Staples Incorporation Strategies - Research Paper Example

? Staples- Goodwill Report Executive Summary The business and service sector, these days, are coping upwith a tough and competitive corporate environment. In order to achieve the organizational and other goals, it has become necessary for all the businesses to keep up with their goodwill and reputation amongst the rigid rivals in the marketplace. Precisely, maintaining goodwill and good public relations with the organization’s stakeholders become an essential underlying element. Staples Incorporation has also adopted the similar strategy for achieving its goals and objectives. The office supply chain store has embraced credible strategies to build up its reliability and a unique position in the market. The company has its stores operating all around the world and delivering quality goods and services to the customers worldwide. It manages its goodwill and credible position through effective communication channels, proper employee management, valuing loyal customers and building a successful network of honest stakeholders for the organization. An effective management o the organizational plans and strategies, is what constitutes the goodwill. Besides this, being loyal and honest to the customers and maintaining a customer-centered attitude forms the basis of an advanced and organized goodwill plan. Thus, we can assume that the overall management and implementation of goodwill plan is the absolute need of an organization to operate successfully. This element has given rise to many success stories, such as that of Staples Incorporation. An elaborated goodwill plan of Staples is discussed ahead in this paper. Table of Contents Staples Incorporation 4 Communication 5 Customers 7 Employees 7 Environment 8 Conclusion 9 Recommendation 10 Works Cited 11 Appendix 12 Appendix A 12 Appendix B 13 Appendix C 14 Illustrations Direct Competitor Comparison   SPLS PVT1 ODP OMX Industry Market Cap: 11.05B N/A 1.12B 626.71M 319.51M Employees: 52,919 N/A 40,000 30,000 2.75K Qtrly Rev Growth (yoy): 1.90% N/A -3.20% -2.80% 5.90% Revenue (ttm): 24.66B N/A 11.53B 7.10B 447.72M Gross Margin (ttm): 30.09% N/A 28.80% 25.63% 35.50% EBITDA (ttm): 2.09B N/A 235.86M 222.22M 26.40M Operating Margin (ttm): 6.47% N/A 0.25% 1.79% 4.32% Net Income (ttm): 891.42M N/A -116.36M 55.22M N/A EPS (ttm): 1.23 N/A -0.42 0.63 0.15 P/E (ttm): 12.59 N/A N/A 11.55 18.87 PEG (5 yr expected): 0.77 N/A -7.84 1.30 0.98 P/S (ttm): 0.44 N/A 0.10 0.09 0.75 Pvt1 = Lyreco Group (privately held) ODP = Office Depot, Inc. OMX = OfficeMax Incorporated Industry = Specialty Retail, Other Business organizations are operating in a very tough corporate environment these days. They are struggling hard to maintain their competitiveness along with being resilient, flexible and rulers at the same time. For this purpose, it becomes necessary for them to keep up their goodwill and take care of the performance and reputation in the market among tough rivals and cutting edge competition. Staples Incorporation Not every company is a success story. There are many organizations, both large and small scale, which are working in the rigid business environment. Similarly, staples is one such company which is attempting to pave its way through managing in building goodwill amongst the other market leader. The Staples Incorporation is one of the larger office supply chain store, which has more than 2,000 operational stores which are working in around 26 countries. The store has its main foundation in United States, Framingham, Massachusetts, and has its large network of retail stores operating all across the world. The retail outlets of Staples are all also involved in the business dealings and transactions with several firms in numerous European countries and this is commonly referred to as the Staple Advantage (Bloom Energy, Online). The organization has built up its reputation in the market of furniture, supplies, promotional products, office machines, technology and other services to various businesses in both, physical stores and virtual world. One of the very first stores of the company was opened up the year 1986in Brighton, Massachusetts in. the most profitable division, which has helped Staple keep its heads high in the market include Quill Corporation which has managed to bring in around 25% of the net income of the company from its retail store network. The success of Staples is obvious from the fact that the total revenues of the company rose by $500 million between the years 1998 and 2008 and in terms of revenues; we can credit the hard work and success of Staples in the form of net profits to over $1.3 billion. These factors make it evident that the company has managed to keep the business in a positing which can maintain its goodwill amongst its rivals (Verhezen & Peter, Online). Communication Regarding the maintenance of successful communication channels too, Staples Inc. has tried to match its competitors. One of the strong points of the company is that it has a flawless communication channel inside the organization, with its suppliers, customers, buyers and all other stakeholders. A three dimensional communication system exists, which includes upward, downward and lateral channels of communication. This removes all the complaints, miscommunication, grievances, misunderstandings and every other blunder which might hinder in the success of the organization. Furthermore, Staples Incorporation has also established and documented its policies for the code of conduct. The company has documented various things such as how to speak up