Research Paper

Abstract

In today's highly competitive world companies are struggling more and more for taking new initiatives for strategic growth in the market. JC Penny is facing a time of huge turmoil as its financials are declining month by month. Company has developed several strategies but still it has failed to recover itself. This research paper covers the strategies developed and execute by JC Penny and what issues are there which still hinders its growth. Research Paper

Introduction

Topic

In today's highly competitive and rapidly advancing business world, it has become more and more difficult for companies to sustain without enhancing their managing strategies. As the new technologies and businesses are emerging every other day, companies are required to rebuild their strategies in order to attract customers. Unfortunately, JC Penny has somehow failed in this regard. The company is continuously facing large drop downs in sales and posted larger than expected financial loss (Forbes, 2012). According to Forbes (2012), this year JC Penny's sales are far down i.e. $9.09 billion versus $11.84 billion a year ago. Though JC Penny have executed some strategic moves like new pricing strategy or re-branding, yet these strategies have not come up with better results for the company. Therefore, this research has inclined towards finding out what strategic measures are taken by JC Penny and why they are not working as well as company expected them to.

Thesis Statement

“What strategic measures are taken by JC Penny to recover its position and why these strategies not turn out as well as they were expected?”

Literature Review

Why JC Penny is not running well?

JC Penny was one of leading chain of retail superstores, which is now facing a declining state in market. When researched about why JC Penny is in problem, it is indicated that recession has made JC Penny fell flat; crashed under the weight of collapse of housing market. The core customer base of this company, middle America, experienced their mortgages disturbed, their bills come due, and experience job vanishing, all this led to less retailing and thus JC Penny's profit fell short (Guinto, 2011). Research indicates that since the CEO Ron Johnson took over the company in January, the company has been facing several issues backed by previous strategic management mistakes as well. The company had quite a roller coaster ride; things got relatively worse with the company's earnings this year (Lutz, 2012). As the Brian Sozzi reported, NBG Production's chief equities analyst, sales have been declining continuously and the capital structure of a company is also troubling (Lutz, 2012). Research also indicates that the investors of market have been disappointed badly by the continuously reporting of low earnings this year (Forbes, 2012).

What can be done?

In order to overcome this problem some strategies are developed by JC Penny. NBG chief equities analyst Brian Sozzi has highlighted some of those major strategic aspects that are relevant with company's earnings announcement (Lutz, 2012). According to him, back to school sales strategy was bad, the shop-in-shop sales gains are not quite enough ...