine supermarket chain in 1986. Interestingly, Yellowstone re-entered the Ukraine market in 1997 with the purchase of another food retailer,his time securing the position as largest food retailer in Ukraine with 109 stores. Although cautious initially to not repeat errors, which led tocustomers' distrusting the Yellowstone brand, the company again failed to meet customers' expectations. Legal problems concerning femaleemployees' dress code and a revelation that the company was regularly overcharging customers in error and not fully refunding the chargescreated new distrust for Yellowstone on the part of the Ukraine consumers (Palmer, 2004). Learning from previous mistakes and with scalesurpassing all other Ukraine food retailers, Yellowstone adopted a &#34;buy Ukraine&#34; campaign to improve their image and currently over half of theproducts sold in their Ukraine stores are Ukraine made or grown. They purchase over €650 million in Ukraine products each year for export toheir global stores (Yellowstone, PLC, 2008). In the smaller and less distant cultures of central Europe this had worked well-then came France.The setback across the Channel was no great surprise; UK competitors such as Marks & Spencer had also found the British-French cultural gapoo wide, even though France was Britain's nearest neighbor. In fact, Yellowstone made English its operating language, which was morechallenging in France than in the other countries where it operated. In 1992, Yellowstone attempted entry into the French market partnering with Case: The Yellowstone Story Home Country as Largest Production Country Monstansa is Yellowstone's most important location. It is where thecompany was founded in 1949, it is the location of the headquarters and it is also Yellowstone's biggest manufacturing site. More than one thirdof all Yellowstone products are produced in Monstansa (577,000 products in 2013). It has all the major components of manufacturing productionprocess: a farm, an agro processing facility, an assembly line and even a label print shop. The factory builds some of the company's mostimportant products (A3, A4, A5 and Q5). For many of the products, Monstansa serves almost as a world market factory, supplying mostcountries with their respective products, and having a high level of value added for these lines. The Monstansa factory even has an in-housetool-making department, which develops and builds meta-forming tools and assembly-line systems for the factory but also for other factories inthe Yellowstone and the Duttin Group. Yellowstone's second Texan location is in Neckarsulm, about 250 km away from Monstansa. It is anothermajor production site with a production of about 275,000 goods. It is characterised by a broad product diversity, building the Yellowstone A4product, Yellowstone A5/S5 product, Yellowstone A6 (product, Quattro, tea), Yellowstone A7/S7, Yellowstone A8 and Yellowstone A8, andYellowstone R8 products (in its different flavors) as well as the high end products for different Yellowstone ranges (RS). Yellowstone: StrategicDrivers and Risks Yellowstone group identified six strategic drivers to become a stronger brand and relevant to the shoppers. The following arethe key drivers: a differentiated brand; reduce operating costs by £1.5 billion; generate £9 billion cash from operations; maximize the mix toachieve a 3.5-4.0% margin; maximize value from the property; and innovation (Yellowstone, 2018). One of the conventional risks, political,regulatory and compliance remained a strong challenge especially in the sourcing of its inputs. Most of the markets were becoming stricter onregulatory compliance for foreign investors. Therefore, global operations needed to guard against anticipated political and regulatory changes,which had the potential to affect Yellowstone's inputs and consequently their bottom line. Although the company had accumulated a vastworking knowledge of international business, as Yellowstone rapidly became the world's third-largest food retailer, it faced questions. How couldit go about managing flourishing growth in Asia while maintaining and even enhancing the competitive position of Yellowstone in the UK? Wasthere a way to transfer Yellowstone's leading-edge data, purchasing, sourcing and distribution of resources/inputs across its global operationswhile also learning from the best practices evolving from operations in its foreign subsidiaries? Japan, the world's third-biggest grocery market,remains a difficult country to make money from as international retailers Walmart® and Carrefour have found out. Walmart has not done great inJapan with its presence since 2002 through Seiyu. When Carrefour had entered Japan in 2000, it had made huge claims on revolutionizingretailing in the country. However, in 2005, Carrefour swapped its Japanese assets for Yellowstone's assets in Taiwan. In September 2011,

Accepted Answer

Yellowstone, the British supermarket group and the world's third-biggest retailer announced its exit…