Analysis of Target Canada's Failure: An Organizational Behavior Report

This report examines the failure of Target Canada in the Canadian market, focusing on organizational behavior principles. It identifies key reasons for the company's downfall, including a rushed launch, undertrained employees, flawed technology, and poor leadership decisions. The report presents a SWOT analysis to highlight the company's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. It also discusses other major problems such as aggressive expansion, inadequate technology, and ineffective advertising strategies. The report concludes by emphasizing the role of leadership and faulty business decisions in Target Canada's failure, underscoring the importance of strategic planning, employee training, and understanding the target market. The analysis provides valuable insights for students studying leadership, organizational behavior, and business management.

Running head: ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR
Organizational Behavior
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR
Introduction
The purpose of the following paper is to discover the major areas in which Target Canada
had failed and the attempt to discover the opportunities that could have helped them to thrive in
the real business world. They have tried several ways to survive in the competitive business
environment but all the attempts had gone in vain. This paper aims to find out the causes for the
down fall and prepare the SWOT analysis that can help to understand the reasons well enough.
Reasons for failure
The reasons that could be identified for the failure of Target Canada have to be identified
in this scenario. The proper reasons include the factors that there was a rushed opening for
Target Canada that ultimately turned contrary to their expectations.1 The employees of the
organization were not properly trained in this matter. In some cases, it has been found that the
employees were undertrained and underprepared to perform their job roles; the flowed
technology that was used in this organization was not up to the mark.2 This flowed technology
would have to be improved. The CEO of the company had the responsibility to look after these
issues that he could not address properly. Another problem that was located in this matter was
the fact that Target Canada had been investing more money on the leases.
1 "Target : Expect More. Pay Less.." Target.com. N.p., 2017. Web. 14 Oct. 2017.
2 Ahmad, Shoeb. "Technology in organizations." International Journal of Research in Business Management 2.7
(2014): 73-80.

2ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR
SWOT analysis
Strengths
 The Target brand is a well recognized brand in the world that is very much respected by
the customers.
 The products of Target Canada were liked by the customers unlike those of Walmart.
 The stores of Target were viewed to be places where it was a fun place to shop.
 A good brand loyalty was created as they had a good relationship with the customers.3
Weaknesses
 The business model of the Target was based on the supercenters and the big box stores.
The problem was that the customers with smaller budgets preferred the smaller
neighborhood stores.
 The business environment is changing so it was very hard for Target Canada to survive
without changing its business model.
Opportunities
 The business reputation of Target Canada in the fashion retail line has been very
attractive to the customers. They have high opportunities of customer satisfaction by
providing the customers with the e-commerce services.
3 Mithas, Sunil, Mayuram S. Krishnan, and Claes Fornell. "Why do customer relationship management applications
affect customer satisfaction?." American Marketing Association, 2013.

3ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR
 They could develop new sales channels like opening smaller neighborhood stores, click
and pull method implementation, delivering the products on the same day of order and
others.4
Threats
 As the transactions were not done properly, there were high chances that the economical
things could have failed and that are what actually had happened.
 The company was launched in a rush. This is what led to their fall in the realm of their
business.
 Target had many operational problems and those led to their fall as well.
 The over ambitious launch schedule had brought upon the problems for Target Canada.
 The consumers found most of the shelves of the stores to be empty and this had
completely evoked a sense of fury in them.
 The ambition to grow rapidly in the Canadian market had brought about their mess.
Other major problems
Some other major problems had been identified in the Target Canada’s growth in the
Canadian market. The too much aggression in the fact of opening the stores had been a wrong
decision for the organization.5 Walmart had put up a great show of competition has they edged
4 Ström, Roger, Martin Vendel, and John Bredican. "Mobile marketing: A literature review on its value for
consumers and retailers." Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 21.6 (2014): 1001-1012.
5 van Rompay, Thomas JL, et al. "On store design and consumer motivation: Spatial control and arousal in the retail
context." Environment and Behavior 44.6 (2012): 800-820.

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forward to close the deal that had great offers in the Zellers sale. The existing technology in
Target Canada was not up to date and that caused serious problems for the company as well. The
advertising strategies were not that much attractive that could lead them to succeed in their
business environment. The decision of using the SAP technology did not work well for them as
well.6
Role as the CEO of the company
It is to be highlighted that my responsibilities and performing them properly had a huge
role to play in the success of the company. However, I was unable to perform my responsibilities
properly. It is completely my failure to understand that the company could not provide the
customers proper products to the organizations. The customers had found that the shelves of
stores empty. Its desire to expand into new foreign markets had been failed because I was unable
to execute the matters to cater to the demands of the customers after opening 124 stores in the
country. I was also unable to recognize the fact that the demographics of Canada were different
in habit than the demographics of USA. I also failed in implementing the JDA software in the
realm of selling the products. However, the problems began to grow and I could not find any
solution to it.
Conclusion
The paper can be concluded by saying that Target Canada had taken some serious faulty
decisions that led them to their downfall. This had to be increased with the fact that their
6 Kale, Vivek. Implementing SAP® CRM: The Guide for Business and Technology Managers. CRC Press, 2014.

5ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR
business decisions were imperfect as well. They did not utilize their opportunities and lagged
behind in many ways that caused their immediate downfall in the Canadian retail market.

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References
"Target : Expect More. Pay Less.." Target.com. N.p., 2017. Web. 14 Oct. 2017.
Ahmad, Shoeb. "Technology in organizations." International Journal of Research in Business
Management 2.7 (2014): 73-80.
Kale, Vivek. Implementing SAP® CRM: The Guide for Business and Technology Managers.
CRC Press, 2014.
Mithas, Sunil, Mayuram S. Krishnan, and Claes Fornell. "Why do customer relationship
management applications affect customer satisfaction?." American Marketing Association, 2013.
Ström, Roger, Martin Vendel, and John Bredican. "Mobile marketing: A literature review on its
value for consumers and retailers." Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 21.6 (2014):
1001-1012.

7ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR
van Rompay, Thomas JL, et al. "On store design and consumer motivation: Spatial control and
arousal in the retail context." Environment and Behavior 44.6 (2012): 800-820.