Main Point 3
Sears in the Organizational Life-Cycle Sears was originally founded in 1893. By the mid to late 1900’s, it had already grown into a retail powerhouse. Sears was often referred to as the Amazon.com or Walmart of U.S. Merchandising at its peak. During its growth phase, Sears helped create the modern day shopping malls in the 1950’s by helping developers build retail centers that would grow in popularity all across the country.
In doing all of this Sears lost even more of their original target customers in that of blue-collar workers as they no longer were attracted to Sears stores and most of its product offerings. During this transfer period, things were starting to look bleak but Sears paid little attention to the new …show more content…
Problems continued to multiply despite their attempt to right the wrongs. In Sears 's case, they changed a little too late, because they feared that major changes may cause more harm than good. Managers were way overcommitted to the current strategy and structure and the fear of changing them clearly did not work to halt the decline.
Fourth Stage: Currently, Sears finds itself in the crisis stage. In this stage, only radical top-down changes to the organization’s strategy and structure can stop the organization 's rapid decline and increase their chance of surviving. Sears will need to change everything and conduct a major reorganization that will change the nature of the business, operations, and organizational culture.
Fifth Stage: If Sears fails to change their organizational operations, they may reach the dissolution stage. In this stage, the organization cannot recover, and decline is irreversible. The organization would lose any remaining support of its stakeholders, and the access to organizational resources would all but be diminished.
To have prevented the organization’s decline, Sears should have continued to analyze the organization’s structure in order to pinpoint any sources of inertia that may have …show more content…
A potential buyer for the Craftsman line would be Ace Hardware, due to their current strategic alliance. Black and Decker, another hardware company, has expressed interest in purchasing Craftsman. Selling these two assets would provide Sears with a much-needed source of income in the short term, enabling them to switch from a department store to an appliance store.
Along with selling two of their best-known assets, Sears should also sell all of their automotive centers which would generate another source of income in the short term. Automotive centers don’t fit well with the future direction of Sears and they would not integrate well with appliance based stores. The main goal is to get Sears to focus on what they do best which is sell household appliances.
In addition, Sears appliances have only seen a slight decline in sales, while every other merchandise category Sears has to offer have seen significant declines in popularity and sales. Just in women’s clothing alone, Sears ranks behind Goodwill when it comes to women’s preference on where to shop. Sears has failed to meet customers’ needs and wants by failing to innovate their line of products outside of appliances which ultimately has led to the loss of customers. This would increase profitability in the long run as they would stop losing money on merchandise customers no longer
Sears in the Organizational Life-Cycle Sears was originally founded in 1893. By the mid to late 1900’s, it had already grown into a retail powerhouse. Sears was often referred to as the Amazon.com or Walmart of U.S. Merchandising at its peak. During its growth phase, Sears helped create the modern day shopping malls in the 1950’s by helping developers build retail centers that would grow in popularity all across the country.
In doing all of this Sears lost even more of their original target customers in that of blue-collar workers as they no longer were attracted to Sears stores and most of its product offerings. During this transfer period, things were starting to look bleak but Sears paid little attention to the new …show more content…
Problems continued to multiply despite their attempt to right the wrongs. In Sears 's case, they changed a little too late, because they feared that major changes may cause more harm than good. Managers were way overcommitted to the current strategy and structure and the fear of changing them clearly did not work to halt the decline.
Fourth Stage: Currently, Sears finds itself in the crisis stage. In this stage, only radical top-down changes to the organization’s strategy and structure can stop the organization 's rapid decline and increase their chance of surviving. Sears will need to change everything and conduct a major reorganization that will change the nature of the business, operations, and organizational culture.
Fifth Stage: If Sears fails to change their organizational operations, they may reach the dissolution stage. In this stage, the organization cannot recover, and decline is irreversible. The organization would lose any remaining support of its stakeholders, and the access to organizational resources would all but be diminished.
To have prevented the organization’s decline, Sears should have continued to analyze the organization’s structure in order to pinpoint any sources of inertia that may have …show more content…
A potential buyer for the Craftsman line would be Ace Hardware, due to their current strategic alliance. Black and Decker, another hardware company, has expressed interest in purchasing Craftsman. Selling these two assets would provide Sears with a much-needed source of income in the short term, enabling them to switch from a department store to an appliance store.
Along with selling two of their best-known assets, Sears should also sell all of their automotive centers which would generate another source of income in the short term. Automotive centers don’t fit well with the future direction of Sears and they would not integrate well with appliance based stores. The main goal is to get Sears to focus on what they do best which is sell household appliances.
In addition, Sears appliances have only seen a slight decline in sales, while every other merchandise category Sears has to offer have seen significant declines in popularity and sales. Just in women’s clothing alone, Sears ranks behind Goodwill when it comes to women’s preference on where to shop. Sears has failed to meet customers’ needs and wants by failing to innovate their line of products outside of appliances which ultimately has led to the loss of customers. This would increase profitability in the long run as they would stop losing money on merchandise customers no longer