Target Company: Strategic partnership, Customer Relationship Management, and Supply Chain Sustainability

 Target Company: Strategic partnership, Customer Relationship Management, and Supply Chain Sustainability

Introduction

Target Corp. is an American general merchandise retailer established in the early 1900s with its headquarters in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The company was founded under the name of Dayton Dry Goods Company by George Dayton, which was later renamed again as Dayton company in 1910. But after the long growth of the company into a nationwide retailer, it opened the first Target store in Roseville, Minnesota. In the late 1960s, the company joined forces with J.L Hudson Company of Detroit to form Dayton-Hudson Corporation, the name that was later in 2000 was renamed Target Corporation. Since the organization's establishment, it has been registering positive growth in the market in terms of revenue collection and brand awareness. The company offers a wide range of products, including beauty and health products, clothing, electronics, accessories, etc. According to Forbes, with more than 368 000 employees and numerous stores in all 50 U.S states and districts in Columbia, the company was considered one of the largest retailers in the United States and one of the top 2000 largest public companies globally.

Strategic Partnership

Most of the time, the brands find new sources of growth via strategic partnerships. For any business that wants to strive in the market, strategic partnership is important because it always allows firms to increase their customer base and expand their revenue collection and business market. Significantly, Target corporation has been strategically partnering with other businesses to maintain competition in the market and, at the same time, increase the number of consumers in the market. One of the most well-known examples of strategic partnership is Target and Starbucks. As soon you enter Target corporation, there's a Starbucks counter waiting to blend your favorite drink, which has made the two companies have numerous consumers in the market. The two brands strategically partnered with each other because they share a similar audience who are busy shoppers looking for affordable luxuries. The partnership between target and Starbuck has made the two-experience significant growth in the number of their consumers (The Garage Group, 2021). For instance, Target customers know that if they get hungry during shopping in the company's store, Starbucks has them covered right in the store. It is true that through strategic partnership, Target has been able to increase the number of its consumers in the market and even revenue. Also, through the use of strategic partnership, the corporation was able to reach attract new consumers to the market and, at the same time, increase its returns on investment. Given that the current business market has been competitive, the strategic partnership between the target and other companies has helped the company remain profitable. For instance, Target corporation has been using the strategic partnership to get the opportunity to expand and grow into a new industry that meets the consumers' needs in the market. The partnership between Target corporation and Ulta Beauty has made the company a top retail destination. More importantly, the strategic partnership between the two gave Target Corporation opportunities to get new consumers in the market and become innovative in retail.

Customer Relationships Management

Target corporation, like any other company in the market, has to compete vehemently with others globally if it wants to remain relevant and profitable. This is because of the revolution experienced in industries and the dynamic change of modernization and technology. Due to this fact, any company like a target that wants to remain relevant in the market will have to revisit its CRM strategic tool to maintain loyal consumers, gain others, and maintain their relationship with the company. It is clear that Target has been supporting significant growth in the market; thus, enhancing CRM was an essential idea for the company to have positive performance in the market and ensure each of its consumers who reach out with questions or issues receives a response. The target corporation has been offering its products and services, such as online, stores, and mobile devices. The store target always sells various foods and merchandise, including daily items, dry groceries, and perishable goods. The other complementary assortments are sold online (Bhaskar, 2014). Three main types of CRM are essential for robust company growth and development in the market. These three types of CRM technologies include service automation, Marketing Automation, and Sales-Force Automation.

After the establishment of Target Corporation, the company had to remain relevant in the market, given the emergence of new competitors. In the early century, Target faced significant sales, services, and marketing problems which were contributed by its outdated marketing strategies. Since the establishment of the corporation, it has been using manual methods to offer assistance to the consumers, the method that consumed a lot of time because it had to fax orders day and night each week in order to meet the consumers' needs. But given that the company needed to attract more consumers to the market and increase its revenue by minimizing the cost of input, it had to optimize its market through the CRM tool (Bhaskar, 2014). Furthermore, to increase its revenue collection and remain competitive in the market, the company had to focus on gaining more customers and transporting its products and services on time. From these factors, Target decided to partner its transport and shipment with other companies, thus starting to use marketing automation and e-transport. The key consequence of using marketing automation was to help Target deliver its products and services to many consumers in the market, thus making it have more significant control costs associated with transportation and shipment.

