Ann Taylor: Survival in Specialty Retail - Essay Example

Corporate strategy al Affiliation) After going through the ANN case, I have the following response. Krill obviously had a long term vision for the company and wanted to achieve the goals that would be of great benefit to the company even though some of the members of the top management team did not agree with some of these long term goals. Ann her multiple brands but she wanted to expand on them and have more diverse products that would open avenues for better returns financially. Her focus on brand evolution was intriguing as she stuck to it even through the financial crisis in 2008 when most companies shut down due to bankruptcy; she also maintained her charge towards reduction of overall costs as well as continuous growth in a period where most would have expected her to hold her ground until the crisis storm passed.

Ann stuck to her decisions because her plan was not for the immediate results but the long term ones and she was not going to let anything get in the way of her achieving her goals. She heavily relied on the growth of individual brands and this turns out to be her corporate strategy. This is so because she worked on different angles to make her strategy succeed like eliminating positions within the company that would prevent the smooth running of the strategic plan. The company had to be restructured so that it would be friendly to the strategy and aid the long term plans; the management was satisfied with the arrangements and positive that it would boost their chances of getting their long term goals.

Personally, I disagree with Ann’s decisions as the plan to grow within each and every brand that the company has would mean tremendous growth for the company that would highly likely overwhelm the company in terms of room for expansion. These could cause great problems that would be hard to solve by the management of the company without having to take drastic measures. The evolution and growth plan of brands within other brands would cannibalize the company as there would be factions fighting for survival with limited resources.