Nordstrom Case

Introduction

In this paper, I analyzed Nordstrom from performance management, managing change, and company culture. “Performance management is a process of defining, measuring, appraising, providing feedback on, and improving performance.” Positive performance should be promoted, and negative performance should be corrected. “Corporate culture is a set of characteristics that define a business, involved employee attitudes, standards (policies and procedures), and rites and rituals.” If firms have strong corporate culture, they can achieve higher results, because the employees highly focus both on what they need to do and how they can do. “Managing change refers to the process of project management, and ensures that you augment this with consultative communications to agree and gain support for the reasons for the change.”

After searching the information online, I found that some people have already done similar research about Nordstrom. The best example is Megan Conniff’s paper, which is mainly about how Nordstrom, which began as a shoe store, expanded to an upscale fashion retailer. She pointed out that the successful experience of Nordstrom include combining online and on store, critical staff, king loyalty, stable strategic partnerships, and bold innovation. The limitation of the paper is lack of recommendations to Nordstrom.

Performance management is a key tool to ensure what they expect and how to achieve this, and improve the employees’ skills with teaching related training. For employees, it gives an opportunity for managers to hear what their opinions are and make sure of the team’s aims. A corporate culture is vital to the sustainable development of the company, since the culture sets the standard of employees’ attitude for relationships in working environment, assigned duties, and keeps useful employees in a long time. Besides, if managing changes are occurring, whatever strategic changes, leadership changes, tactical changes, or technology changes, then those changes will affect followers and processes. If the changes are successful, that can help to minimize possible risks and enlarge positive results. All in all, that is why I choose these parts to analyze Nordstrom.

Nordstrom, Inc. is an American upscale fashion retailer, founded by John Nordstrom in 1901, headquartered in Seattle, Washington. The company began as a shoe retailer. By 1928, the founders retired and the primary business was substantially larger than the one John started, since the manager insisted to merge other shoe stores in the Great Depression. In the postwar decades, the Nordstrom brothers built the company into the largest independent shoe chain in the United States. Nordstrom began to go public in August 1971 and offered the best stock on the over-the-counter market. During 1988, Nordstrom changed market positioning to an upscale, efficient, excellent-service department store.