One of the first mistakes in the management of Sears was to disperse its activities. However, because of its size, Sears had the advantage of having a database about the extremely important customers, although they were poorly exploited. What are the factors related to the management, organization and technology that have been responsible for the poor performance of Sears? To what extent have information systems provided a competitive advantage to Sears?
The diversification strategy of Sears was a mistake because it had invested less in what was its main activity and failed to anticipate the development of its competitors. The business intelligence of Sears is insufficient, and they took more time than their competitors to reorganize and renovate its stores. In addition, it did not adequately follow the market trends, and could therefore; no longer update its offers.
For example, the Sears catalog was one of the most profitable in the United States and it stopped publication in 1993, because it faced competition from specialty catalogs. Its market position has not changed with the evolution of its activities.
Tags: sears, evolution of sears, sears catalog, sears business intelligence
[...] The decentralization of information has enabled the marketing department to better control the prices established in the country and store performance through the SPRS system for creating strategic relationships that are intelligible. This allows to know which products sell locally and what other sell globally in all stores. The purchasing policy thereby changed and had large savings were it made (large-scale purchase for products to global uncorked). Finally, the modification of the website with access to certain products or promotions had also contributed to the change of corporate image. [...]
[...] To arrive at that state the company had to reorganize itself by removing more than 50,000 jobs and 113 stores, but these changes have affected the society: The architecture of the logistics system of the stores were taken through the decentralization of information. However, Sears still has high operating costs (though declining) and incidents on its credit card in 1997 show that it remains dependent on a certain laxity respecting its credit ratings, to boost its sales. Also the delay of its main competitors like Wal-Mart is too important to be noticed. References • Information Systems and Management "Managing the Digital Firm" From Kenneth C. and Jane.P Laudon • www.pitneybowes.ca/fr/uploads/ . [...]
[...] For example, its catalog, which was one of the most profitable in the U.S. stopped being published in 1993, because it had to face competition from specialty catalogs. Its market position has not changed with the evolution of its activities. Sears had developed a wide range of services to the person who had just completed its range of retail products and has remained on a strategy of domination by the prices when many competitors were offering the same strategy more efficiently (cheaper with better management). [...]
[...] In addition, its customer databases were analyzed incorrectly and was too dispersed. During the arrival of C .Martinez it realized that the customer base for male wwasn't strong, but women were buying clothing and consumer durables. The dispersion of databases and their evil resulted in analysis as the misreporting about the target audience of Sears and therefore a mismatch of supply of products and services. This example was repeated when Sears had seen the number of default custromers to discover its credit card increase. [...]
[...] In summary the weakness of internal communication, duplication of some databases and systems and the possibility for shopping or purchasing groups to access a real-time information lead to its failure these factors couldn't help the poor performance of Sears . To what extent information systems gave an advantage to competitive Sears? Explain Because of its size, Sears had the advantage of having an extremely large database of customers, but it was badly managed. The implementation system enabling decentralization of information, particularly to suppliers or customers was certainly an advantage. [...]
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