Men’s Warehouse Case Study

Men’s Warehouse Case Study

James Foster

1. Question 1

1. Men’s Warehouse has a unique business model that allows them to create value from things that are often under looked or misused. From the perspective of the value chain, the primary activity that provides the most value for Men’s Warehouse comes from their service. This company is focused on providing a personalized experience that allows the customer to feel at ease and know that they are being taken care of by a professional. While the low prices could be the thing that brings people in, Men’s Warehouse understands that men typically don’t like to shop. By encouraging their wardrobe consultants to be completely involved in someone’s shopping experience, they help facilitate a level of service that hasn’t been matched in the retail industry. The way they ensure this level of service remains consistent comes from the training that Men’s Warehouse offers its employees. The emphasis on engaging customers and pushing for a positive relationship helps creative this high level of service which allows Men’s Warehouse to continue prosper in a very competitive industry. A secondary activity that creates value for Men’s Warehouse comes from their procurement strategy. Zimmer adopted a unique strategy for his operations in the retail industry, instead of promoting the different brands available he simply advertised everyday low prices with a service that would leave you satisfied guaranteed. This strategy allowed Zimmer to negotiate lower prices with suppliers by simply excluding their names in his advertising. Many companies had a fear that lower prices on their goods would lead to a change in the perception of their products, but by excluding their names from advertisements Zimmer was still able to obtain then offer their products at discounted rates. These discounted prices are essential to Men’s Warehouse’s business model. A final secondary activity that creates value for Men’s Warehouse comes from their human resource management. Due to the fact that offering a high level of service is essential to Men’s Warehouse’s business model, it is crucial that human resources also operates at a high level. They do this by offering a higher pay than competitors and they also emphasize an open work environment where problems should openly talked about to prevent further conflict in the future. The company also does a great job of making their employees feel valued and emphasizing that everyone has an untapped potential which can be accessed to improve themselves. This positive work environment fostered by human resources helps Men’s Warehouse continue to be successful.
2. Men’s Warehouse has a wide variety of resources that fall into the tangible and intangible category. The tangible resources that Men’s Warehouse operates with are its product lines, the retail stores it owns/leases, and the people that it employees. While all of these resources contribute to Men’s Warehouse’s success, none of them are responsible for its sustainable competitive advantage. All of the resources listed are either those that can be easily copied or are those that are found to be very common amongst competitors in the industry. The place where Men’s Warehouse gains its competitive advantage is in the intangible resources. The most important of these intangible resources is the intimate interactions and service that the Men’s Warehouse employees provide consumers the moment they walk in the door. This type of service is intangible because it stems from the company culture that emphasizes personable relationships between the employee and the consumer; it is also something that plays a part in the good reputation that the company currently has. Men’s Warehouse doesn’t have any specific organizational capabilities that would give it a competitive advantage over its competitors. It obtains its clothes at a discounted rate and employs a store model that prevents inefficiencies, but both things are easily replicable and can be seen in many competitors across the industry.  

1. The industry that Men’s Warehouse operates in is a very fragile one where there are multiple factors affecting its growth. The first factor is that the market itself has been shrinking, with men spending less on tailored clothing than they used to. This has led to an increased amount of competition between retailors along with companies simply offering less of a selection of specialized men clothing. The second factor that indicates that the industry is declining is the fact that the “product” or clothing has remained relatively the same for the past 100 years and there is no anticipation that it will change soon either. This means that there won’t be any innovations that will bring more customers to the tailored goods industry that aren’t already in it. If something isn’t growing then it’s shrinking and this leaves all companies in this industry to compete for the same customers rather than trying to obtain new customers.
2. My first recommendation for Men’s Warehouse is to formalize their training practices to ensure a consistent protocol and message is given to employees across the whole organization. Even though it is mostly senior management that does the training for the company, certain things can still be missed or glossed over if the training procedures themselves aren’t the same throughout the organization. This may be a difficult task due to the nature of the company culture but if Men’s Warehouse can develop a training course that can be applied consistently for new employees, then the chance of their service deteriorating lessens as well. One way Men’s Warehouse could do this would be through the creation of a new position that purely focuses on training and nothing else. My next recommendation for Men’s Warehouse would be to create a web page that allows for men to browse tailored goods and order them all online just by entering their measurements. This would allow the company to reach even more people and it would be a tool that is attractive to those who don’t like going into a store and shopping. By allowing people to begin to serve themselves, Men’s Warehouse could gain a higher market share in the tailored goods industry simply by appealing to a group that wouldn’t otherwise shop for those goods. Once the product is ordered, someone could simply go to the shop to try on their garment to ensure that it fits, but if not one of Men’s Warehouse’s tailors could mend it in store. The website would give people access to the entire stock at the click of a button and would force them to come into the store to get their goods, which could lead to more product purchased. My final recommendation is for Men’s Warehouse to increase the amount of money spent on marketing their company. I believe that this could be a space where the organization separates itself from department stores and other competitors by articulating the many benefits outside the low prices. While Men’s Warehouse already advertises, I believe that an aggressive campaign would allow the company to further differentiate itself from the competition and it would allow them to take more customers away from their competitors.