Target's Business Case Study

Target Canada is the company’s first international expansion. However, Target’s expansion was not successful, as the company had initially planned for. Therefore, the company will be closing 133 Target Canada stores across the country and lay off approximately 17,600 employees. According to Target’s CEO Brian Cornell, he stated “After a thorough review of our Canadian performance and careful consideration of the implications of all options, we were unable to find a realistic scenario that would get Target Canada to profitability until at least 2021.” Moreover, problems occurred immediately when Target opened up over hundred stores in the first year of its Canadian Expansion. For example, customers complained about the lack of basic goods, prices being too high, and the unavailability of U.S. brands in the stores. It was the start of Target accumulating losses as high as a billion dollars a year. In addition, there was also increasing competition with Wal-Mart being the biggest retailer in Canada. The already intimidating rival lowered its prices in order to fend off Target. Furthermore, Target Corporation’s cash costs to discontinue Canadian operations are expected to be $500 million to $600 million, most of which will occur in the Company’s 2015 fiscal year or later. The Company has sufficient resources to fund these expected costs, including cash on hand and ongoing cash generation by

Target is one of the largest retailers in the United States. Target wants to be able to give guests better quality products for a cheaper price. They also want to be the one stop shop. Target relies on their team members to keep

Target CEO Brian Cornell states: “the situation is unacceptable and appointed veteran executive John Mulligan to find a fix” (SCDIgest Editoral Staff). Mulligan,

Every company will focus on supplying a service, product, or both. How and where the product is made plays a crucial role in the company’s success. In order to help visualize how the products are made process maps are formatted. These process maps can help to identify areas that need improvement. In order to implement improvement, process development will be implemented. The form of good that a company supplies is also important and to ensure that the best product is distributed product development is conducted. Target Corporation is a complex company, which provides consumers with their necessities.

Target Corporation enhance its information warehouses with latest big data that is technologically sophisticated to crunch large data using complex algorithms and provide vital output data for a daily operation as well as strengthen its capabilities over its rival which is a competitive advantage and speed up worker productivity. A quality tracking tool provided by information system tracks each package, parts ensuring the goods meet the quality standard.

Target Corporation's CEO and chairman Brian Cornell delivered a carefully evaluated strategies and vision to dramatically change retail business. The vision is put customer first in everything Target does, innovate and emphasis on prioritization

Target’s business-level strategy is one that does not strictly focus entirely on one plan to gain a competitive advantage over competition. It encompasses various strategic and meticulous planning and decision making that is implemented in order to position the company at the top of the retail industry. With competition from the likes of Wal-Mart, Sam’s Club, and Costco, Target uses several clever and “out-of-the-box” ideas to attract consumer attention and ultimately increase market share within the industry. Most of the company’s ideas centered more on the differentiation of products and services provided to customers than lowering prices. For quite some time, the company’s plan was to not compete head-to-head with Wal-Mart in terms of lowering prices but instead to provide their customers, who they identify as “guests”, with a special experience every time they visited a Target location. One idea that was implemented was to market and sell upscale, trendy clothing and unique merchandise at discounted prices.1 This strategy, known as the “cheap-chic” strategy, focused on providing good quality clothing from various well known designers and fancy products from high-profile manufacturers for prices lower than their competition. This plan was vital because it began essentially began the concept of customers referring to Target as “Tar-zhay” which according to Patrick Barwise and Sean Meehan, who are university professors, as a “connote its trendy sensibility”. Target

Target Corporation is a retail chain specializing in household goods, clothing, food, and accessories at discounted prices. The retail chain’s history started back in 1902 as Goodfellows and in 1910 as The Dayton Company. Initially, the chain specialized in “furnishings, fabrics and decorations for business and other public institutions” (“Target Corporation,” 2016, p. 5). Eventually, Target went public in 1967 and on to acquire Mervyn’s in the 1970s where they became the seventh largest retailer in the United States. Target operates in the United States, where it is headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota and as of January 31, 2015 Target employs over 300,000 people. “The company recorded revenues of $72,618 million in the financial year ended January 2015, the operating profit of the company was $4,535 million, [and] the net profit was $2,449 million” (“Target

The purpose of this paper is to discuss Case #6 in the student text regarding The Grand General Store.

Kohl’s ended year 2014 with an increase to cash and cash equivalents.8 As noted in Kohl’s Form 10-K the increase to cash and cash equivalents resulted from the following activities: a large decrease in merchandise inventory, significant increase in cash provided by operations, decreased store inventory, lowered bonus and other payroll related liability payments, decreased cash used in investing activities, proceeds from sales of investments in auction rate securities increased by $81 million in 2014.8 2014 showed a slight increase in stockholders’ equity, but still less than in 2013. (Fig. 2) The Board of Directors approved a March 25, 2015 dividend of $0.45 per share. This is a 28.5 percent increase over the quarterly dividend of $0.35 per share paid in 2014. 8 There was a slight increase in total liabilities in 2015, however long-term debt decreased.

Nearly everyone is at least somewhat familiar with Target stores; the famous bullseye logo is identifiable all across the United States. With the motto "Expect More, Pay Less", the company suggests that customers can expect more of everything, at more reasonable prices.1 Target's commitment to the consumer, as well as it's employment consideration and management style led Fortune Magazine to name it as one of the Most Admired Companies in 2005.

Target Corporation has recognized itself as one of the top retailers in the United States market on the basis of excellent service quality, customer experiences, operational excellence, strong financial position, and a wide array of product offerings. Through its high degree of service orientation at physical outlets and adoption of fair business practices, Target Corporation has become the most distinctive retailer in the eyes of its potential customers. Being one of the top-notch retailers in the United States, Target Corporation has to carefully strategize on its business operations and marketing tactics so as to keep itself in the row of competitive brands of the industry.

One of the issues Target could face if it continues to only focus on private label store brands and do not promote national brands is losing a percentage of its customers. Although Target’s innovative amount of store brands on its aisles has proven successfully for the retailer and consumers have shown a positive reception to the products, there are still a number of customers who are accustomed to

As the November Meeting approaches, CFO Doug Scovanner is faced with the problem of choosing which of the five controversial projects available to accept. Our task is to assume this role and evaluate each of the projects based upon two major criteria. The first is determining the firm’s financial motives by quantifying the projected value added to the firm and the risk associated with each project. When determining to accept or reject projects based upon adding value, the most helpful instruments we have are Net Present Value (NPV) and the

The Dollar General is an American wholesale company that was first initiated in Scottsville, Tennessee by Turner and Cal Turner. Its headquarters are located in Goodlettsville, Tennessee. The mission statement of the Dollar General is "Serving Others." This mission statement helps to bring out the innate requests and intentions of the company in the United States of America and other countries in the world. The company has a vision that describes how it manages to cater for four different types of people. These four groups of people include the customers, the community, employees, and shareholders. Within these categories of people, Dollar General aspires to serve others through deliver of price quality and terrific prices for customers, opportunity, and respect for employees, a superior return for shareholders and a better life for the communities.