A year and a half into his dismal attempt to turn around J.C. Penney, Ron Johnson was ousted as chief executive on Monday and replaced with his predecessor, Myron E. Ullman III, as the board searched for a new direction for the struggling retailer.
Ouch.
Hey, I hear Apple is looking for someone to run their retail business…
I don’t think there’d be any shame in Johnson going back to Apple but I doubt he’d want the gig.
lol @ your commentary. 😀
What does this show? Was it more than his abilities (ie – Apple products have more hysteria/love around them than JC Penny) driving the success of the Apple store? Does JC Penny have more issues than can be solved through an Apple Store mindset?
(curious as to thoughts here as he was lauded as one of the primary reasons for the Apple Store success but has failed elsewhere)
it’s the products. apple tech gear is exciting. jc Penny’s just isn’t interesting. did anybody save Kmart?
Keep in mind that Johnson was starting from scratch at Apple. Big difference and big advantage.
The general excitement around Apple’s products didn’t hurt, either.
It certainly can and will be argued that the JCP board didn’t give him enough time.
Seems like a classic case of failing to understand your audience. The audience for Apple products is not the same as the audience for J.C. Penny products.
Perhaps but remember before Apple, Johnson turned Target into a success. Johnson’s know-how isn’t in Apple products or even consumer electronics – it’s in retail in general.
His biggest mistake was eliminating coupons. He should have kept the pricing strategy the same, as that was what all the current JCP customers were used to and wanted, and first focused on the stores themselves. After hopefully attracting a new upper scale audience, then maybe he could test deploy the new pricing strategy, and see how people respond to it.
I know from a number of former JCP customers that the biggest reason for them to stop going to JCP was the lack of coupons, regardless of how nonsensical they were. They felt like they were getting deals, even if they really weren’t.
He tried to do too much at once, and tried to change customers bad habits. You can’t fix people, so he should have focused 100% on the stores themselves first. He drove away current customers and failed to attract new ones because the stores were depressing to look at while being rebuilt.
LMBO @ Kmart. 😀
+1 on products.
Yeah, it feels pretty short.
There are definitely pros/cons to starting fresh. JCP had an established customer base, locations, etc for him to build on.
Changing culture is probably the hardest when not starting fresh though.
Oh, I didn’t know about the coupons. That’s a bold move; obviously it was a wrong one.
lol @ trying to make it upper scale. JCP customers clearly won’t pay the extra premium he was used to seeing w/ Apple.
Weird decisions. Maybe he really wasn’t just the right person.
(great comment btw)
I didn’t know he was behind Target. I love their marketing/branding. 🙂
I think he didn’t get enough time. I was actually in a local store yesterday. While nothing personally sang to me in the clothing product at that moment, that was not the same for my companion who bought several items.
The store was in full blown renovation mode upstairs and it made me interested enough to see what they were going to do with it. I guess we could blame that for the mess of so much of the store merch-wise, but it seemed to be more than that. I mean, I’ve seen Marshalls be more organized. Sheesh. The few new corners that they already added mostly looked okay but that is only a small fraction of the merchandise. And just because it’s a clearance rack doesn’t mean you shouldn’t recover it; it should be in some kind of order. Probably some employee morale problem though too with such a crash in sales.
The pricing thing is very appealing to me. Heck I associated so much with what Johnson was trying to do in that department that I felt like I had to check in there at least once to show some solidarity. 😉 But yeah, you guys saying that it should have been fix the stores first then move on the pricing, you could be onto something. The state of the stores was very sad indeed if my visit was any indication. Changing the pricing first drove off too many of the remaining customers. I totally get what he is doing but the true bargain hunter knows they could have saved another buck and they’re going to figure out how to find it. I think he underestimated the draw of that kind of shopping. I think I would have too.
The most baffling thing though is seeing them go to Johnson’s predecessor for running the company. WTF?!? Because it was dong SO well under that guy when they hired Johnson in the first place? Can’t believe ONE DAY after I finally visit the store the guy is out and they bring back the guy he replaced!
I’m certainly looking forward to seeing all the amazing things Ullman can do that Johnson couldn’t. I’ll give him a year and a half, just to be equitable.
Exactly what you were saying: http://www.splatf.com/2013/04/ron-johnson-jcpenney/.
And, if that’s the case, the question should be asked, why didn’t Ullman do those things before he got fired from the same job he’s taking over from Johnson? Did he somehow learn to become a CEO in the past 2 years?
Nope. But JCP’s board of directors probably likes Ullman’s executive exit strategy for when the company finally goes tits-up.
The few times I’ve walked into the stores it was a dizzying display of chaos. Clothes strewn about in a most haphazard fashion with nary an employee in sight. This was the problem they needed to correct and they didn’t do it fast enough. Alienating their existing customers at the same time has to be some sort of Nero-inspired, corporate sepuku.
It would be a title demotion from CEO, and apparently that sort of trash matters to Johnson. His failures were many, I’d hate to see him tuck his tale and return to Apple.
Target was reinvigorated due largely (solely) to their clothing partnerships- the haute stuff, they call it. If he was a retail expert he would have attacked swiftly and worked over the stores WHILE keeping the existing customer base. He did not. I’d say his brilliance, at least with regard to his time at Apple, revolved around the recognition of talent in others; he marshalls said talent to make things happen. Good managing I suppose, but this whole series of events says to me he was easily the dullest knife in the drawer at Apple, surrounded by the brilliance of others that propped him up. I worked Apple retail during his tenure and he had some backwards and damaging initiatives with regard to the “family room” as that part of the store is known, internally.
I bet the board was against Johnson from the start.
You know they’ve already sectioned off the carcass in preparation. What is that circling overhead? Oh…
Equitable? You are being downright charitable!
Shawn, he probably got his degree online, on his own time. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=gVM8MwU1rFs
Hilarious!
“His failures were many…”
Huh? He failed at JCP but was spectacularly successful at Target and Apple. “One” is not “many”.
One tries one’s best. Unless one is a C-level.