Carrefour Case Carrefour first store was opened in France in the summer of 1960. The concept of one-stop shop with discount prices proved to be very successful since in France retail distribution in 1960 was highly fragmented and product lines in individual stores were very narrow. Visits to up to four separate shops were required in order to purchased all retail food merchandise. Carrefour facilitated the process of buying food items by creating a store where the consumer could find almost every food product he needs. Nonfood products were later added to Carrefour line of products. In 1963 Carrefour opened its first hypermarket in France outside Paris selling food and nonfood products at discount prices, and providing parking for 450 cars. The high degree of consumer acceptance can be attributed to convenience and price. The hypermarket strategy proved to be very successful and from 1965 and 1971 sales grew in excess of 50% and nonfood items accounted for 40% of total volume. In 1970 new stores were opened with selling area as large as 25,000 sq m. Carrefour’s strategy was to build its store outside of towns in location where highways provided easy access and land could be acquired very inexpensively. The combination of low-cost land and inexpensive construction gave Carrefour a total investment per square meter of selling space equal to about one third of traditional supermarkets. Another strategy was a decentralized management. Each store manager had high decision-making power to operate their stores, which make decisions faster, more dynamic, and the daily store management more efficient. Plus, manager could customize its store to suit local needs better. The decentralized operations were a key success factor underlying Carrefour’s national achievements. By 1971 the growth of discounted retail stores face a huge problem in France, 40% of small shopkeepers had disappeared due to the growth of big retailers and small shopkeepers had a significant political force in France that couldn’t be ignored. In order to address the small shopkeepers problem the government found a way to slow down the growth of hypermarkets by making difficult to obtain construction permits to build large new retail stores. However that solution was not enough to keep small retailers in business, so in 1972 legislation was passed to tax retail stores in order to provide pensions for small shopkeepers who were unable to continue in business. All these factors were obstacles for Carrefour growth, nonetheless Carrefour managed to get two new construction permits each year from 1960 and early 1970s.
Lowe’s grew through strategic choice by heavily focusing on key functional areas involving research and development (R&D), marketing, and logistics. Lowe’s important R&D investments included the creation of two prototype stores. The first prototype with 147,000 square feet catered to large markets and the other with 120,000 square feet catered to smaller markets (Rouse, 2005). Lowe’s used these store prototypes to help guide their continued growth and store placement. The prototypes also aided the company in designing future stores more efficiently with respect to energy and sustainability (Lowe’s Companies, Inc., n.d.). Furthermore, Lowe’s marketing strategy concentrated on attracting new customers and enhancing current customer satisfaction. To bring new customers to the store, Lowe’s engaged in a pull marketing strategy (Wheelen & Hunger, 2012). The com...
The Italian Centre Shop shows many attributes as for how they are able to build on their strengths. This in the end helps a company to expand and grow further to improve their internal performance and as well by gaining more consumers (Kerin, et al., 2015). Firstly, the company’s main strength relies on the location of the different branches, being placed strategically so it is easier to bring in more consumers as well as being easily accessible for people around those areas. Two of the three locations in Edmonton are situated beside shopping centers, Southgate mall and West Edmonton mall, which in the West end is the most popular attraction of the city. The third branch is located in North Edmonton which is known for the heart of “Little Italy”(Spinelli, 2016). Secondly, the Italian Centre Shop sells a variety of merchandise and different cuisine from all around the world, the main place being Italy and others which include: Spain, Romania, Portugal, Ukraine and Poland (Spinelli, 2016). This helps to expand the company’s target market while still keeping
Loblaw’s strategy consisted of two objectives, the first objective is driving down costs through size and operational efficiencies, and the second objective is by differentiating its products by having its own private label ( No Name/Presidents Choice) and its stores by expanding their banner into multi-format approaches( No Frills/ ValuMart). Loblaw used size and scale to achieve cost leadership. Their strategy consisted of the following elements, invest In the future by using generated cash flow, own real estate for future business opportunities, maximize market share, enhance price competitiveness through a control label program and constantly strive to improve the value proposition.