It took a duration of one year for the company to implement marketing automation as its CRM tool. Although it was not an easy task to maintain competency and increase revenue collection in the market, the company had to develop CRM technologies to leverage retail infrastructure and operations. Using the CRM tool, the company could link with various trading partners into a common centralized private-based community for automated operations. It is also significant that marketing automation helped Target run some of its various events and campaigns via many combined channels, which gave it a leeway to leverage the market (Friedberg, 2021). Further, with the use of the CRM tool, Target captured and responded instantly to various opportunities provided in the external environment. Therefore, given the company was in competitive market technologies, marketing automation was an important factor because it helped sales people analyze, control, and finally effectively control marketing operations.

Supply Chain Sustainability

In terms of supply chain sustainability, Target has been designing new ways to ensure that it is business and supply chain is more sustainable from beginning to end. The company's primary commitment is ensuring that by 2040 it leaves the planet in better shape for future families. Having known the effect of climate change on the environment, the company's commitment is to ensure that the future of its business depends on taking care of the resources we have today (Rockström et al., 2021). It has made to work with experts and industry partners on ways to reduce the environmental impacts of their products. Target's main concern is to ensure it achieves a 30 percent absolute reduction in supply chain emissions. But the company's main vision in terms of supply chain sustainability is that it has to ensure that it co-creates an equitable and regenerate future together with its business partners and communities. Being a member of the global community is imperative for the health of both our planet and business; thus, need to embrace new ways moving forward. Having the precise aim of working with its partners, the organization is much focused on ensuring that it creates better tools and more efficient processes that provide products reach consumers in the market on time and use what it learned from its partners to improve their own practices. In what seems to be an effective way of improving its supply in the market, Target partnered with Apparel Impact Institute's clean-by-design program to identify cost-saving opportunities. That helped suppliers increase operational efficiencies in the company while at the same time reducing resource wastage and usage.  

Using the program clean by design, Target has maintained its supply chain sustainability in the market. Together with other suppliers, the organization has been able to reduce elements such as carbon emissions throughout its business, which has helped it achieve its climate goals ambition. Also, the company believed that while it is critical for materials that go into a product to be sustainable, what waste material is created in a product's manufacturing process is equally important. It is clear that the company was keen on production because it ensured that there was enough supply chain of products to the consumers, which helped it maintain and attract new consumers in the market. But also Target corporation had to take responsibility by ensuring manufacturing waste is treated with an environmentally responsible method so that to eliminate and minimize waste within the environment by reusing materials and recycling. Further, Target has been working with its manufacturing partners to eliminate and minimize waste throughout its manufacturing supply chain proactively. With the use of different programs, the target has been able to maintain significant supply chain sustainability in the market (Sustainable Operations, 2022). The company's main focus has been to elevate owned, national, and emerging sustainable brands that are inclusive, inspiring, and affordable to all its consumers in the market. For instance, Target corporation has been committed to ensuring that it partners with other companies across the value chain to design solutions that eliminate waste while providing conveniences and ease in the market. Therefore, it is clear that Target corporation's main concern was to strive to be socially and ethically responsible business focused on making a difference in all parts of our business. The company is much concerned with ensuring that by 2040 it eliminates wastes by ensuring it uses regenerative materials and is sourced sustainably. By doing that, the company will be able to create products that are easily recyclable and more durable. 

References

Bhaskar, R. (2014). A customer relationship management system to target customers at Cisco. Journal of Electronic Commerce in Organizations (JECO), 2(4), 64-74.

Friedberg, A. (2021). Top 5 examples of Customer Relationship Management Efficiency. Retrieved April 6, 2022, from https://www.iesgp.com/blog/top-5-examples-of-customer

Rockström, J., Beringer, T., Hole, D., Griscom, B., Mascia, M. B., Folke, C., & Creutzig, F. (2021). Opinion: We need biosphere stewardship that protects carbon sinks and builds resilience. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118(38).

Sustainable Operations, S. (2022, March 17). Sustainable operations: Target. Retrieved April 6, 2022, from https://corporate.target.com/sustainability-esg/environment/sustainable-operations

The Garage Group, T. (2021, March 25). Brands find new sources of growth via strategic partnerships. Retrieved April 6, 2022, from https://www.thegaragegroup.com/brands-strategic-partnerships