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HBR IdeaCast

Case Study: Reinvent This Retailer

HBR IdeaCast

Harvard Business Review

Hbr, Finance, Entrepreneurship, Business/management, Harvard, Business/entrepreneurship, Teams, Leadership, Economics, Management, Innovation, Communication, Strategy, Business, Marketing, Business/marketing

4.31.9K Ratings

🗓️ 2 April 2015

⏱️ 26 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Hear this story based on real events at J.C. Penney. A discussion with contributor Jill Avery and editor Andy O'Connell follows.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

The Closer Podcast brings you the inside story of deals changing the world, told by the people who know how it all went down.

0:09.0

Understand the human motivations behind groundbreaking business decisions with host Amy Keene.

0:14.6

Listen to The Closer, wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the HBR IDI Cash from Harvard Business Review. I'm Sarah Green. Today we are experimenting with a bit of a different format.

0:37.1

We are here with Harvard Business Schools Jill Avery to talk about a case study she published

0:41.2

in HBR and we're also here with the editor of that case

0:44.0

Andy O'Connell. We will hear the case and then we'll discuss the issues it raises.

0:49.0

If you have any feedback on this format please send it to me on Twitter at SK Green. Jill thank you so

0:54.9

much for joining us today. Thank you. And Andy it's great to have you here.

0:58.3

Thanks, great to be here. So Jill I thought before we actually hear this story you could just tee up for us a little bit of some of the major themes in the case.

1:06.2

What should we be listening for here?

1:08.2

Sure. I think one of the big issues in the case is how managers think about changing strategy, particularly

1:16.3

with radical changes in strategy.

1:18.7

It's hard to know when it's the right thing to do and how your customers will respond.

1:25.0

In this case study, this is particularly important because the manager is wondering

1:30.5

how quickly or slowly he will see results from his change in strategy.

1:35.0

So it's hard to know what success would look like and how long we should wait for it to occur.

1:41.0

Okay, great.

1:42.6

We will now hear the story of the case, read for us by a familiar podcast voice to many of you,

1:48.1

H-Byr editor Allison Beard.

1:50.5

Augustine Ray, the new president of the the century-old retailer Emilia drove an SUV full of teenagers into the Spanish city of Lyon to show them the revolution firsthand.

2:00.0

Earlier he had been visiting close friends, Camilo and Maria Vega, in their home near the provincial capital,

2:06.0

and it enthusiastically explained his plan to revamp Amelia's merchandising strategy and redesign some of its stores.

...

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