for providing guidance or reporting misconduct. There is an entire document suggesting ways for handling violations, adhering to the laws and legislations of the company and country, and handing other disciplinary or interdisciplinary acts. The company also adopts a You-Attitude style n communication with the customers and clients. The plain, simple ways of the company’s management and its polices have increased the clientele of the organization. Even when interacting with its cut-throat customers, suppliers and other stakeholders, a very frank and understanding approach is adopted by the management and other personal relations officers in maintaining a good pace of communication. Positive Emphasis A positive emphasis is given to the positive strategies being applied in the organization. Every individual, whether boss or subordinate, work with a positive approach and optimistic views to achieve the mutual and organization goals. The teamwork has touched excellence and all the departments in a store, or the network of stores, work in cohesion with each other. Besides this, the conflicts and negotiations has become an important part of every business organization these days. Thus, just like other businesses, conflicts among employees exist here too but they are solved immediately and before they could touch heights (Staples Inc., Online). Customers In order to keep up its market and the positioning of its strategy and value, Staples has targeted a very well-defined customer segment for its business approach. The company is operating with more than 1,300 stores all across the world and has allowed its activities and operations to analyze and fulfill the exact needs of its customers. The innovative equipment, superior methods of working and the advancements in everyday business environment of its countless retail stores, the company has kept good contacts with its customers. The highly productive catalogue and online channels of the company has identified the crucial role, which its marketing activities and strategies play in attracting, and retaining the high value potential and existing customers. The company relies on its marketing departments which surveys and gathers his information regarding shifting needs and wants of customers through investigating 10 million of them. They analyze the pattern of customer’s frequent visits, shopping, and source of information and awareness, and then, design their own channels of production and distribution. Thus, Staples Incorporation keeps running the monitoring and predicting campaigns in order to have constant ideas regarding its market share and to plan it market growth. Unlike the market in initial days, now this organization has opted to target various customer segments and possess the most loyal customers. The public relationing, direct marketing and personal selling capabilities of the company have given it a strong and competitive edge over its competitors. Moreover, the company also offers discounts and incentives to its customers in order to keep them happy and satisfied with its products. Employees Staples have managed to create its goodwill and reputation amongst its valued employees as well. Not all companies are able to manage their human resource base in a successful manner. Staples Incorporation also had problems in the beginning; these difficulties included the recruiting and retaining the workforce in a network of stores. However, with the passage of time, the company adopted the strategy of applying the equity compensation programs. The organization has also aimed to educate its employees regarding the benefits and practical application of equity compensation. After a long hard struggle, has the company been able to make its employees understand the value of work assigned and has targeted their motivational and emotional levels to a satisfying extent. Managing the employees, training them on their tasks regularly, performing the appraisal programs and correcting their deviations are the strategies that the company has undertaken to manage its human resource base. Staples Incorporation is an organization which is dedicated and committed fully to the business challenge it has been given. The innovativeness, and system orientation of the company has also made its employees learn a lot. Each store of the Staples has given reasonable autonomy to its employees to work independently and use their authority in the decision making process, while being accountable to headquarter for the unification in employee enrollment in the company’s HR software. In order to keep the employees fully motivated, the management has allowed them to use their authority, at the right places, for the purpose of achieving organizational as well as personal goals. Environment Just like its other strategies in the way of maintaining goodwill is considered, taking care of environment and adopting such other measures also mark the success of the company. In order to achieve this goal, Staples Incorporation understands the grave threats and serious risks which are being posed by the world due to climatic change. To tackle with this problem, despite of not being a specifically ‘environmental consumer, has also introduced one of the very different models to tackle this problem. It has adopted a long term strategy of investing in the renewable and energy efficient power which, along with offering the eco-friendly products to the customers, also provides them the environmental education. This strategy will not only provide assistance for the environment but will also help the business in making good