Strategic Analysis Case Studies Examples

Individual Case Analyses

Background
The Men’s Wearhouse is a men’s tailored clothing business that was founded by George Zimmerman in 1973. He was then only 24 years old and started the store with an initial investment of $7000. He opened his first store in Houston. The business expanded and become successful leading to a significant increase in the share value of its stock. This was evidently clear in the summer of 1997 when George’s 3.2 million shares was worth about $100 million. A new store of TMW was opened at the San Francisco Bay Area in the early 1980s. Before this George had run the business using his home as the firm’s office. Later on, a new corporate headquarters of the Company was developed in Fremont. In 1997 part of the company’s corporate headquarters was moved to Houston. Since its initial public offering in 1991, the company experienced tremendous growth in terms of expansion of its stores. 40 to 50 stores were cropping up each year and by the end of the 1995 fiscal year, the company was operating 278 stores in 71 cities in 28 states in the United States.
The Strategic issue of the company was based on the premise that men do not like to shop hence there was much decline in the men’s clothing industry. The company had to employ strategies that would seek to attract the customers to shop. Men did not also like to watch for sale. Most of the company’s stores had therefore to avoid being situated in a large mall where a customer would have to walk past several shops in order to get to the company’s stores. The Men’s clothing industry faces serious challenges that have caused financial problems across several chains and departmental stores. The space allocated to this merchandise tends to be shrunk by most of the stores. The future focus issue is how this industry can be revived to be more profitable in sales through new innovative ideas in the marketing and sales strategies to be employed by companies. TMW seems to have taken off well on this strategic issue however there is still some weakness that it faces which need to be tackled as time elapses in order to create a long term solution.

In applying the strategic tools in this case I relied on the strategic analysis technique of Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats analysis. I identified the strengths of the TMW Company to be mostly based on the loyalty of their workers and customers, huge market share in the Industry due to its expansion and rapid growth in the TMW stores in this industry. TMW has been able to establish customer loyalty more effectively through uncommon management policies that tend to favour the employees as a priority before the customer. The policy has turned out to be really successful as the senior management is able to create a more friendly relationship with its employees compared to the traditional boss employee relationship that creates fear and intimidation. The recruitment process of sales associates and wardrobe consultants does not only focus on management training issues rather it focuses on the sales training that entails creating a good customer services delivery. The delivery of services in TMW is centred on not just making more profit through sales but also creating a good relationship with the customer to an extent they do identify with TMW. The company also has opportunities for growth as it has diversified its clothing market to include shoes, slacks and casual shirts apart from the conventional suits in the Men’s clothing industry. The weakness of the company concerns its employees who have the concept of being more of a clerk who accomplishes sales transactions. Due to the expansion of the company the recruitment process of sale associates by Managers has been fast tracked hence it does not focus on scrutiny of individuals based on their social skills rather their sale experience. The threat faced by TMW is the ever growing decline in the men’s cloth retailing business. Most departmental stores are closing down or consolidating their markets in this industry. This has brought TMW into sharp focus by analysts as it seems to have a good foundation in this market hence they are under pressure to maintain operations effectively and competently despite the upsets in the market.

Recommendations

The company should take its recruitment process of employees more seriously despite its rapid expansion that requires an increase in their workforce. The fundamental concept of their business is tapping on human potential that is untapped. Most MBAs consider this as a trivial matter because it is not quantifiable. However TMW’s George measures this aspect through results. The Store Managers should delegate the recruitment work to the sale associates in the company who would actually make better choices and mentor the recruits. These sales associates should constitute a competent recruitment panel that will be able to scrutinize thoroughly all applications made to this panel. Serious interviews should be carried out to determine the suitability of the applicants. The questions composed in the oral interviews should focus more how enthusiastic the applicant is about providing the customer with the best service. The oral interview should be in a manner that it is able to weed out applicants who are out to make humungous profits rather than portraying excellent professionalism in their work in handling customers. New recruits should also be put on one month probation to analyse whether they have benefited well enough from their training.
There should also be immediate elimination of Wardrobe consultants and sale associates who are obsessed with making huge commissions rather than delivering the best services to a customer. This kind of conception should not be tolerated at all and firing such employees will act as deterrence on other employees endorsing such practices that exhibit unprofessionalism in their jobs. TMW has a policy that only seeks to transfer such employees to a different store. This is a lenient policy as it just involves prolonging the problem which is bad for business. A strict code of ethics and regulations in the stores should be implemented and anyone who contravenes this code should face the consequences of their actions in due time without any delay.
The Company should also implement sale promotions through discounts and gift vouchers. This would effectively increase their sales and give their customers an opportunity to identify with them hence recommending other men to purchase clothing from the Company’s stores. The company should create a creative team made up of Wardrobe Consultants and Sales Associates who would continuously review and change their advertisements and sales promotions to be in conformity with the modern fashionable trends in the industry. This team should be very open minded and take into account the needs of their customers and employees as well. It should also get sufficient funding from the company for it not to face any financial constraints challenges in carrying out its activities.

Justification

The issue of a strict recruitment policy would help bring to the company a new face. It would involve a lot of mentoring and training on the new recruits by the sale associates hence fostering teamwork eventually in the company. The policy would be effectively implemented with a review of TMW’s Employment Stock Ownership Plan that creates more enthusiasm in the employees as they carry out their jobs. The plan should be reviewed on an annual basis to increase its perks hence growing the workforce investment in the business.
The men’s clothing industry can be demystified by looking to the needs of men in a more fashionable way. My strategic approach would bring about much success in this business and encourage more investment due to exemplary revenue returns that will be witnessed in the future. This would be achieved successfully due to the formation of the creative team of Wardrobe Consultants and Sales Associates as mentioned above.