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Customer retention and satisfaction research proposal
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Our recommendation is to take Sears Holdings Corp. (SHLD) private through a private equity buyout. After doing so, we recommend implementing a centralized management structure and recruiting retail-savvy executives for the upper management team. We then recommend focusing on increasing value by capitalizing on SHLD’s real estate holdings through leasing agreements and increasing partnerships with complementary enterprises. Also, we recommend improving employee retention rates and retaining exclusive rights to private brands. Finally, we recommend focusing on a long-term strategy to continue to maximize SHLD’s ecommerce platforms. We believe these recommendations will lead to long-term stability through increases in customer base and revenues and decreases in overhead costs.
Strengths
One of SHLD’s main strengths is its proprietary brands such as Diehard, Kenmore, Craftsman, and Lands’ End because these brands have a great amount of customer loyalty and repeat customers. Another one of our strengths is our vast pool of valuable real estate assets. These assets enable SHLD to generate continuous revenue through leasing agreements and a safety net in a liquidity crunch. Additionally, “mygofer” and “Shop Your Way” programs account for more than 60% of revenues for Sears and Kmart stores. These loyalty programs have created a strong and loyal member base who provide repeat business for SHLD. Lastly, Sears Holdings’ has been around for over a hundred years and thus has an established brand name within the discount retail sector.
Weaknesses
One of SHLD’s weaknesses is an upper management team who lacks knowledge of the retail sector and fails to communicate effectively across business units. A second weakness is the de...
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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...
Rivalry. Home Depot, Ace Hardware and Menards are the biggest competition that Lowe’s faces. With Home Depot being the large...
The biggest seller for Sears (at more than 1,700 homes built) was sold between the dates 1915 and 1927. Only one Sears model meets that criteria.
Strengths: low price, strong brand name, excellent merchandise, exceptional employees, huge membership base, economies of scale, efficient distribution and operation.
E Consultancy (2013, March 13). How McDonald's uses Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Google+ | Econsultancy. Retrieved January 26, 2014, from http://econsultancy.com/blog/62329-how-mcdonald-s-uses-facebook-twitter-pinterest-and-google
The two stores target middle and low-income households and both were behind other retailers in terms of technology and logistics. The name brands of both stores would have familiarity, but one brand that Sears Holding was very popular and known for is the trademark Craftsman and their lifetime warranty, and had spokesmen like, Bob Villa where K-Mart had the Martha Stewart brand ware. The trademark, “blue light special,” was unique and special that caught peoples attention and never forget, where Wal-Mart used the slogan, “ Rolling back the prices,” and added catchy monitors near every isle entry and benches throughout the box store for shoppers to rest. Ultimately, as the CEO of the Dollar Tree stated, “The "bifurcation," is even harsher for the low-income families that make up the bulk of Family Dollar's consumers: on average shoppers have an annual income under $40,000, and 50% receive government assistance,” Linshi, J. (2014). [6]
Chapter 13: Strategic Managers 19. Literature list 20. Enclosure Introduction. During the lesson we had the opportunity to read quickly through some of the cases. The reason why we have chosen the Home Depot case is first of all that th... ...
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.
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 group chose Sears as our company to research why they have not been performing well in the past few years. Throughout this paper we will discuss both the internal and external environments of the company, threat of substitutes, why the firm is underperforming, actions the firm has taken to improve their business, and recommendations for improvement. First, we will analyze the external environment for Sears through the PESTEL framework and threats of substitutes. The PESTEL framework is a tool used to identify macroenvironmental forces that might affect an organization.
A. M. Kaplan and M. Haenlein, ‘Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of Social Media’, Business Horizons, vol. 53, no. 1, 2010, pp. 59-68.
The key issues for K-Mart strategies are finding the right cost level for an opportunity to be aggressive, and differentiating the product for consumer in terms of different consumer and different intangible product attributes. K-Mart and Sears should be combined with a new overall corporate competitive strategy using a cost focus. This may turn out to be the only sensible strategy, and the one which best describes the strategy adopted. Strategies of cost leadership and product differentiation are often described as if they were mutually exclusive you can either pursue one or the other, but not both.
Sears has seen many different changes in business and has had to adjust to t...
According to Porters analysis, there are five basic factors affecting the operations of an organisation in any given market. These factors are bargaining power of suppliers, bargaining power of buyers/consumers, threat of competitive rivalry, threat of substitutes and threat of new entrants.