The Men’s Wearhouse Case Analysis

Qian Zhang

MGT 409-002

The Men’s Wearhouse Case Analysis

1. Background

The Men’s Wearhouse is a retailer of men’s tailored clothing. This company started the first store in 1973 with $7000 investment. After 23 years developed, this company had 345 open stores and $295.5 million total assets in 1996. In fact, it is very difficult for Men’s Wearhouse to become such a big company especially when it is in a “declining industry”. The company’s target consumers are men, which is a group of people who do not like shop. The man’s clothing business does not have barriers to entry, thus the competition is fierce. The market is growing slow, the total number is stable, men’s Wearhouse has to grab new consumer from competitors. Even though Men’s Wearhouse grow 20% per year till 1996, it does not mean the success could go to the future. The strategic issue in this case is to improve the sales and services to create value then to expand the company in the future.

1. Strategic analysis & options

In Value chain analysis, marketing and sales and human resource management are the most essential value creating activities to Men’s Wearhouse. As a retailer, how to grab consumer and sell more product directly decide the shop’s net sales. In Men’s Wearhouse culture, workers are not only clerks, they take care of consumers and have energy to sell. This strategy help Men’s Wearhouse beat others. The HR management also present this culture. The higher-class managers constitute the company with honor and royalty, they take care of the company with their passion. This attitude lead to good service which also creates value to company.

Based on resource based view analysis, I think the employees’ qualities in Men’s Wearhouse is a potential source of sustainable competitive advantage. First, their qualities are valuable because they are trained and could provide better service to customer to increase the value of the organization. Secondly, their qualities are rare because they are different from most of the other retailers and those make Men’s Wearhouse win in the market. Thirdly, the qualities are also Imitability because the qualities could keep influence while employees in the company. New employees could get those qualities by training and learned from surrounding employees. Finally, the company is organized to capture value from employee’s qualities.