Target Corporation Essay Example for Free

Target Corporation Essay Target Corporation is one of America’s biggest corporations according to Fortune 500. Target is a retailer that operates general merchandise and food discount stores. Being one of the biggest and one of the leading retailers in the America, Target enjoys a strong market position to promote market opportunities and adds to their bargaining power. Here are the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) analysis of Target Corporation. Strengths 1. Advance technology increased customer preference for Internet shopping. 2. Target Corporation continues to expand by announcing their plan to open more stores in Chicago, Seattle, and Los Angeles. 3. Target Corporation is the second biggest concession retailer in United States. 4. Target Bulls eye logo is recognize by Ninety-seven percent of American consumers. 5. Target is the leading gift card seller than any other retailer in the United States. 6. Target is opening 220 stores in Canada, which is the first international expansion. Weakness 1. Target stores do not sell firearms and tobacco products. 2. Target settled to decrease their transactions on all supplies having polyvinyl chloride. 3. Target Corporation received criticism and controversy from members of the gay and lesbian community for their donations to anti-gay groups. 4. Negative publicity in 2004, when Target decided to block Salvation Army from seeking donations at its stores. 5. Target Corporation does not have the advantage competitively due to higher prices than other retailers do. Opportunities 1. Corporation ranked at number 38 in Fortune 500 as of 2012 (Fortune, 2012). 2. Target ranked number 64 on Corporate Responsibility Magazine list of 100 Best Corporate Citizens (CRM, 2012). 3. Target ranked number 25 on Fortune magazine list of World’s Most Admired Companies (Fortune, 2012). 4. Target received a score of 100 from The Human Rights Campaign on its 2013 Corporate Equality Index (Human, 2012). 5. Target ranked number 30 on DiversityInc magazine list of Top 50 Companies for Diversity (DiversityInc, 2012). 6. Target ranked 28 in America’s Top 50 Organizations for Multicultural Business Opportunities by DiversityBusiness.com (DiversityBusiness, 2012). 7. Target ranked number 22 on Forbes magazine and the Reputation Institute list of America’s Most Reputable Companies (Smith, 2012). 8. Universum ranked Target number 38 on its Ideal Employer List as surveyed by American MBAs, and number 28 as surveyed by American undergraduates (Light, 2012). 9. Target r anked among the 2012 Best Companies for Hourly Workers by Working Mother Media (Working, 2012). 10. The National Conference on Citizenship and Points of Light, in partnership with Bloomberg LP, ranked Target number 16 on the first comprehensive ranking of the Civic 50 (Bloomberg, 2012). 11. Newsweek magazine ranked Target number 85 out of 500 on its U.S. Green Rankings 2012 (Newsweek, 2012). 12. Target scored an 87 B on the 2012 Carbon Disclosure Project SP 500 Report, an increase over 2011 ranking score of 77 C (Carbon, 2012). 13. Target named to the 2012 Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI) World Index (Dow, 2012). 14. Target named a member of the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce 2012 Million Dollar Club for its commitment to supplier diversity and Hispanic Business Enterprises (USHCC, 2012). 15. Target named as one of the World’s Most Ethical Companies by Ethisphere Institute (Ethisphere, 2012). 16. Target named as one of the Top Corporation for Women’s Business Enterprises by The Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC, 2012). 17. Regaining of overall economy is worthy opportunity for Target Corporation because it will surge requirement for the products. Threats 1. Target Corporation competing with Wal-Mart, Kmart, and other retailers. 2. The Attorney General and 20 California District Attorneys filed a claim in Alameda County claiming that Target has been unlawfully dumping hazardous wastes in landfill on June 2009. 3. Customer perception that Target Corporation products are more costly than other retailers. The strengths and opportunities are the most relevant parts of SWOT analysis that make investors invest in Target Corporation. On January 13, 2011, Target declared its first international expansion into Canada and it makes the investors to be excited for the opportunities for this corporation to do well internationally. Additionally, Target Corporations continue to be recognized, rank, and awarded by different magazines and association for being one of the best companies in the United States. Those recognitions and awards make the corporation more valuable and that value of the company and their name has marketing importance that give them staying power for years to come (Target, 2012). Stakeholders are groups of people who have an interest in a company or business organization. Internal stakeholders are those members of the business organization such as owners, managers, staffs, and employees. However, external stakeholders are not part of the company such as customers, suppliers, community, and government. Every internal stakeholder has their own needs and hoping that the company can provide or fulfill their need. For many owners, their business in their biggest asset and owner will protect it to secure his/her financial future. For bigger corporation like Target, they make sure they follow the national and local law to avoid lawsuit and bad publicity. Shareholder is an individual that own shares of stock in the company therefore they have right to vote on decision about the organization. Shareholder primary need is to increase the value of their stocks and improve their value in the company by buying more stocks to have bigger influence on the decision within the company. Managers and employees needs are almost the same. They need job security with benefits, good pay, health insurance, and flexibility. In addition, the most important needs for all internal stakeholders is profit because this is the driving force that control the future of the company and can provide all of the them their personal