In business, any growing company will always face a variety of challenges. As a company expands, new problems and opportunities call for different solutions – what worked a year ago may not be the right approach now. More often, avoidable errors turn what should have been a big business into a loss. Recognizing and managing the potential mistakes associated with growth is important if a company continues to expand and prosper.
Essentially, it would help if the management made sure that the actions they are taking now do not build new obstacles for the future. Good leadership will allow entities to utilize the most of their opportunities, generating sustainable development for the future. Being faced with multiple issues in their operations, Gap company’s management will utilize different approaches in resolving the problems.
Gap is facing several challenging aspects, especially the driving forces which are affecting the clothes industry, including the information revolution. Proper dispatch of information will enable consumers to learn about new designs easily and instantly through social media, and they can quickly compare prices on their cell phones.
Next is technology, which means that proper and modern technology will enhance the production of the latest high quality clothes (Ayres, 2017). This will also allow for lower prices of raw materials and labor. Before that, the cost of any new technology will have to be weighed against the prices for material, labor, and globalization. Another issue is the increased competition coming from retailers such as H&M and Zara.
Therefore, to succeed in their effort to remediate the issues affecting the business, Gap will have to employ various procedures, which will require close collaboration from within the top management. The main performance aspects of the industry are those strategic factors that influence the ability of an entity in the industry to succeed on the market.
In particular, factors such as product attributes, operational approaches, and resources allow a company to derive key success factors in enabling them to be effective in their respective industry (Yao & Qin, 2016). In Gap’s context, their expansion of merchandise assortment across their numerous products is a critical success dynamic they have. The large product categories the company has are not obtainable to most of the competitors in the consumer clothing retail industry.
The above key success influence is derived from the operating approach, and it allows the company to compete in many different areas, which helps in obtaining a greater share of the industry (Al Zuned, 2017). Despite Gap being a mid-level entity in the industry as compared to other high-ranking competitors with superior designs, the company could still offer solid competition. For instance, besides high quality and grander design, it could utilize its Old Navy brand as a quality product with a lower price label.
It could also represent any part of the apparel industry in terms of price, quality and design. Previously, the retailer has been able to achieve this primary success through multiple acquisitions. Another main achievement which the company has built on from a strategic transformation is its ability to perform effectively in the online retail industry.
The redesigned e-commerce enables it to process orders more efficiently with greater accuracy. The reconfiguring of their website will enable customers to shop for each of its brands using a single shopping cart all in one place. These two main performance elements are what separates Gap from competitive rival companies.
Moreover, Murphy, the CEO, has always been at the forefront of preaching the importance of speed to his managers. He means that getting an article of clothing from conception to the shelves in stores could be shortened if fewer decision-makers are in involved in that process. In other words, with greater independence and fewer approvals required in each step of the process, designs could get to the market quicker (Dong, 2016). It means that modern business principles demand for less time spent in boardrooms and far much more time spent in the delivery of services.
Similarly, there are several ways which the advocates of the input-output (I/O) view would analyze the gap case. Each individual or entity has to evaluate the scenario according to their own perspective. For instance, the I/O view claim that Gap failed to acclimatize to changes which were occurring in the industry quickly. As other retailers such as H&M and Zara were expanding, the store was slow to follow suit. On the other side, resource-based view (RBV) argues that the company has the capacity to be successful; nevertheless, the use of these resources has not been as efficient as it should have been.
A greater emphasis on resource usage could give Gap a competitive edge. Lastly, the proponents of the guerrilla view on their part says that supplying the industry with new styles and designs would bring the clothes company a competitive advantage. Reducing the development time between concepts would make its competition with H&M and Zara easier.
In conclusion, this company’s management will have to act fast yet cautiously in solving the problems that the company is facing. In any workplace, decision making is the most important process in the day to day running of the business; however, the kind of decisions made should only be in the business’s interest and should be arrived at after consultations have been made. In this scenario, change is always good if it is one that will enhance the efficiency, therefore, the leadership needs to have a clear plan on how to bring about constructive changes in this particular company.
References
Al Zuned, A. (2017). Effective business leadership styles: A case study of Harriet Green. Middle East Journal of Business, 12(2), 10-19. Web.
Ayres, J. (2017). Inspiration or prototype? Appropriation and exploitation in the fashion industry. Fashion, Style & Popular Culture, 4(2), 151-165. Web.
Dong, H. (2016). Competitive advantage of entrepreneurs in start-up business. Journal of Business, 1(2), 8-12. Web.
Yao, Q., & Qin, H. (2016). Marketing capability, competitive advantage, and business performance. International Journal of Technology, Policy and Management, 16(3), 195. Web.