Case Study Grand and Toy

1. Grand & Toy’s strategy is to have growing sales, to reduce costs and increase productivity, to have increasing organizational capabilities and to ensure a strong strategic position.

They are taking these steps to try to achieve sales of $1 billion in sales in Canada, to maintain a strong brand, to be the leader in the Canadian commercial segment and to operate 85 stores in major markets.

E-commerce was a big part of G&T’s strategy because they expected to direct 50 per cent of its orders through its web site within the first three years.

2. The threats that traditional companies pose are as follows:

Staples:

• They are the largest operator of office superstores in the world

• Offered access to a wide variety of products at savings

• In 2000 they marked their 30th consecutive quarter of meeting or beating analysts’ earning expectations

• They are developing three additional areas; Europe, Staples.com, and business services

• Because of its large number of retail and commercial customers, Staples had a very favorable purchasing terms from its supplies

Buhrmann & Corporate Express:

• Promised more locations and distribution centres than any business-to-business office supply company in the world, with nearly twice the number of delivery vehicles of its nearest competitor

• Offer customers their own account manager to assure complete coordination

• Had significant positions in North America, Europe and Australia/New Zealand

• The leading B2B office products company servicing large international companies with a true one-company global capability

Office Depot:

• In addition to office supplies, they offer computer hardware and software, furniture, printing and copying services, and art and engineering

Supplies

3. The threats that non-traditional companies pose are as follows:

Walmart:

• They are cheaper