Brian Cornell had the vision to turn every Target store into a mini fulfillment center and roll out and increase focus on order pickup+drive up, not to mention buying Shipt for same day delivery for not only Target itself but also many other stores.
BEFORE the pandemic. How big this was cannot be said. While every other company was scrambling to get this setup during the pandemic we had teams that were already trained and capable day 1.
How huge this very expensive investment has been for out company can never be stated enough. To the point where we are moving forward going full Amazon with delivering our own products in major cities.
Brian Cornell isnt going ANYWHERE.
Brian Cornell also had the vision to strip staffing down to bare bones and he/it is irreparably hurting the brand year after year.
Target stores look like absolute dogshit dumpster fire trash compared to what they did 15+ years ago under Ulrich when Target had record levels of growth in terms of new stores going up. Virtually all of the store employees live substantially worse and significantly more stressed out day to day lives as a result. Absolute garbage looking stores. And there's no reason for it other than corporate and shareholder greed. Period. Honest to God, Target stores are starting to and often times do look worse than Wal-Mart stores in terms of zone and stock.
The two biggest things keeping Target in business are 1) reputation and 2) the fact that they're not Wal-Mart and the stigma attached to Wal-Mart(lack of other options)
People will catch on.
You can believe what you want, but I am here to tell you in no uncertain terms Target is in the process of going out of business. It will probably still take decades, but they are going down. None of these big box retailers go out of business in 1, 2, 5 years. It usually does take decades. There is a lot of inertia built up behind the Target beast, but it is going out nonetheless.
And you want to talk about how forward looking he is with multi channel shopping but fail to mention how absolute trash the search algorithm is on the website, still to this day. Go use the search feature for about 10 minutes and also look at the product pages themselves and then go use the search feature on Amazon for 10 minutes and look at those product pages. Target's website is an entirely different experience and not in a good way.
Hell, there are still KMart stores around, if only 2 or 3 nationwide. They still exist, unbelievably. They've been going out of business for damn near 30 years.
Target has completely lost and thrown away two of the three or four most important things it ever had going for it. 1) Clean, stocked, zoned and organized stores. 2) Exemplary customer service.
All in the name of profit. Not because they had to. Because of greed.
But you are right about one thing... Cornell isn't going anywhere so long as the numbers keep getting blacker and blacker, and they are... because of his relentless staffing cuts. When the tipping point truly hits and things start to shift in terms of profit, I'm afraid I'm not that smart and can't predict such things. But the outcome is inevitable without a drastic strategic shift.