Effective retailing technology allows companies to manage inventory by efficiently storing, shipping, and stocking items that its customers want. Inventory management is the key to a company’s success or failure, and Kmart seems to be the poster child of poor supply chain management. Since as far back as Joseph Antonini’s leadership, Kmart has had logistics issues (Young, 2002). Another recent CEO, Chuck Conaway, went so far as to admit that supply chain management was “the Achilles Heel” of Kmart (Carr & Cone, 2001). This paper will examine how investing in redundancy, having an increase velocity in sensing and responding, and by building an adaptive supply chain community could have reduced the risk that is damaging to a supply chain. The Supply/Demand Disconnect Poor supply chain management led to inefficient merchandise management at Kmart. Being able to query data regarding product sales would have allowed the company to be more of what customers were buying, less of what they were not, and to predict what merchandise mixes were going to be popular in the future. That is the epitome of an effective system. Or as Anne Obarski, executive director of Merchandise Concepts, explains it, the five rights of merchandising: the right merchandise, the right time, the right quantity, the right price, and the right location (About.com). This requires an increase velocity in sensing and responding to customers’ needs. Increase velocity in sensing and responding However, there is a time element involved, advises Liz Simpson. “Monitoring what sells quickly is key” she says. Finding out what customers want to buy is critical. “If you do not know what they need, then you are not in the best position to meet that need” (Simpson, 2002). ... ... middle of paper ... ...coming through its distribution system with the items it currently had on sale. They would get people to the stores, and then they did not have what was advertised. It is hard to get people back once they have had a bad experience. References Atlas, Partners and Watertown Capital. (2002). Presentation to shareholders committee for Kmart, June 14, 2002. Carr, David & Edward Cone. (December, 2001). Code Blue. Baseline Magazine. Kmart’s 2001 annual report, p.8 of its online document, May 2002. Kmart’s 2001 annual report, p.21 of its online document, May 2002. Simpson, L. (March, 2002). Not so special Kmart. Supply Management. Retrieved January 10, 2014 from http://www.supplymanagement.com/analysis/features/2002/not-so-special-kmart Young, V. (October, 2002). Coming around again: Kmart’s new ideas bear a familiar ring. Women’s Wear Daily.
Roberts, Bryan. Berg, Natalie. Walmart: Key Insights and Practical Lessons from the World's Largest Retailer. Kogan Page Limited, 2012. Print.
Over one hundred years ago, an entrepreneur named Sebastian Spering Kresge opens his first retail store in 1899. The store was named Five-and-Dime and was located in downtown Detroit. The store was named Five-and-Dime because everything in the store was priced at either five cents or ten cents. This low price gained him a lot of customers and a lot of publicity. With this new found publicity, in 1912, he opened 85 more stores with annual sales of $10 million. As time went on, the prices have changed to $1 or less, but the business philosophy has remained the same. Around this time, the retail environment was getting very competitive, and the company needed to make some changes to keep up. In 1959, Kresge hired Harry B. Cunningham to become the president of the company. Under Cunningham leadership, the first Kmart store was opened in 1962 in Garden City, Michigan. In 1966, sales in 162 Kmart stores and Kresge stores topped the $1 billion mark and in 1968, the S. S. Kresge aired its first T.V. commercial. In 1976, Kresge made history by opening 271 Kmart stores in 1 year and becoming the first ever retailer to launch 17 million square feet of sales space in a single year. By 1977, nearly 95% of the S. S. Kresge sales were generated by Kmart so the company officially decided to change its name to Kmart Corporations. In 1991, Kmart opened the first supercenter in Medina, Ohio offering a full-service grocery area. In 1996, a complete redesign of Kmart was launched, changing its name to Big Kmart [or BigK] and in 1999, Kmart launch a new internet presence, named bluelight.com [now known as kmart.com]. In 2002, Kmart filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. (Corpor...