needs. External stakeholder needs are different from the internal stakeholder since internal stakeholder is the one providing and fulfilling to satisfy external stakeholder needs. Customers are the most important stakeholders because they are the only reason that we have business like Target Corporation. Customers have so many needs that managers and employees trying to provide to them as much as they can. Customer needs are friendly representative, discount prices, quality of products, professionalism, and outstanding customer services. Supplier most important needs are to have a good business relationship with the corporations because it gives them stability on their own organization. Community needs is to improve their own community for creating job, charity organization and by increasing the value of their community. Target Corporation can provide it to them since they can create thousands of jobs in the community and donating funds to different organizations within local communities. Government needs from Target Corporation is for them to support the community by providing jobs, donations to charities and most of all is for the company to follow the government policies and regulations. Target Corporation in the most parts fulfilled most if not all of the stakeholder needs. Target Corporation is one of the biggest and successful companies in United States so the owners and shareholders needs of profits, stability, and financial security are easily meets. For managers and employees, the company provided them flexibility, health benefits, retirement plan, life insurance, vacation, discount such as 10% for member and childcare, disability coverage, training and development resources, career planning and option for group legal plan. For community stakeholder, Target Corporation provided 5% of Target’s profit to local communities. They have partnership with community organization such as Diversity Best Practices, The Executive Leadership Council, Hispanic Association on Corporate Responsibility and NAACP. In addition, they encouraged their team member to volunteer their time, expertise, and talents to support the community projects. For government stakeholder, Target Corporation has a strong partnership with Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to support disaster efforts. They also have safety and preparedness partnership to other government service such as Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security, and American Red Cross. For supplier stakeholder, they actively engage with diverse supplier to support all section of the company. In addition, they develop diverse supplier relationships with Women’s Business Enterprise National Council, United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, N ational Minority Supplier Development Council, National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce, and National Veteran Owned Business Association. For customer who is the most important stakeholder, Target Corporation provides them quality products, outstanding service, competitive price, number of selection, best values, and convenience shopping. For the most part, Target Corporation meets stakeholder needs. I am sure they are few people think that their needs are not met or satisfied the way they want it but you cannot satisfy everybody. The important thing is Target Corporation continues to look on how they can improve to support their stakeholder. They continue to launch customer satisfaction survey, ask their employees, and work with the government and communities to improve their company relationship with stakeholders and this is how Target Corporation can fulfill the need of stakeholder. Target Corporation continues to make improvements to remain the number two retailer stores in the country. Target financial performances are doing great and continue to progress every year. Reports show Target Corporation’s revenue stay in an upward trend regardless of the world’s economy. Additionally, reports also show sales increasing in an upward trend year to year (Target, 2012). By reviewing Target Corporation financial report, I learned that this company should continue to improve for the next five year. Target Corporation bought the leaseholds for up to 220 stores in Canada for their first international expansion. This expansion will improve their sales, revenue and can help them compete with their main competitors: Walmart and Costco. The only concern for Target Corporation is their competition with Walmart and Costco since both company make bigger net sales the last four years. Target Corporation management can use their financial report to compare them with Walmart and Costco to analyze the best way to compete with them. On comparing Target, Walmart, and Costco, Walmart is the largest retailer in the country and it generated more than three time s the combined revenue of both Target and Costco. See figure 1 for Target Corporation, figure 2 for Walmart Corporation, and figure 3 for Costco Corporation’s historical financial reports. Target Corporation technologies compare to Walmart and Costco is about the same. I do not see any advantages between these three retailers concerning technologies. This globalization influenced the company business strategies since Costco and Walmart are having success outside the country. Target Corporation finally expanded internationally due to their main competitor, and to compete with them, they have to expand outside the country. Benchmarking is a process of comparing an organization performance to other organization using objective and subjective criteria. The process compares organizations to those in the industry reviewing its status to use as standard in their own company. Target, Walmart and Costco are three of the top retailers in industries in best practices, operational processes and procedures, and products ranked by reputable magazine and community organization every year. Being ranked in world’s most admired companies, top 50 companies for diversity, America’s most reputable companies, and many more recognition demonstrated that thi s three companies are the benchmark for their industry. The recent economic trends are