Case Study – HBC: From Fur to Fendi

Question One
In the case of HBC, the organization has the Strength of being one of the oldest retailers in Canada giving it a higher competitive advantage. However, the weakness of the firm is the ever segmenting retail market in the country. Interestingly, in the case study, the author claims that, “the company has opportunities related to being able to change according to the present competition through its 66,000 associates.” Nonetheless, being able to keep with the current and increased competition level in the country’s retail market is one of the threats facing HBC.

Question Two
In essence, concerning the organization’s PEST analysis, Politically, Canada is stable which has been a benefit to the organization’s decision making process. Economically, the company has faced competition for resources due to the increased number of similar businesses. Also, social wise, the company has met factors relating to changes in consumer behavior in Canada (Morabito). Notably, technological changes in the universe have also been witnessed in Canada leading to the need of relying on internet business by the organization.

Question Three
In the case of HBC, Porter’s analysis indicates that the organization is facing a lot of threats relating to new entrants due to the current development in the business world. According to the case study, “the bargaining power for their customers has continued to increase since each has an option to buy from in the market.” Therefore, based on the approach, HBC has chances of succeeding in the market despite the available hurdles in the industry.

Question Four
Before its sale, HBC highly relied on its long operating period to convince customers in the market due to being in the Canadian market for over 300 years. However, its selling led to the application of more viable strategies such as serving increased population to rule the market.

Question Five
In essence, for HBC success in the market, the case study purports that, “the organization has to effectively improve its services as well as going global to adequately compete with other players in the retail market.” Most importantly, the leadership in place should be flexible enough to accommodate the emerging changes in the market despite their implications.

Question Six
Notably, HBC can benchmark from Amazon regarding its increased use of technology to win the support of clients due to conformity reasons (Morabito). Therefore, through the internet, it would be easy to increase sales and widening business experience.

Work Cited
Morabito, Vincenzo. “Business innovation through blockchain.” Cham: Springer International Publishing (2017).