Given the dominance and fiercely competitive nature of Wal-Mart and Target within the big box discount retail industry, Dollar General avoided competing head-to-head with these larger rivals by differentiating a classic generic bu...
This goal of this analysis is to shadow some light on K-Mart and Target and with the help of extensive research. In this analysis we can find out what each company can do, where they lack and what has to be done in order to keep the company profitable and alive. Thus, we will try to look at the Target wholly and then it will identify a successful business strategy and thus show that the strategy has moved the Target into one of such leaders in the industry. When we will take a look at K-Mart and then we will move on the identification of a failed business strategy and then show that the strategy has been holding this company at the back. After that we will try to perform a cross- case analysis by contrasting and comparing the case studies on the points of difference and the parity. This will help us in looking at a side by side difference of a SWOT analysis and also the five force analysis.
Kmart has many competitive and environmental forces impacting the industry today. As all organizations do some or these forces are opportunities for them while others are threats to the organization. A few of the forces are their rivals or competitors, the substitutes that can be used, and the new entrants into the market.
Read the short Kmart case study on pages 161-162 carefully and answer the following questions:
Albertson’s also has also taken steps to boost it average sales. Albertson’s goal is to fill every shopping cart to as full capacity as possible, as well as getting to know their customers a lot better. They have installed have installed a $50 million NCR Teradata where house in order to analyze customer data, and what type of products certain customers primarily purchase. They then plan to use their customer loyalty cards, so that they can match individual buying preferences against store inventories. Also through technology this data is available for analysis minutes after customers leave the store. This is a very valuable resource, because now Albertson’s may be able to reach its goal of having the right products, on the right shelves, at the right time.
In the 1960s through the 1970s, companies realized strong engineering, design, and manufacturing functions were strong market strategy keys to create and capture customer loyalty. As the demand for new products rose in the 1980s, these market requirements were to increase their flexibility and responsiveness to adapt existing products and processes or to develop new ones in order to meet customer needs. As manufacturing improved in the 1990s, managers began noticing material and service inputs involving suppliers and their major impact on an organization’s ability to meet customer needs. As a result of these changes, organizations now find that it difficult to manage their own organizations. First, they must be involved in the management of their network of all upstream firms that provide directly or indirectly, as well as the network of downstream firms, which are responsible for delivery and market service of the product to the end customer. In order to succeed, managers have to realize that they cannot do it alone and they must work together on a daily basis with the whole organizations in their supply chains. Because supply chain management involves all functions within an organization, managers need to know what a supply chain is, why it is important, and the impact of supply chain management on the success and profitability of their organization. Today, Wal-Mart topped the list of the America’s biggest companies on the Fortune 500 list, “with sales of almost $345 billion — more than a quarter of a trillion dollars” (Forbs). Wal-Mart’s supply chain management is becoming recognized as a core competitive strategy.
On January 22, 2002, Kmart filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection becoming the largest retailer ever to do so in U.S. history. Most industry analysts attributed the immediate cause of the company's bankruptcy filing to a dull holiday season and stiff competition from WalMart and Target as the chain's more fundamental problem. But competition wasn't the root cause of Kmart's consistently poor performance. The real reason for Kmart's poor performance is that Kmart never had a marketing strategy. Kmart completely misunderstood its market and was positioning itself in the wrong direction. Also, on the strategic side, there are issues of where stores were located. On the whole, Kmart stores did not seem to be sited as well as the stores of the competition. Then there was the issue of technology. While Wal-Mart was becoming the relentless efficiency engine that we know today by investing in technology and streamlining the supply chain, Kmart held back. As Wal-Mart developed an infrastructure that enabled it to lower prices, Kmart slipped into a price disadvantage. This paper discusses these strategic problems that led to Kmart's poor performance.
