Originally Posted By fkurucz >>There seems to be a major trend in these "super companies" to fall into the same trap. None of them seem to grasp a value in building your leader from with in the firm. They instead pull in some hot shoe from God knows where, and think they are going to redesign the wheel<< Amazingly, these days corporate America frowns on promoting from within. They babble about "new blood" and "new ideas" that must be brought in from outside. Never mind the career employee (now a VP) who built a new multi-dollar business line from scratch. Its better to hire a "rock star" CEO, even if said CEO ends up nearly killing the company.
Originally Posted By fkurucz >>These hired gun CEO's are for the most part a bunch of clowns that couldn't build their own company, but they could BS their way into the drivers seat of some one elces.<< Yes, yes and yes! I keep thinking of Carly Fiorina, who in a few years almost destroyed an icon of high tech: Hewlett-Packard.
Originally Posted By thenurmis At least with the Home Depot, they kept the new blood idea mostly towards the much higher ranks, so the repercussions would be filtered through many layers of exsperianced , cultured people, befor it's effects could ravage the sales floor. With the Gap they would hire in new supervisors (first and front line managers) instead of promoting from with in. All that did was defrancise the long term employes so they would leave the company, or worse , wreck the company. The value from promoting from with in is loyalty, You show people that they are worth a long term investment, and that their ideas and efforts will pay off. This concept seems to have been lost when it comes to the land of egos, or CEO's As next to no major companies promote there stars to the highest seat in the house. This happens for a few reasons, the least not beening that most CEO's do not like their underlings to show any desire to fill thier shoes. ( Jeffrey vs Mikie) and when they do find that desire below they cruch it or fire it. The end result is you don't grow new CEO's in that way. It takes a leader with a lot of skill, knowlage, and brains to be willing to foster the growth needed to fill their job. They would have to have a lot of confidents in their abbility to do the job so effectivly, that no one under them would want the boss to leave. They would have to foster ambition, growth, owner ship loyalty, and blind faith mix with confidents in ones self and company...I worked for a company like that once, but when the call came they fell in to the old trap and hired Bob from GE. On the risk of going off on a nother tangent ( and away from the Gap thread) Disney seems to be doing well after Mike left, where did the new guy come from?
Originally Posted By jonvn "I keep thinking of Carly Fiorina, who in a few years almost destroyed an icon of high tech: Hewlett-Packard." No almost. It's destroyed.
Originally Posted By DlandJB I haven't read this thread carefully, but I did want to express one opinon. The Gap doesn't seem to have an identity anymore. Think about how other brands of clothing sell themselves. There is nothing hip or cool about the Gap anymore -- even Old Navy, which belongs to the Gap, has a better ad campaign. What was the last memorable ad campaign for the Gap? Sarah Jessica Parker? How did they think she would appeal to a younger crowd? I don't think they know what they want to be anymore. Why should I shop there when I can get similar clothes for less at Old Navy?
Originally Posted By fkurucz >>No almost. It's destroyed.<< HP is once again highly profitable, but it will never again be "Bill and Dave's" company. The HP Way is no doubt dead.
Originally Posted By jonvn What it once was is no more. It's now just another souless and evil corporation run by people who are absolutely amoral and without any sense of decency.
Originally Posted By fkurucz >>Why should I shop there when I can get similar clothes for less at Old Navy?<< Business journals have been talking about this for some time now. Even BWeek and the WSJornal have said that Old Navy undermines the Gap by selling similar mechandise for less, diluting the Gap brand.
Originally Posted By jonvn Banana Republic is absolutely terrible. There are a bunch of stores that sell tropical sorts of things. Stuff like cargo pants, nice flowered shirts, and so on. Why is it even called Banana Republic? That whole chain makes no sense, and has no purpose. Old Navy is a discounter, I supposed. But if they sell the SAME stuff there that they sell at the Gap, then there truly is no point to go to the Gap. Gap is what? A high end blue jean store? Do they sell denim three piece suits? All these stores suffer from identity issues and none of them give a very compelling reason to shop there. Sounds like they are run badly too. So they'll probably continue to flounder for 2 more years, and get sold off.
Originally Posted By thenurmis The Gap had a good idea, then they shot them selves in the foot by "splitting up the band". They opened the Old Navy, to grab some more of the markit share from lower end retailers, then they opened Bannana Republic to attract the higher end brand customer base, but what they ended up doing was eating a large chunk of the Gabs base, and infact destablized their own markit. The Gap WAS a very cool place to go buy clothes, you could find lots of diffrent styles, from fun tees to dress shirts. How ever they have lost their aim. and the last few times I have walked through, I can find anything worth a second look. The Old navy is just getting to much like a discount dumping ground. Most of the stores here are shopped so hard, that the meager staff they have on can not keep up, and the places look like dumps more than stores. They are simply too messy to shop in. They should just have a "reunion tour", and join the stores back together call them the old-gap and be done with it.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan >>Gap is what?<< A place to buy expensive clothes that say "The Gap" all over them? I have never understood this store. >>ll these stores suffer from identity issues and none of them give a very compelling reason to shop there.<< This is true, although early on, Old Navy had a fun, clever, off-beat, retro thing going on that was cool. They seem to have drifted away from that a bit, and kind of lost their difference a little, too.
Originally Posted By mrichmondj Regardless of whether or not Gap's fashions are relevant, they still can't overcome the fact that they have too many stores in aging shopping malls that get very little traffic. They haven't made the effort to break those leases and relocate their stores to better venues. Today's traffic is at the Wal-Mart and Target strip malls -- Gap does not have much of a presence there. Old Navy has made an effort to put itself in the strip mall environment, but when you can find almost the same merchandise at Target or Wal-Mart why bother walking the half block down to go to a different store? For a while, the business folks thought that Gap had lost it's trendiness to shops like Abercrombie, but even Abercrombie posted same store sales declines this holiday season. There isn't a single mall-based specialty store that isn't losing customers right now. Some are performing worse than others, e.g. Gap, but the sector as a whole is a bunch of losers. If you are not located within a half-mile of the Wal-Mart or Target Supercenter, you are not likely to be growing your customers.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan ^ ^ ^ Very true. Isn't it funny how strip malls went out of style for so long as being inconvenient, so indoor malls sprung up everywhere, and now strip malls are the place to be again. We're a fickle bunch.
Originally Posted By avromark ^^^ Wait another 20 years... Remember when cars were futuristic curvy? Now "Square" and "Retro" are in... When will courdaroy Bell Bottoms be stylish again?
Originally Posted By mrichmondj Cordoroy bell bottoms are not stylish? I guess that's what I get for not going shopping since that downtown department store went out of business in the 70s!
Originally Posted By onlyme None of this concerns me. I do all of my shopping at Wilkes Bashford - Palo Alto. All of you 'little people' can continue shopping at Old Navy, if you'd like.
Originally Posted By mrichmondj <a href="http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070201/gap_executive.html?.v=1" target="_blank">http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070201 /gap_executive.html?.v=1</a> Cynthia Harriss jumped ship today -- or more than likely was asked to walk the plank. Aside from a massive closing of stores and a major retrenchment that will upset stockholders, there really isn't a whole lot that any executive can do at this point to fix Gap.
Originally Posted By mrichmondj Gap's struggles began in the late 90's and really got bad in 2000-2001 as earnings declined to nothing. Pressler's team came in in 2002. Old Navy kept the company alive at that point. Earnings bounced back for three years until 2006 when Old Navy started to really struggle and Gap sales went into freefall. Earnings are still much better than where they were in 2001, but the trend is not good for growing sales -- which is what Wall Street wants.
