Question

Managers at Gap Inc. formerly one of the top retail chains, are reported to have made a series of decisions that hurt the company: They expanded so rapidly that the chain lost touch with customers; they tried to copy the successful approach of rivals rather than charting their own course; they cut quality to reduce cost; they shifted from one fashion approach to another as each one failed to appeal to customers, and so on. What techniques would you recommend Gap managers use to improve the quality of their decisions

Answer 1

I will advise the Gap managers to use various techniques in order to improve the quality of their decisions-

A.I will be advising those managers to use their own companies parameters rather than using the parameters of the competitors.

B. There should always be an approach of comparison of actual performance with the standard performance of the company and the deviations should always be worked upon in order to be rectified, so that a proper control mechanism could be adopted in order to rectify the mistakes.

C. There should be a proper analysis of strategy of the company for achievement of its own long-term mission and vision and objectives should be formulated accordingly.

D. There should be a continuous evaluation of various processes of the management of the company and performance evaluation of managers should be done on periodic basis.

E. There should be a strategy in place to follow the best standards of the industry and then prepare a list of those standard that to be incorporated in the organisation and regularly trying to match the performance of actual with standard benchmarks.

so these are the techniques I will advise the company in order to focus on firm specific factors rather than industry-specific actress in order to improve their performance.