Giordano

1. Describe and evaluate Giordano’s product, business and corporate strategies.

Product Strategy

Giordano sees itself as being more than just a retailer of casual apparel. It was able to successfully incorporate customer service as part of its product. Besides its brand name, logo, style and quality, excellent service has become part of the tangible products sold at Giordano stores. Customers have come to associate service excellence as an integral component of Giordano’s merchandise. Giordano is able to provide a high level of customer service through a concerted effort, which involved every employee of the company. However, it is also essential to recognize the importance of the management and leadership’s commitment to be customer-oriented and to provide high quality service.

Besides incorporating service as part of its product, Giordano focuses on the concept of value-for-money. Giordano is constantly aiming to improve the value of the product. Being customer-oriented allows Giordano to focus on what the company’s products mean to the consumer. Customers are often encouraged to request certain product adaptations if current products fail to meet their expectations. For instance, Giordano removed its logo from some shirts. Another example is Giordano’s invitation to customers to set the price of its jeans where is they charged each customer the price that they willing to pay.

Giordano’s other product strategy is to sell a small number of core products in its stores. While other retailers have 200-300 items, Giordano features no more than 100 variants of 17 core items. Flexibility and speed is essential in the retailing industry, especially when the fashion trend is evolving constantly. Maintaining a restricted range of core products has allowed Giordano to respond to market changes faster than its competitors, and to keep costs down.

Business Strategy

Three generic strategies by Porter are cost leadership, differentiation and focus, and combinations...