Enterprise Apps / Kmart Base Case

Kmart Base Case

By Edward Cone | Posted 2001-12-10

The stats

Company: Kmart
Headquarters: 3100 West Big Beaver Road, Troy, Mich.
Phone Number: (248) 463-1000
Business: Discount retailer of clothes, pharmaceuticals, general merchandise
Financials: $37 billion in sales, net loss of $244 million, net loss margin 6.6% (fiscal year 2001)
Chief Information Officer: Position open
Challenges: Fill shelves with most popular products while still in demand; lower pricing; reduce advertising expenditures while maintaining marketing impact; reduce costs; refocus stores to serve needs of mothers rearing children
Baseline Goals:

Fix business and "make it competitive" by Aug. 10, 2002

Keep right products in stock 95% of time, up from 86%

Provide "super" service in 70% of stores, up from 56%

Turn inventory 4.5 times a year or more, up from 3.6 times

Senior Writer and author of the Know It All blog

Ed Cone has worked as a contributing editor at Wired, a staff writer at Forbes, a senior writer for Ziff Davis with Baseline and Interactive Week, and as a freelancer based in Paris and then North Carolina for a wide variety of magazines and papers including the International Herald Tribune, Texas Monthly, and Playboy. He writes an opinion column in his hometown paper, the Greensboro News & Record, and publishes the semi-popular EdCone.com weblog. He lives in North Carolina with his wife, Lisa, two kids, and a dog.