3 ms·

My TLDR opinion: The MBAs squeezed all the value out for shareholders and short term profits once again. Cut every cost to the bone, sell everything not bolted

My TLDR opinion: The MBAs squeezed all the value out for shareholders and short term profits once again. Cut every cost to the bone, sell everything not bolted down until the end. It only took as long as it did for Sears because of brand and brick and mortar inertia. ----- Inventory counts: have to do 'inventory' (check what's really there), which costs workers and time to verify. Most frequently seen by consumers when a store thinks they have X of something but they really have N (likely zero). POS: Infrastructure is a cost center... How do you measure the hypothetical losses? Saturday... video message? WTF kind of cult is this BS? Maligned incentives. I'm sure ages ago those metrics used to be useful for promotion or something, then they became the literal payment system. No wonder that place felt like a used car showroom for merchandise as they were going out of business.

madaxe_again 5y ago
Go a layer deeper, and it’s simple psychology. By the time sears entered their decline, everyone working there was not only born after the founding of sears, but their parents were, and likely their parents too. Sears was a fixture, an eternal company, “too big to fail” - reified. That attitude is, again and again, the crux of the failure of long-lived organisations and institutions of every flavour from private companies to dynastic families to nation states.
mulmen 5y ago
> Saturday... video message? WTF kind of cult is this BS? Sunday. The store closed an hour or two early on Sundays. They had the whole staff come in at 7pm, even if it was our day off. It was around the time of the Kmart merger so could have been about that. The only thing I recall now was the CEO telling us how important "family" time was, while my dinner got cold at home. Of course "Sears is a family" or somesuch. So yeah, a cult, at least in the c-suite.

madaxe_again 5y ago

Go a layer deeper, and it’s simple psychology. By the time sears entered their decline, everyone working there was not only born after the founding of sears, but their parents were, and likely their parents too. Sears was a fixture, an eternal company, “too big to fail” - reified. That attitude is, again and again, the crux of the failure of long-lived organisations and institutions of every flavour from private companies to dynastic families to nation states.

mulmen 5y ago

> Saturday... video message? WTF kind of cult is this BS? Sunday. The store closed an hour or two early on Sundays. They had the whole staff come in at 7pm, even if it was our day off. It was around the time of the Kmart merger so could have been about that. The only thing I recall now was the CEO telling us how important "family" time was, while my dinner got cold at home. Of course "Sears is a family" or somesuch. So yeah, a cult, at least in the c-suite.