Module 04 - Session Long Project - Essay Example

What strategic choices did CEO Pressler make during his tenure? CEO Pressler had done a lot of strategic turnaround without managing the strategic process well in order to ensure the long-term health of Gap, Inc. Among the strategic choices that he had made in his tenure were: changing the target market of GAP, thus alienating long-time customers; tinkering with managing the Gap brand.; changing the corporate culture of Gap, Inc.; and revamping the supply chain of the company; Identify and analyze strategic choices Gap Inc.

made during CEO Presslers tenure.The major issue about CEO Pressler’s initiatives was that the strategies that he employed were mostly functional-levels, without creating a concrete corporate and business-level strategies that would focus on the opportunities and threats that the company faced in the long-run, while utilizing the core strengths of the companies while addressing weaknesses.On marketing strategy. Under CEO Pressler’s tenure, the company had alienated the customers that had patronized its products for the long time.

The superhip clothes GAP had produced created a sudden but a weak attempt to change its positioning. While the current profitable market of GAP had been neglected by shifting to a positioning where it was not desired by the market, the company lost focus.The success of GAP as a brand was attributable to the business casual movement in the 1990s. While being an edgier brand did not create a sustainable positioning, the erosion of the business casual movement due to the fall of the dotcoms in the economy eventually led to GAP’s fall.

According to Jennifer Popovec in her article “Hanging by a thread”, the shift of GAP’s positioning to becoming fashion-forward, in its attempt to shift from its “classic style to the disposable fashion sector” had aggravated the problem. GAP tried to please everyone, as apparent in its advertisements as well as the merchandise that it carried.While the fickleness of the fashion industry had added to GAP’s hardships, losing its focus on its current profitable customers and digressing from its positioning had made the more complex rapid-changing consumer preferences more unfavorable toward the business; much less predictable with CEO Pressler’s marketing research efforts.

On Human Resources strategy. CEO Pressler tried to change the long-time corporate culture of GAP which was coined in its corporate mantra “own it, do it, get it done.” While his intention was good, which was to promote collaboration and teamwork among the company, he made the initially-receptive employees vexed when there was so much more time that was spent on team-building than focusing on the core aspects of the business, which was designing apparel.The demands of the tasks in GAP required CEO Pressler to hire more employees to fulfill certain positions.

However, he had no concrete recruitment strategy that led him to just have a hiring spree—hiring his former colleagues in Disney to fulfill certain positions. Because recruitment was not strategic, and wrong people (inexperienced in relation to the requirements of the job) were placed in certain positions, objectives were not accomplished thus distorting the decision-making processes within the organization.His tinkering with managing the GAP brand had created a lot of chaos within the companies.

While the GAP brand suffered mismanagement and decrease in its equity because of his being inexperienced in handling an apparel brand, most of the strategic decisions vital for the brand were not carried on which lead to damaging the brand’s image, losing its focus.On supply-chain strategy. The supply-chain strategy focused more on cost-cutting rather than creating value to contribute to the overall strategy of the business. While the decision process had been distorted by CEO Pressler’s adoption of some cost-cutting measures, like when he moved the sampling departments in Asia where most of the suppliers were, he also made the decision-making process more inflexible.

He wanted to cut the time from creating designs to bringing the designs through merchandise through stores. But due to the inflexible decision-making process which restricted rather than enabled an efficient and effective go-to-market distribution, what most of the designers had come up were designs that aimed to “please everyone but risked pleasing no one.”Do you rate his strategic choices being effective?His strategic choices were not effective simply because there were no clear objectives that were used to benchmark the activities.

He had lots of patch-work excellent functional strategies, but those were not integrated to an overall strategy that ensured success for the organization.Were his cost-cutting strategies effective? It was effective that it was able to meet its objective which was to make the financial position of the company more desirable, for the short-term. But its cost-cutting strategies had proven to be damaging and off-the-mark if the effectiveness in the operations would be considered for the long-term health of the business.

What are some of his major accomplishments and failures?Among his major accomplishments were improving the financial standing of the company, increasing the online presence of the brand and strengthen the company’s image as a global citizen, as coined by Gap, Inc’s non-executive chairman Robert Fisher.His failures are greatly attributed to his inability to create value for the shareholders and provide a reasonable return to their investment. These included the erosion of the GAP brand, failing to establish and change the corporate culture of the company, and linking the supply chain to providing value to its consumers.

Works CitedGAP, Inc. "2007 Annual Report" Gap Inc. (Mar. 2008). 05 May 2008 < http://www.gapinc.com/public/Investors/investors.shtml/javascript:void(openPopupWindow(/public/documents/GPS_AR_07.pdf)>."GAP: Good genes may not be enough. " Marketing Week 18 Jan. 2007: 28. Alumni - ABI/INFORM Complete. ProQuest. Columbia University, Albuquerque, NM. 4 May. 2008 .Moore, Angela. “Gap sales disappoint, may revamp brands.” Market Watch. 4 Jan. 2007. 5 May 2008 "Paul Pressler’s fall from the GAP.

" Business Week 6 Feb. 2007. 5 May 2008 .Popovec, Jennifer. “Hanging by a Thread. " Retail Traffic 1 May 2007: 199-200,202-204,36. Alumni - ABI/INFORM Complete. ProQuest. Columbia University, Albuquerque, NM. 4 May. 2008 .Waters, Jennifer. “CEO Pressler is out of Gap, Inc.” Market Watch. 22 Jan. 2007. 5 May 2008