Business case studies with solutions
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In this section of business case studies with solutions, we will be looking at the fall of Barnes and Noble and the lessons to be learned by modern business leaders.
Barnes and nobles was a large book seller which had outlets all over the United States. They followed the model that was working for them for a long time – setup outlets and engage your customers in the outlets,sell in large volumes. But the tide turned and soon an insignificant looking online bookseller with a genius strategy overthrew the dominance of Barnes and Noble.
Watch the video and answer the following questions:
What were the reasons for the fall of Barnes and Noble?
What are some lessons to be learned for business leaders?
Answers and solutions to the business case
Barnes and Noble was successful for a long time.They had a model that that worked.
They grew and grew and along with Borders dominated the bookselling landscape in the USA.. Then came in Amazon and Jeff Bezos with his new model of selling to the internet. In fact when Amazon first began, it was such a novel idea that he was ridiculed and not even was considered to be worth any attention by the book giants.
He was in the limelight for the new and was invited by many Universities to speak.In one of his speeches at a University where he spoke about his plans for growth and some of the students asked him how he plans to take on the book selling giant Barnes and Noble,since he was just an online bookseller with really very little success to talk about. They even suggested selling off Amazon to Barnes and Noble so that Amazon can function as its online book selling wing. According to them, Jeff Bezos could retire rich while the going was good, as he stood no chance in taking on such a big company as Barnes and Noble. Jeff Bezos responded by saying that it would be interesting to see how it plays out as things were changing. It was true, the customer had changed and the external environment was changing too and Barnes and Noble had not responded to the changes. Amazon used the changes in the environment to its advantage.
We can see the consequences of this now . Barnes and Noble is struggling to keep up while Amazon is dominating online retail sales globally.Here is evidence of how innovation and flexibility yis crucial to organizational success. Hence when putting together a strategy it is important to consider the aspects of innovation and adaptation.
Overconfidence built due to continued success, lack of understanding of the environment, improper leadership and strategy formulation , lack of innovation ,large size and rigid structures are the primary reasons for organizational failure.
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