Ron Johnson’s office seat has barely cooled off following his departure as business observers everywhere dissect what went so dreadfully wrong at J.C. Penney. The former Apple executive was too Silicon Valley for the Plano, Texas, retailer. He was arrogant. He didn’t test his ideas, maintaining the Apple mantra that customers don’t know what they want until you show it to them. He approved marketing campaigns that told loyal Penney’s shoppers that “you deserve to look better,” basically telling them that they looked less than glamorous wearing the brand they had trusted and been comfortable with for years. He hoarded information so that individual store merchandisers didn’t know how various lines were performing. He mocked J.C. Penney’s ways of doing things. He abandoned the discounting customers had come to expect from retailers. And he, and most of the team he recruited, were commuter leaders, jetting back to California after cramming in marathon work sessions at headquarters.
J.C. Penney’s Real Problem: The Shrinking Middle Class
Does our increasingly hourglass-shaped economy leave the retailer doomed?
April 12, 2013