profits. Conclusion Thus, we can easily conclude that the goodwill is, most of the times, proving the worth of any object to other people and Staples Incorporation has done it. Unlike its recent past, the company has aimed to keep all its stakeholders happy. In the modern era, a business is not only about making profits and generating revenues for itself; but, in order to gain goodwill and customer support and loyalty, the organization has to prove itself in all the fields of performance to gain loyalty and support of customers. Though, Staples had the least market share when it had come in the industry as a fresh company. It did not get to popularize itself for much more time in future. However, its production of a long product line with equal depth has been able to give the company a great amount of good will already. The reputation of Staples Inc. in the sight of its customers and associates has been incredible. Along with handling the customers in a polite and courteous manner, the company also tackles all its organizational problems and business challenges in a perfect way. It has established policies for communication and strategies for keeping its workforce happy in the organization. Thus, we can see that the goodwill of the company has to be maintained in every context if it wants to retain its position in the organization. Recommendation The Staples Incorporation possesses all the capabilities to take further steps towards its improvement. The organization can adopt following measures as some possible recommendations for the betterment and enhancement of its operations: Further enhanced versions of improved customer services can be introduced. More strategies such as marketing research and resource exploitations can be undertaken to be implemented for satisfying the customers with quality products and services. Making the best use of resources is the element that Staples Incorporation is good at. Thus, making use of its strength, the company can further assess its stakeholders and concerned parties regarding their direct and indirect influence on the organization. This will help the company learn more about its external and internal forces. Works Cited Bloom Energy. Staples Reduces Cost and Carbon with Bloom. 2010. Accessed Online. Retrieved from Lakshmi Ramarajan & David Thomas. A Positive Approach to Studying Diversity in Organizations. 2010. Working Paper. Harvard Business School. Staples Inc. Lightening the load at Staples. Lead. 2011. Accessed online. Retrieved on July 12, 2011 from Staples. Corporate Governance Committee. 2010. Accessed Online. Retrieved from http://investor.staples.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=96244&p=irol-govCommittee&Committee=18 University. Accessed online. Retrieved on July 12, 2011 from Verhezen & Peter. Reputational Risk & Integrity. October 2006. Working Paper. Melbourne Appendix Appendix A Corporate Governance – Committee Staples, Inc. Board of Directors Audit Committee Charter As approved by the Board of Directors on March 4, 2003. Updated and approved by the Board of Directors on March 2, 2004, March 4, 2005, December 12, 2006 and December 7, 2010. 1. Purpose The purpose of the Audit Committee is to assist the Board of Directors’ oversight of: * the Company’s accounting and financial reporting processes and the audits of the Company’s financial statements; * the integrity of the Company’s financial statements; * the Company’s compliance with legal and regulatory requirements, * the performance of the Company’s internal audit function and independent auditors. Appendix B United States Securities and Exchange Commission Washington, D.C. 20549 PART I Item 1. Business Staples Staples, Inc. and subsidiaries ("We", "Staples" or "the Company") pioneered the office products superstore concept and is a leading office products distributor. We opened the first office products superstore in Brighton, Massachusetts in 1986 to serve the needs of small businesses. The office products industry has experienced significant growth since 1986 as the industry has expanded to include a variety of retailers, dealers and distributors, including other high-volume office supply chains. Business Strategy We view the office products market as a large, diversified market for office supplies and services, business machines, computers and related products, and office furniture. We estimate the segment of the overall market we target to be approximately $160 billion in North America and approximately $65 billion in Europe. Appendix C Staples, Inc. International Directory of Company Histories | 2003 | COPYRIGHT 2006 Thomson Gale. (Hide copyright information) Copyright Staples, Inc. 500 Staples Drive Framingham, Massachusetts 01702–4478 U.S.A. Telephone: (508) 253-5000 Toll Free: (800) 813-1588 Fax: (508) 253-8989 Web site: http://www.staples.com Staples, Inc. is the country’s largest operator of office supplies superstores, offering a vast selection of products at low prices, primarily to small business owners. Staples pioneered this concept in 1986 and grew rapidly after opening its first store in the Boston area. Pioneering the Office Supplies Superstore Concept: 1980s Staples was founded in November 1985 by Thomas G. Sternberg and Leo Kahn, who had previously competed against each other in the Boston grocery market. Stemberg had worked in the New England food business since graduating from Harvard Business School in 1973. After his employer fired him in 1985 because of “philosophical differences,” he used his year’s worth of severance pay to explore other business opportunities. Read More