Our Strategic Issue for SHC is, "How can Sears Holdings Corporation strengthen Kmart's position and regain its competitive advantage? Our recommendations are as follows: 1. Differentiation Strategy: Appeal to low and middle income families with children, Quality clothing and decorating store. 2. Stable & Effective Management: Retention, Value Chain Analysis: Supply Chain, Inventory Control (Product Selection), Technology (Reserve), Overall Consistency, Continue Value Adding Strategic Alliances, Similar to alliance with Joe Boxer. 3. Continue to Evaluate Store Portfolio, Focus on owning more/ Premium space. 4. Meet Customer Expectations, Customer Service, and Continuous Research & Development.
Also, the retailers can send ads, coupons to their customer base on the information they have to get their customers to come back. It is really easy for the retail to bond the relationship with their customers by knowing what their customers’ need and desire. Importantly, it is all about making people feel comfortable into liking the place, and they will likely to come back. According to the book “Why We Buy the Science of Shopping”, written by Paco Underhill, people doesn’t like to be brushed or touched from behind. They’ll even move from the merchandise they’re interested in avoiding it. The sales from a tie rack were lower than expected; it was because of the butt-brush factor. After they moved the rack; the sale went up quickly and substantially (fbdfjbsjfbsj). That implies the retailers are always looking to chance in order to match customers’ interest. Not only that, they could also use the data from to send out the deal to the customer base on their interest. As a result, the customer will most likely to come back to the store they already familiar with. In extend, the retailers can also send out gift cards, reward cards to customers rewarding them for being loyalty to the store. Some people think it is manipulating people into buying goods, but it is not true. The customer always has to choice whether to buy or not. No one is forcing them to buy anything. Often, people came
Some core competencies that must be exploited are: Brand Kmart is an existing well-known and trusted national brand in USA Kmart has private label and designer clothing that is well endorsed Infrastructure Kmart has a large number of well-located, low-cost, leased stores in urban far away from competitors through out the country ( Appendix B ). Staffing Confidence by the market in Kmart is created by the achievements of its staff and management. With the turn-around strategy in place, new blood has been put into the top management structures. In any renewal there will be retrenchment as unprofitable stores are closed. This can be used as an opportunity to retain and move high performing staff to where they are needed and to get rid of non-performing staff. Anderson the chairperson of Kmart is well supported by Wall Street and the board of Directors. These new staff members enter the company with needed skills to address problems in certain areas that previously were poorly managed such as inventory control and merchandising. Store locations, layout and Performance Stores conveniently located away from competitors like Wal-mart and Target therefore less to compete for customers face-to-face. There are 250 non-performing stores who have already been identified as being more cost effective to close than continue with running costs. Expertise exists in-house for the planning of store layout and appearance to meet different customer segments. This concentration of effort will enable focus on key areas Technology Kmart has already invested in good retailing systems. The system can be use to control inventory, supplier payments, track customer buying and monitor income versus profit margins across all stores. Research and Development The planning department is well established and in cross-functional to provide various perspective. The planning department to ensure that strategies at all levels are executed can further use the access to past data and knowledge of changes in buying patterns. Financial Backing JP Morgan Chase has agreed to support Kmart to avert the current threat of closure due to bankruptcy.
Another part of Amazon’s retail strategy is to serve as the channel for other retailers to sell their products and take a percentage of cut of every purchase. Amazon does not have to maintain inventory on slower-selling products. This strategy has made Amazon a ‘long tail’ leading retailer, expanding its available selection without a corresponding increase in overhead costs.
It is undeniable that Inventory Management is an important key to success at Walmart this paper will discuss the two main methods of Inventory Management used by Wal-Mart: Material Requirements Planning and Just-in Time. Next we write about the technical means of keeping track of inventories like RFID tags. We conclude with discussing how
Inventory management involves planning, coordinating, and controlling the acquisition, storage, handling, movement, distribution, and possible sale of raw materials, component parts and subassemblies, supplies and tools, replacement parts, and other assets that are needed to meet customer wants and needs (Collier & Evans, 2009). In order for business and supply chains to run smoothly, they must meet all the listed requirements for effective inventory management. Thus, inventory management must be managed wisely in order to be a successful an...