Dillard’s is an excellent example of what can go wrong when a management model from yesteryear is applied to modern day advancement and technologies. They are not growing with consumer desires or employee needs, and they are becoming an outdated brand. Instead of stressing satisfaction rates, they stress the bottom line profits. While this formula has made the company successful and allowed national growth at the turn of the century, it is also dropping employee morale, which is known to drive down customer attraction and satisfaction rates.
Management is the basis of how any given organization operates and how each activity preformed is organized that makes each day possible and profitable for the overall good of the company. Power and responsibility levels are ranked amongst each individuals own skill set, education, and experience level in an organization. Management has many levels depending on each individual company and its size. This can consist of several people answering to one main head of operations, or thousands upon thousands answering to several different tiers of management (Bauer & Erdogan, 2012).
Occasionally, management strife and issues will occur because basic human nature instinct calls for disagreements and social interferences. However, it depends on the upper level of management to deal with problems that occur in a timely and effective manner that benefits all parties involved. There are a number of reasons that management discrepancies may occur, with the leading being various attitude problems. If team members feel underappreciated or taken advantage of they will show their disgruntled feelings, and it can cause serious issues if not handled immediately. The second are communication issues, which happen when individuals do not feel comfortable talking about anything and this brings resentment that cannot be fixed if unsettled for too long (Alaspa, 2009).
Dillard’s, Inc. is a department store based in Little Rock, Arkansas. In 1938, William Dillard started implementing his vision of a chain of retail stores after he finished higher education and completed a management training program at Sears Roebuck & Company. Starting with an eight-thousand dollar loan, the company grew over the course of thirty years by numerous acquisitions and the ability to create large profit margins that allowed debt to be paid down quickly. In 1969, Dillard’s went public and became Class A common stock, the following twenty years were marked by large amounts of growth by new store locations and remodels. By the 1990’s, the company focused on building up the brand and focusing on keeping customer loyalty high. William Dillard passed in 2002, and left a robust company with promise of growth to his heirs (Dillards, Inc., 2014).
Department stores are not easy to manage, and take a whole team of individuals to run daily operations smoothly. Dillard’s success at the turn of the century came from balancing finances properly,...
