Best Buy Co., Inc. Customer-Centricity

The industry we have chosen is the department store-retail industry. Within this industry, we have chosen the department stores of JCPenney and Macy’s. We find this industry, as well as these two companies, interesting from a strategic perspective. JCPenney has recently undergone a massive strategic restructuring in regards to its pricing, brand offerings, and store layout, pushing it away from the typical department store strategy of discounts and coupons. Its new strategy has become much closer to Wal-Mart’s strategy of every day low prices. Macy’s, on the other hand, has restructured with a push from the economic

Best Buy Co., Inc. is the largest electronics retailer in United States with international presence in Mexico, Canada and China. Best Buy Co., Inc. is headquartered in Richfield, Minnesota and currently operates more than one thousand brick & mortar stores. Founded in 1966 as “Sound of Music”, Best Buy Co., Inc. evolved from a small regional audio specialty store to a multinational consumer electronics retail chain within a short span of time. The company’s current name “Best Buy” was adopted in 1983 with an aim to emphasize a greater consumer electronics branding. Best Buy Co., Inc. went public in 1987 when it got listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

Best Buy Co., Inc. is a multinational company in the United States and it deals, with consumer electronics, and accounts 19% of the business. The company also operates in Mexico, Puerto Rico, China, and Canada. Some of the subsidiaries of the company include CinemaNow, Geek Squad, Pacific Sales, and Magnolia Audio Video and operates in both Future Shop label, and Best Buy in Canada. Best Buy Co. Inc and its subsidiaries operate more than 1,150 stores internationally and domestically. The company also operates more than 100 “ZoomShops” or Buy Express Automated retail Stores, operated by the Zoom Systems, in both malls and airports in the entire country of the U.S. The company is headquartered in Richfield, Minnesota, U.S (Scott,

JC Penney in the early 2000s represented a “brick & mortar” retail powerhouse known for its large diverse selection and competed well with similar retailers such as Kmart and Sears. In 2011 JC Penney was exposed by The New York Times in an internet search scandal involving the tampering with rankings on search engine results. Yet, this was not the only shortcoming in the marketing of their stores. JC Penney had also been caught dishonestly pricing their merchandise so that their sales would appear more appealing. Since then JC Penney has undergone many important shifts in focus on how they would attempt to market their products. Now, in 2016 with their new CEO Marvin Ellison they have managed to rebound their sales closer to what they were and have bolstered their stock price for the time being. To understand what had been done to kindle this new fire four key areas should be looked at. These four components are: price, product, place, and promotion. The four P’s allow a segmented view of what changes have been made and how they have been affecting the consumer market.

Macy Inc. (M) has a cost structure that can best be viewed using SWOT analysis, which is a way of evaluating the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to the corporation. Macy’s strengths include customer loyalty, a recognizable store name, use of technology, a substantial supply chain, its comprehensive size, and the locations of its stores. In total, these strengths enable Macy Inc. to provide a unique service that offers a characteristic their competitors do not have: merchandise tailored to the customer by store and climate zone. Macy’s main weakness is its cost structure: costs are high compared to their competitors due to a complete operational transformation that includes localizing merchandise by

There has been an overall loss in Market Share throughout departments stores. JCPenney is one department store in particular that has a very hard time dealing with this issue and has struggled to retain its market value. JCPenney CEO’s of the past and present have taken very different approaches to solving this problem and that will be discussed throughout this paper. We will start off by introducing you to former CEO, Mike Ullman who managed JCPenney before and after the recession as well as his presence after next CEO Ron Johnson was fired. We will walk through the problems that occurred after Johnson enforced his new turnaround strategies for JCPenney and how it cause disastrous results in sales and in the further decrease of market share. We will then focus on the current CEO, Marvin Ellison, and his plans for JC Penney and if his strategies can fix the overall problem JCPenney is facing.

External and internal factors come in many forms that can impact a business in different ways. Assessing external and internal factors that an organization may face can be vital to the planning function of management. As with any organization, there are always four functions of management. These functions are planning, organizing, leading, and controlling (Bateman & Snell, 2009, p. 19). Within the organization, Best Buy, which is known to be an electronics store, has their own external and internal factors. Founded in 1966 as Sound of Music and incorporating in 1983 to become Best Buy, Inc. (Ask.com, 2010, para. 1), accounting for 19% of the market (Metaweb, 2010, para. 1), has become one of the

The following pages focus on providing a strategic analysis of Sears Holding Corporation. The introduction reveals the issues that the paper addresses. The Company Presentation section reveals important facts in Sears' evolution. The Strategy Debates Section discusses theoretical issues applied to the situation of Sears. This is followed by the Strategic Decisions section that provides a series of recommendations that can help Sears improve its situation. The Implementation Challenges section provides important issues that can be considered challenges of strategic implementation.

