Is JC Penney’s Makeover the Future of Retailing? Essay
Is usually JC Penney’s Makeover the Future of Retailing?
Betty Girard, Harvard Business Week, March 2012 The over the century older retailer JC Penney (JCP) has been losing business and customers for a long period. Though it once had a great popularity for worth and loyal buyers the competition an excellent source of volume, low value shops such as Wal-Mart or the more advanced stores just like Macy’s include completely above taken that and poises to push them out of your market. What can be done to revive the 110 year old retailer, who will be the right person for that job and how can they do that? These questions were dealt with in this article. Inside the article “Is JC Penney’s Makeover the Future of Retailing”, mcdougal (K.
Girard) focuses on Ron Johnson, the modern CEO of J. C. Penney great innovations and plans to transform the store. Mr. Johnson involves JC Penney with an impressive record of success modifying businesses and their retail approach. He is awarded with the modification of the Concentrate on chain as well as for leading Apple’s retail hard work with this sort of innovations as the Professional bar. The work faced by JCP will be a major one, the company has been encountering lagging product sales and economic losses of $87 million in the final quarter of last year and a four.
9% overall loss of revenue for the year. Mr. Manley took the helm from the company in November of 2011.
His main process in to transform the chain and focus on an all fresh client base that includes everyone as his marketplace. Of the innovations that this individual instituted quickly, he focused on pricing and making them what he known as “fair and square”. To get this done, he first eliminated product sales (he called them insulting to the customer), he also eliminated coupons; a move a competition had tried unsuccessfully regarding 5 years earlier. One other innovation in pricing was going to end every prices in “00” rather than “99” and take away the “suggested retail price” tag.
Most of these changes had been done to change the perception in the customer, coming from waiting right up until an item continues on sale to believing they are really paying a good price on a regular basis. Mr. Meeks also has a vision of overhauling the complete shopping encounter by adding new “brand shops” within the store so that the customer can easily get the item they can be looking for about what is called a “Main Street” approach. The master plan is to transform the displays (letting founder decide how all their product is shown within the store) and have new brands that speak to diverse clients. Some of the new brands include Martha Stewart and a budget friendly teen line called Nanette Lepore.
Johnson has also improved the store logo and named a brand new contemporary spokeswoman (Ellen Degeneres) in an effort to create a buzz. You can also get plans to create a “town square’ inside every single store that could potentially provide to provide customers with complimentary services. The transition started out in Feb and this individual states that his program will be completely implemented by 2015. Inside the article, Rajiv Lal, the Stanley Roth, Sr.
Teacher of Retailing at Harvard Business Institution comments around the probability of Johnson’s fresh idea succeeding. He calls this a very tough task and says that it will certainly not be easy but the fact that marketing strategy could work. He agrees with Johnson’s 3 to 4 season timeline intended for implementation and feels that ought to be enough time to make the decision if the prepare is operating.
After scanning this article, My spouse and i took an entirely random poll of 5 women during my office age groups 26 – mid 50’s, who every said that they had shopped at JCP inside the past 6 months. Of the 5 only 1 said she did not like the improvements but she also stated that she attended the store for many brands and type of items which she may no longer locate on her last trip but that she’d give the shop another make an effort based on the opinion of some other 4 girls. This article is a great example of the sort of strategic method of gaining individuals who this course discusses.
It covered examples of concepts like marketplace strategies and targeting particular customers. Girard, Kim, (2012, 05 March) Is JC Penney’s Transformation the Future of Retailing, Harvard Organization Week Recovered from http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/6944.html