Retail Pharmacy Growth Strategy: CVS has managed to grow considerably in the past few years with the help of acquisition of beneficial companies and integrated the operations of these companies by creating synergy to drive higher margin and greater economies of scope. CVS is building more and more pharmacy stores in convenient locations. Another strategy that CVS has adopted during 2008-2010 is to move freestanding locations for all their pharmacy stores. This helps the company to provide more convenience to customers and have more square-footage per store in order to add new services such as Minute-Clinic and drive-thru services.
The recognized giants in today’s discount retail market are Wal-Mart, Sears, Roebuck and Company, and Target, and this paper compares Wal-Mart and Target. As the competition stiffens to capture market niches, these two organizations are heading for a showdown. This work demonstrates distinctive differences in company culture, promotion within the organization, lofty goal setting, and leadership styles between these two organizations. Although this paper shows a definite competitive advantage for the Wal-Mart organization, it will also demonstrate that Target Corporation has taken some innovative steps to secure itself in the discount retail market.
Kmart was formed in the late 1950's to challenge new forms of discount stores. They are a descendant of an organization Sebastian S. Kresge. The average Kmart store is around 100,000 square feet. In 1987 Kmart was the largest discount retailer in the United States. They currently have 2,223 stores and last year they had over $25 billion in sales which is nearly double that of Wal-Mart. In 1991 they opened their Kmart superstores. The superstore is a 150,000 square feet and is expected to gross $40 to $50 million dollars in revenues. It will also remain open 24 hours a day.
The department store began as an expansion of the small family- owned draper’s shop but soon grew to be a capitalist power in the French economy. By the twentieth century, in order for to be considered a department store, an establishment needed to be
...ed the lifestyle of Canadians. Their effect on Canadians contributed to the making of our consumer capitalist society. While department stores introduced several innovative ideas to the business world, their negative impact significantly contributes to our materialistic lifestyle. Donica Belisle’s “Retail Nation: Department Stores and the Making of Modern Canada” clearly define these aspects and describe the mass retailers relationship between the public, its stakeholders and Canada’s national identity. The author’s well researched information and various perspectives of a situation support her arguments effectively. In conclusion, Donica Belisle’s book excels in its presentation as it is well written and well organised. She successfully communicates her main points and eliminates bias by presenting both sides of a story, making this a good book for others to read.
Case Study of The Home Depot Preface This Essentials of Strategic Management assignment has been made by three persons which have been working together and individually to finish the assignment properly and in time. Secondly, we would like to thank the company whose websites we were able to visit and use, to get additional information that we could use for leading the assignment of Home Depot to a successful ending. We can say, that it was a pleasure to work on this assignment and would, in the third place, like to thank each other. The persons who worked on this assignment, for the effort and time that is put in the assignment, that brought us to this finished version.
The four companies shown above have very different business models. Inditex owned much of the production and most of its stores. Inditex is thus a vertically integrated company. This made Inditex gain a competitive advantage, which is quick response to the market requirements. On the other hand, The Gap and H&M have a different business model. They owned most of the stores, but outsourced all the production. Benetton had a third business model. It invested heavily in the production, but licensees ran its stores.
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.
The freedom to choose and globalization helped in the establishment of modern super markets. A standard supermarket displays more than 30,000 items (Cross, 2000:55). Assu...
The food and staples retailing is an increasingly competitive industry. The market giants (competitors) are Coles (owned by Wesfarmers) which has 741 stores across Australia and plans to add 70 m...
In 1959 Carrefour supermarket company is set by Fournier, Badin and Defforey families Who run discount supermarket in Annecy.
Founded by the Benetton family in the 1960s, Benetton is one of the largest garment retailers, with stores which bear its name located in almost all parts of the world.. It could be interesting to analyse the technical development of such an important company going through the different theories of technology.