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ABSTRACT
J. C. Penney, Inc., with headquarters in Plano, Texas, operates 872 department stores in 49 states and Puerto Rico. It sells family apparel and footwear, accessories, fine and fashion jewelry, beauty products, home furnishings, appliances, mattresses, and furniture as well as providing services, including salon, optical, portrait photography, and custom decorating. The company also sells its products through its website jcpenney.com utilizing its stores as fulfillment centers. It currently has 98,000 full-time employees.
In the last seven years J.C. Penney has been struggling to redefine itself. Facing declining sales in 2011, it hired Ron Johnson as CEO to revitalize the company, but instead of attracting new customers, his strategies alienated its core customers and resulted in the loss of $5 billion in revenue and a loss of $1 billion in less than two years. In 2013, the Board of Directors fired Johnson and reinstated the previous CEO, Mike Ullman. His role was to stabilize the company until a new CEO could be hired. In 2015, Marvin Ellison, a former Home Depot executive, was hired and initiated his own strategies until leaving in the spring of 2018 to become CEO of Lowe's. Now, Jill Soltau, former CEO of JOANN stores, has been hired as the new CEO. This case gives students the opportunity to evaluate the company's turnaround strategies as it struggles to survive in a challenging retail environment.
Keywords: Strategy, SWOT analysis, Marketing, Retailing
Case Description
The primary subject matter of the case is marketing strategy using SWOT analysis and the 4 P's as a framework for analyzing the case. Secondary issues that may also be examined are leadership and corporate culture. The difficulty level of this case is appropriate for junior, senior and graduate students. The case may be taught in as little as one hour or could easily be expanded into two hours. Students should be required to spend a minimum of at least 3 hours outside of class to prepare for the case.
Introduction
J.C. Penney was founded in 1902 and eventually grew to become an iconic department store anchoring many malls across the United States. But beginning in the 2000's, it faced increasing competition from discounters and ecommerce along with shifting consumer shopping patterns, which decreased traffic in malls....