Kroger: The king of
consistency
Before he writes his book, “Good to Great” (GTG), Jim Collins discussed the question: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don’t. By other words, Collins deeply searched to determine what are the reasons that make some companies succeed and others not. He used a team of 21 researchers to sift through 1,435 companies and identify a list of (11) best firms that “made the leap” to business greatness. Collins compared those 11 firms with a set of other firms he felt that had failed to make the leap from good to great. At the end of his research, Collins derived five GTG principles that he believed they help those companies to achieve the top level of greatness; these principles are:
¦ Level Five
Leadership. ¦ First Who, Then What.
¦ Confront the Brutal Facts. ¦ Hedgehog Concept.
¦ Build Your
Company’s Vision.
These five principles might look little bit foggy
because they are focusing on the depth of successful leadership characteristics
and business strategies. However, there are some other clear reasons that can
be easy to recognize in order to determine / define what stands behind a
company’s successful like Kroger, which was on of Collins list.
In the class of Knowledge management, we learned
that there are some obvious and clear reasons can help such company to achieve
its goal of successful. These reasons can be summarized as Profitability,
Customers’ and Employees’ satisfaction, and the flexibility of infrastructures
in terms of Business processes and communication.
Kroger Co, the retail store, which was founded 131
years ago, attained this level of successfulness by being committed to a simple motto: “Be
particular. Never sell anything you would not want yourself.”
From my point of view, it is obvious that this
simple motto has included all four elements that any business needs to succeed.
Kroger started in Cincinnati Ohio as a small grocery
store and continued expanding to be more than 2,400 stores in 31 states today. It became one
of the world’s largest retailers with a $ 96 billion annual sale. Mr. Kroger
put lots of efforts to ensure that he serve his customers with the quality and
reasonable prices. One most important step he focused on is to have his own
bakery. At that time and early 1900s, most of the grocery stores were relaying
on other suppliers to provide breads and similar products to their customers;
but Mr. Kroger decided to have his own bakery and meat and seafood shops inside
Kroger stores. Nowadays, each Kroger store bakes their own breads, cakes and
process the meats by their own specialists.
Kroger, as one of the
companies that made the leap, still focusing on (and recognizing) the
importance of customers and employees satisfaction. Early 2013 the Kroger’s
chairman and CEO “Dave Dillon”
asserted that “the company’s focus on people, prices, products and shopping
experience is why Kroger is inning”. Dillon also confirmed that their efforts
to please and delight their shoppers inspire customer loyalty.
As a result of Kroger’s
commitment to customers’ satisfaction, their sales numbers are still increasing
despite the economy downturn.
Sources
ΠNiendorf, B., & Beck, K. (2008). 'Good to Great,' or just good? (Report). The Academy of
Management Perspectives, (4). 13.
http://www.thekrogerco.com/
Ž RetailingToday.com:
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