09-19-2017, 04:44 PM
"Restructuring and not liquidation"... euphemism. All businesses on the brink of death are obliged to change their model, reduce their number of outlets, drop loss-leader lines, and lay off a big number of employees. Of course it takes time to determine whether the 'restructuring' will work. Most likely, companies try to renegotiate leases and put off maintenance.
Few businesses successfully change their methods of operation when they go into decline -- successfully. Retailing is more obvious because we all encounter it. Montgomery-Ward tried to separate itself into separate categories within store spaces on the assumption that divisions within the firm would better handle such disparate objects as clothing and consumer electronics (when consumer electronics were expensive and profitable). It didn't work. It may have been the wrong approach -- or it might have been too late Dropping the "Montgomery" part of the name may have caused people to forget that there was a once-familiar Montgomery-Ward.
Toys 'R' Us does not really compete with Barnes and Noble or with Lego stores. It competes with Target, Wal*Mart, K-Mart, Meijer (in the Midwest), and even such entities as Dollar General, Family Dollar, Big Lots, and Five Below. The latter four?
Go to Big Lots
Leave dejected!
See what Wal*Mart
Has rejected!
Retailing is not an appealing career to well-educated people who see it at best as the sort of industry in which to get a couple of years in and prove a work ethic before going on to something more lucrative. Bringing in talent to shake things up is fiendishly expensive.
Few businesses successfully change their methods of operation when they go into decline -- successfully. Retailing is more obvious because we all encounter it. Montgomery-Ward tried to separate itself into separate categories within store spaces on the assumption that divisions within the firm would better handle such disparate objects as clothing and consumer electronics (when consumer electronics were expensive and profitable). It didn't work. It may have been the wrong approach -- or it might have been too late Dropping the "Montgomery" part of the name may have caused people to forget that there was a once-familiar Montgomery-Ward.
Toys 'R' Us does not really compete with Barnes and Noble or with Lego stores. It competes with Target, Wal*Mart, K-Mart, Meijer (in the Midwest), and even such entities as Dollar General, Family Dollar, Big Lots, and Five Below. The latter four?
Go to Big Lots
Leave dejected!
See what Wal*Mart
Has rejected!
Retailing is not an appealing career to well-educated people who see it at best as the sort of industry in which to get a couple of years in and prove a work ethic before going on to something more lucrative. Bringing in talent to shake things up is fiendishly expensive.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.