History, Development, and Growth of the Toy-R-US Company Over Time - Paper Example

Toy-R-US is a retail shop that mostly deals with juvenile goods and American toys. The company was founded by Charles Lazarus back in the year 1948, and its headquarters were located in Wayne, New Jersey (Byrnes, Palmer, & Hawkins, 2000). The company has more than 1500 locations and serves the whole world in the distribution of their services. Dave Brandon is a chairman and chief executive officer of the company. The chairman has shown a lot of improvement over the past few years. The company had revenue of around 12.4 billion dollars in the year 2014. The principal owners of the enterprise are Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, Bain Capital and Vornado Realty Trust (Byrnes, Palmer, & Hawkins, 2000). The company also has at its disposal around 62,000employees.

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The company has advanced over the last few years. Currently, Toy-R-US is known to own licenses for 866 toys in the United States and Puerto Rico more than 750 stores internationally of which 245 are licensed (Byrnes, Palmer, & Hawkins, 2000). In the foreign countries, there are also 37 jurisdictions national wide. The key to this success is in line to hard work and motivation from the leaders. The company is good at setting a high notch in competition and manages to withstand competition from other small stores by producing quality goods to their customers (Byrnes, Palmer, & Hawkins, 2000). At the same time, specialization of the business helps it a lot in the tendency of coming up with new products from time to time, which boom in the market and become of great advantage to the company operations. The company leadership is very organized where boards of directors are given the responsibility of coming up with new business ideas and efficient management. In the past, while the company was facing severe rivalry the leaders came up with a new decision (Byrnes, Palmer, & Hawkins, 2000). They decided to split its business into two different sections. To achieve it, the company held active advertisement, which added a lot of advantage to the company growth and developments. By this decision, the company has managed to locate 260 branches in the United States while making operations simple and favoring every child with many different products (Byrnes, Palmer, & Hawkins, 2000). The importance of that decision is that the company can run its operation smoothly and monitor all the operations at a faster rate.

The Identification of Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats and the interpretation of the SWOT analysis

The company has a string of strengths, especially in its operations procedures. In the year 2011, the company announced that it is going to cover 70 %of their roof distributor with solar installation. The decision will make it among the largest solar projects in the Northern America. There is also the 2013 decision where the company managed to open 21 more stores. By doing this, the company has been able to use its potential in serving the different companies. The product safety ought to be considered as well where the company has implemented some high-security standards. In this case, the company took an aggressive approach aimed at holding the vendors responsible for meeting these standards (Schiffman, 2001). By doing this, the company can attract many people and simultaneously retain potential customers in maintaining the market.

Nevertheless, Toy-R-US has several weaknesses. Competition at times attacks the company, thus forcing it to raise its standards higher. The level of competition always depends on the sales and the quality of products. The organization is forced to keep abreast of the times and update its product now and then, which cost them a lot of money and capital to maintain the high standards. The issue of management gives a lot of pressure to the CEO, and the managers are forced to overwork to ensure every branch reaches to its target (Schiffman, 2001). All this pressure is brought about by the daily workforce, and the manager will work all day to ensure the company gets to its goals.

This is the corporate-level strategy that the company is pursuing, the nature of the business level strategy, and the companys structure and control systems and how they are related.

At the same time, the company has a lot of opportunities of which the greatest one is the market. Children are their targeted audience because there are more chances of new infants being born each day. There is also a likelihood of expanding market worldwide because the companys products are needed in many countries. At the same time, the company can face some threats. One of the major threats is financial management (Schiffman, 2001). Finance management is vital in any branch, and the management of funds will cater for the future of the business. The SWOT analysis will help the company find out its failures and realize its potential so as to improve its activities. By doing this, the company will utilize all its potential to reach the business goals.

The corporate level strategy that the company is pursuing is mass market. The company aims at getting a vast and broad range of customers across the globe and at the same time having different markets internationally of different categories. The mass-market products include The company structure at this level is the corporation having no price and market leaders at all (Schiffman, 2001). The business has the same chances in accessing technology meaning that they have equal levels of productivity and each company is expected to benefit the same way from the economies. The business at this time is always free to enter and leave at any time. The main benefiting the mass market is that there are no barriers when it comes to marketing (Schiffman, 2001). In this kind of control system, numerous businesses are competing, and there is no any significant company big enough to influence the others. When relating to the firm structure and control systems, it is clear that the enterprise deals with their responsibility of monitoring the way different employees in an organization connect. Thus, the company structure allows controlling and facilitating the flow of information.

Recommendations

It is important if the company managers look for ways to encourage their employees to initiate some new methods of process improvements. The creativeness of the employee will help the company advance (Schiffman, 2001). The company should also be unique in setting goals that are realistic and attainable. By doing this, the company will get a lot of motivation and develop at a higher rate. The hierarchy of management should be transparent and open so that every worker will be able to concentrate on his or her responsibilities. Hence, the company will thrive by following the orders in the group and abiding by the set rules.

Reference

Byrnes, N., Palmer, A. T., & Hawkins, L. (2000). Toys'R' Us. Business Week, vol(43)1,48-53

SSchiffman, C. (2001). Toys-R-Us. The Southern Review, 37(3), 572.