influencing the business from traversing from enormous changes in global politics to the blasting existence of social media and online technology into our everyday lives. Through all of this, nevertheless, business must go on, but it is not business as usual. The importance of customer has never more important than it is today. With the influx of computer technology, customer worldwide knows what is accessible in the market to buy and how to locate it online at the lowest cost. Through this power has come the capability to form markets, and express the products they want. Advertisements, information sharing, and recognizing the importance of personalized search were some of the strategies the company has used for adapting to changing markets. With the rise of Internet and a population that gradually analyses world travel as just another part of life, online search become the most powerful tool (McClimans, 2011). Target Corporation has implemented tactics to achieve their strategic goals by going international and opening new stores (CityTarget) aimed at the urban market. Target Corporations procured the leaseholds for up to 220 stores in Canada and CityTarget are established to open in Chicago, Seattle, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Oregon, Puerto Rico, and Charlotte (Target, 2012). The tactics Target used by expanding their corporation will help them compete with their competitors to meet the consumers demand. Target Corporation can also implement pricing and marketing strategy to achieve their strategic goals. Pricing strategy does not always means lowering price to gain industry dominance, but that is the obvious choice. Using low price tactics presenting rebates, special sales and discount with inexpensive financing and delayed payment. Marketing strategy seeks to target specific consumers with messages that are most likely to draw their attention. It involves seasonal advertising and special promotions as tactics to achieve their goals (Duff, 2012). The role of human resource management plays in helping the company achieve its business goals has change from the conventional hire and fire to a planned manager at the table with operations, finance, and other business focuses that are not centers of profits for the company. Human resource must ensure that its practice, processes, and policies supplement the organizational strategies. Human resource management should understand the business strategy by developing mission statement that relate to the employees, conduct a SWOT analysis, develop consequences and solutions, and evaluation of action plans. Some of the human resource management functions are to handle rewards and compensation certain roles and positions in order to boost performance echelons. Recruitment is another important mission including the selection and retention of employees. Additionally, human resource management balancing the employees and organizations expectations to associated business success and to satisfied employees needs (King, 2012). Target Corporations is one of the biggest, reputable and profitable company in United States so if I have the opportunity to invest with them, I will without hesitation. Target Corporation continues to rise and make significant profits year after year. Figure 1 shows Target’s financial history for the last five years and by looking at it, the trends will likely continue to do well in the future. In conclusion, Target is the second largest discount retailer in the country, second only to Walmart. It has proven its successfulness through the number of stores domestic and internationally, and through the figures of net sales, net income, and free cash flow. Target Corporation logo is recognize by over ninety-seven percent of consumers in United States. In addition, Target Corporation is devoted to promoting diversity and committed to community by donating five percent of profits to charities while encouraging their employees to volunteer in the community projects. Target Corporation continues to expand by going internationally and opening new stores CityTarget in urban areas. Target is growing and bringing new customers as it expands. Target Corporation understands their markets, and this giving them the edge to grow and compete with Walmart in the future. References Bloomberg BusinessWeek. (2012). Civics lesson. Retrieved from http://images.businessweek.com/slideshows/2012-11-08/civics-lessons CR’s Magazine. (2012). 100 Best Corporate Citizens. Retrieved from http://www.thecro.com/files/100Best2012_List_3.8.pdf Carbon Disclosure Project. (2012). Carbon reductions generate positive ROI. Retrieved from https://www.cdproject.net/en-US/Pages/HomePage.aspx Costco Wholesale. (2012). Home. Retrieved from http://www.costco.com DiversityBusiness.com. (2012). Top 50 organizations for multicultural business opportunities. Retrieved from http://www.diversitybusiness.com/news/supplierdiversity/45201282.asp DiversityInc. (2012). Top 50 companies for Diversity. Retrieved from http://www.diversityinc.com/target/ Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes. (2012). Annual review 2012. Retrieved from http://www.sustainability-indexes.com/review/annual-review-2012.jsp Duff, V. (2012). What are business tactics and strategies? Chron. Retrieved from http://smallbusiness .chron.com/business-tactics-strategies-5148.html Ethisphere. (2012). 2012 world’s most ethical companies. Retrieved from http://www.ethisphere.com/wme/ Fortune Magazine. (2012). World’s most admired companies. Retrieved from http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/most-admired/ Human Rights Campaign. (2012). Corporate equality index. Retrieved from http://www.hrc.org/corporate-equality-index/#.ULdSJKUWFFI King, W. (2012). What role does human resource management play in a business? Ezine Articles. Retrieved from http://ezinearticles.com/?What-Role-Does-Human-Resource-Management-Play-In-A-Business?id=563848 Light, J. (2012). Ideal employer list. Retrieved from http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703512404576208702115862760.html?mod=WSJ_Careers_CareerJournal_4 McClimans, F. 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