Briefing about this assignment:
This task aimed at analyzing this case study (below) and then hold a hindsight eye to addressing the problem happened in that time. Imagine that you had been faced with the same situation while there was still time to make corrections. Making full use of appropriate academic models, concepts and tools develop creative solutions to the situation and identify which of these you would have tried to implement?
So, please remind that your job is to run through the O-P models to determine the main problems and generate as many ideas as possible, then evaluate these ideas and filter the useless idea during the evaluating process. Finally, you have to identify which one is your final thought and how can you implement them. This assignment requires you to use academic models entirely; they have illustrated below, and you must show your analyzing process during each stage. For example, you must tell the tutor how you analyze this problem, and you also need to show this analyzing process on paper. N.B.: each process may require the different model, and you have to spend some time to familiar what these model mean and how you use them in the different thinking stage. To be more elaborate, you can present your final idea on paper through mind map model?fishbone diagram and spider paragraph or so on. Divergent and convergent thinking method can be very helpful when you use them in your analyzing process. You can use brainstorming?SCAMPER?CPS to generate the idea, and during the idea generation process, you can choose mind-map?goal orientation?laddering?reverse tools to create more idea. You do not need to use up all these methods, but please do not repeat these methods in one way, which means you can choose mind-map in the first stage and the another tool in the next stage, for example.
N.B.: maximize word: 1300;
Run through the O-P method to analyze the problem;
Use different model in various analyzing step. For example, you can generate idea by using brainstorming?SCAMPER?CPS and so on (illustrated below). You can evaluate/filter idea by using evaluation matrices, such as voting?clustering?hurdles?weighting and cut feel (these five can be easy for because you can find them on the PPT). You also need to tell the tutor how you implement them and why you would like this way;
Before you present your idea on paper, please tell the teacher why you use this model/tools rather than others, you need to give a little explanation about your reason for choosing this tools. (To reduce your burden, you can draw a picture of what is the problem, and then put it onto the assignment. Then, you can tell the reason why you choose them and what is your analyzing process; it also be true to the idea generation process, one different way might be the model and tools you use are different).
Some reference might be useful to you:
United States History (no date) Sears, Roebuck and Company. Available at: https://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1831.html (Accessed: 29 November 2016).
Girotra, K., Terwiesch, C. and Ulrich, K.T. (no date) 'Idea generation and the quality of the best idea', SSRN Electronic Journal, .doi: 10.2139/ssrn.1082392.
President and Harvard, F. of (2012) Sears, Roebuck and Co. - Lehman brothers collection. Available at: https://www.library.hbs.edu/hc/lehman/chrono.html?company=sears_roebuck_and_co (Accessed: 29 November 2016).
Hope we two have a good lack~
Case: Big Book Mail Orders have died
Sears, Roebuck and Company marked the end of an era in 1992 when they announced elimination of their catalog sales. Additionally, Sears announced that they would close more than 100 unprofitable stores in the face of a fourth quarter 1992 deficit of $830 million (their first quarterly loss in nearly 60 years). What led to this situation?
The catalog dates back to 1886 when Robert W. Sears, a railroad station agent, began selling watches and jewelry with mailers. Nine years later, with Sears Watch Company employee Alvah Roebuck, they produced their first general merchandise catalog containing 532 pages of merchandise aimed at America's farm families. The catalog quickly caught on and became very important for people in remote areas, as well as a piece of American folklore.
People living in rural America kept abreast of the latest developments through the catalog. Over the years, the catalog became an illustrated encyclopedia, a reflection of the technology and fashions of the times. By 1992, the Sears catalog offerings had grown to include Spring/Summer, Fall/Winter, the Great American Wish Book Christmas catalogs, and 50 other seasonal, monthly, and specialized catalogs, each of which was mailed to over l4 million households. Whilst the catalogs division posted sales of $3.3 billion in U.S. sales in 1992 it still made significant losses.
Sears management clearly failed to recognize and respond to a paradigm shift. They had the attitude that "We can sell anything we want as long as it says Sears on it." They failed to respond to a fundamental shift in the nature of the American public over the years, from a primarily agrarian economy to the high-tech 1990s. Whilst other direct marketers were producing slick, targeted niche catalogs to capitalize on customer's specific interests, Sears was still producing a massive, costly "Big Book" that featured unprofitable items such as camping equipment and major appliances. These items had
not been successful catalog sellers for years. (Would anyone in the 1990s consider purchasing stoves and refrigerators or washers and dryers from a catalog?) America had changed, and Sears had failed to change with it. This was a case of continuing to do things in a certain way because that's the way they had always been done: Classic paradigm paralysis.
Two and one half years earlier, J.C. Penney's catalog division processed 197 million phone calls, yet Sears would not acknowledge that phone orders were important and didn't even install an 0800, (ie free) number until 1992. As one industry executive put it, Sears was "stuck in concrete" and far back on the learning curve.
The ripple effect from the elimination of the Big Book hurt more than just Sears and their customers:
R.R. Donnelley Printers
-lost 60% of business in Chicago plant (closed) lost 50% of business in Elgin, Ill. plant (810 workers affected)
Paper Companies
-lost 40,000 tons/yr in business
U.S. Postal Service
-lost $ 100 million/yr in postage and handling
Let's analyze this scenario and apply some problem-solving techniques to determine alternative courses of action that Sears might have taken (with 20:20 hindsight).
Why was the problem allowed to get so serious before action was taken? We don't know for a fact how long this problem was developing, but from the information regarding the type of products still shown in the catalog and the lack of efficient phone sales, this looks like an example of paradigm paralysis. Sears had blinders on (that prevented them from realizing that the direct marketing industry was changing around them. The Sears catalog continued "business as usual" until it was too late. Their competition had overtaken and surpassed them.
The case study question
Imagine that you had been faced with the same situation while there was still time to make corrections. Making use of appropriate academic models, concepts and tools develop creative solutions to the situation and identify which of these you would have tried to implement?
Attachment:- Assignment.rar