A host of internal and external factors plays an important role in the organizational structure and process. The opportunities for Best Buy are economies of scale, targeting new market segmentation and global expansion. Strong competition, growth in online sales and the new developments in government regulation are the threat for the Best Buy. Competitions in the electronics industry are based on several factors such as price, quality, durability, product features, customer preferences and warranties. With the advancement in the ecommerce and internet, Best Buy acquired many internet

Macy's Inc. is one of the nation's largest and well known department store chains. Started over 150 years ago, Macy's has continually generated excellent returns for its shareholders and employees. Currently, in the midst of a global recession, Macy's has generated huge profits with same store sales increasing 5.3% year to date. In 2012 same store sales increased 4.6% in the month of February alone (Macy's Inc., 2012). In fact, throughout the duration of 2012, Macy's is projecting even larger profits for its underlying business operations. Even though Macy's has experienced success with both its assortments and brand, its competitors haven't faired so well. Sears, due in part to part to a lackluster holiday season, has been forced to close nearly 120 locations to generate excess liquidity in an effort to shore up its balance sheet (Isidore, 2011).Other competitors who cater specifically to the middle class consumer have also lost significant amounts of market share as consumers trade down due to the economy. This performance is primarily due to the core functions and operations of the business. Planning, organizing, leading, and controlling. Macy's excels at these forms of management, which has allowed the company to perform at a higher level relative to its peers in the industry.

Best Buy Inc. has built a reputation as a ground-breaking retail giant. It is known as one of the first “big box” stores in

Best Buy Co., Inc. is currently the world’s largest retailer for consumer electronics. The company has 1,400 brick and mortar stores and is a popular online retailer as well. The stores serve as display room for various online retailers. Best Buy consumers can purchase electronic products such as mobile, corded and cordless phones, televisions, cameras, personal computers, laptops, appliances and more (David & F.R., 2015). Today’s society relies on convenience and technology, forcing companies to implement new ideas and projects in an effort to maintain their ability to compete with other companies. For continued success the company must look at the internal and external issues the company may face as well as their competitors and their best practices that are contributing to their success.

It makes sense for Best Buy to worry more about Wal-Mart, which is getting more involved in electronics retailing, and less about Circuit City. The competitors are a diverse lot today, and for them to continue to grow they're going to have to get much better at everything they do and define themselves in clear ways. Best Buy's plan is to revamp its stores according to the types of customers they serve. A strategy previously mentioned, customer centricity, focuses on targeting five prototypical customers, all of whom have been given names: "Jill," a busy suburban mom; "Buzz," a focused, active younger male; "Ray," a family man who likes his technology practical; "BB4B" (short for Best Buy for Business), a small professional employer; and "Barry," an affluent professional male who's likely to drop tens of thousands of dollars on a home theater system. Their most current focus is on a "Jill" based store, the soccer mom who has money to spend but typically hasn't a clue of where or how to find products in the store. According to the data Best Buy has collected, Jill shops a few times a year, usually twice at an electronics store, but she usually spends a significant amount.

Target is an American retailing company founded in 1902. It is the second largest discount retailer in the United States (target.com, 2013). Targets mission is to make their store the preferred sopping destination for their guests by delivering outstanding value, continuous innovation and exceptional guest experience by consistently fulfilling their “Expect more pay less” brand promise. In order for Target to compete with the number one largest competitor Wal-Mart the four functions of management must be implemented in their strategic business plan. In this paper our team will explain how internal and external factors affect the four functions of

According to this case, and concerning about the strategy that Best Buy has created, retailers can similarly create a retailer-led product strategy to leverage their customer knowledge for product differentiation and to understand what the needs of the customers are; they must discover what satisfies the customer and what not. In addition, the retailer can seek for news partnerships, new stores, new countries and new categories and services in order to increase their net sales and their share market. It’s very important invest in marketing study aiming to discover what the other companies are doing. Besides, with the time, the smaller retailer can increase significantly even more than the