Canadian Tire Corporation is a retailing icon in Canada, operating more than 1,200 general merchandise, gas bars, and apparel retail stores. The Company headquarter is in Ontario, Canada, and the corporation has more than 55 000 employees. Today, the Company has been in operation for more than ninety years, touching the community coast to coast by providing hardware and automotive products, home décor products, clothes for play or work, sporting goods, financial services, and convenient gas bars. The company services more than ten-thousand cars in a day, with more than ninety percent of the population residing fifteen minutes from the corporation tire store. The proximity is evidence of the corporation’s impact on the Canadian economy and Canadians.
Canadian Tire Organization
The apparel retail and general merchandise stores are operated by a network of associate dealers from Canada. The associate dealers ensure that all the corporation’s operations are carried out efficiently and effectively. The formal organization of the corporation is departmentalized through function and product lines which helps the corporation complete tasks effectively and efficiently to get the final products to the market within the shortest time possible. The Company’s Board of directors consists of sixteen members, with Stephen G. Wetmore being the corporation’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) (Naraine et al., 2015). The board has a good reputation for bringing in significant revolutionary changes in the executive and operation body of the Canadian Tire Corporation, which has proven to be very beneficial. In collaboration with associate dealers, Canadian Tire Corporation has built customer traffic and awareness in CTC stores by distributing weekly promotional flyers available via the Internet, such as newspapers, television, magazines, radio, event sponsorship, and internet advertising (Naraine et al., 2015).
Canadian Tire strategies
To overcome business drawbacks and attain the set goals and objectives of the corporation, Canadian Tire has its plans and strategies. The primary plans and strategies applied by the corporation regard restructuring of its store layouts. The second aim of the plans and the strategies is to promote customer satisfaction and improve the Company’s sales. For instance, Canadian Tire Corporation is creating a virtual presence by establishing online platforms for trading and introducing plastic money and cards to replace paper money, making customer loyalties and rewards programs highly successful (Naraine et al., 2015). Canadian Tire Corporation’s strategies and plans are aligned with the mission of the Company, which is to be the best at what customers value the most. To be the best, the Company must prioritize customer satisfaction which is achieved by having competent staff that can communicate well with the customers. Therefore, the corporation delivers training for progressive learning and development of the front-line staff to equip them with the necessary skills and knowledge to handle the customers well. Quality customer-driven services place the consumer at the center of the activities and decisions of the Company, thus attaining their satisfaction and confidence (Naraine et al., 2015). Canadian Tire Corporation plans on doing the same by availing high-quality goods and services at the best possible market prices.
The Company also plans to promote a focused assortment that defines the Company’s stand in its customers’ minds and examines the merchandise presentation and size of Associate stores. To offer services to large populations, the corporation has to avail a wide range of goods and services. The Canadian Tire Corporation trades a variety of product categories, from automotive and sports goods to home decors. Competitive operations are also among the unique goals of the corporation. It is also the most effective strategy as it has helped the Company survive for so long in the retail business. Its existence and establishment as one of the best Companies in Canada is due to its effective competitive operations. Canadian Tire Corporation views competition positively competes with absolute dedication and focus on running operations well and establishing an identity in the market (Offman, 2012). Favorable competitive operations will enable the Company to minimize the cost of distributing its goods and services to the market, allowing it to avail more valuable goods at relatively lower prices and more quality services.
These strategies help the formal organization of the Company to organize their work and set priorities for the benefit of the Company. With the set strategies and a mission statement that reflects the vision of the Company, the Company is constantly reminded of why it is still in the market. The strategies hold the Company from being outdated and have helped the Company stand the test of time and be a successful domestic retailer for a long.
External Factors
These conditions and factors have no direct impact on the Canadian Tire activities but affect its functioning and need some management decisions to eliminate their effects. They include political, economic, social, technological, legal, and environmental factors.
Political
Although the Company has political factors prospects with potential influence on the Company, the Company has beneficial political facto conditions in terms of low taxes. This factor has encouraged the Company to invest more in research and future developments (Offman, 2012). Among other political factors faced by Canadian Tire Corporation include:
- Restrictions on imports of the shipped equipment increase the price for the imported equipment.
- Increased taxes result in a decrease in net profits and profitability of the Company.
- An increase in Value-added tax increases the amount of the utility payments.
- Increased ecological problems, which results in extra expenditure for more cleaning equipment.
Economic
The economic aspects considered influential to Canadian Tire Corporation include exchange rates, price fluctuations, economic dynamics, inflation, banking trends, unemployment tendencies, and income per capita numbers (Naraine et al., 2015).
- Price fluctuations and changes in the exchange rate: Canadian economy is growing. Therefore, there are increased exchange rates, which results in new business opportunities for the Company to reach its global markets target. A decrease or increase in exchange rates results in a decrease or increase in prices of the imported materials and equipment, respectively.
- Economic dynamics: there is liberalization in Canadian trade policy, which efficiently promotes Canadian Tire Corporation progress.
- Inflation changes: market recessions such as post-2018 recession, liquidity, and pandemics such as COVID-19 may provoke inflation changes in Canada. Increased inflation will result in savings depreciation and an increase in the cost of utility bills.
- Banking trends: considering softening of the legal regulation and political recession, banks are more likely to increase investments in Canada, primarily its infrastructure, thus intensifying customer turnover for the Canadian Tire Corporation.
- Unemployment changes: the progressive unchanged administrative policy and pressure of governmental agencies practically and theoretically motivate Canadians to incorporate more immigrants into its operation, thus reducing the unemployment rates.
- Variations in disposable income per capita: liberalization of political methods used in retailing trade increases the per capita index, thus opening new viable opportunities for the Canadian Tire Corporation’s international growth (Naraine et al., 2015). An increase in population income (per capita income) decreases the receivables.
Social
These are the social and cultural issues in the market that influence the operation of the Company. The most significant parameters affecting Canadian Tire Corporation are qualification level, demographic state variations, community social layers, dominating mentality and culture specifics, and communal alteration in tastes and preferences (Miller, 2011).
- Qualification level: education level and qualification level should be high enough to help the corporation intensify its operation across Canada.
- Demographic state variations: Canada’s population and demographic statistics favor Canadian Tire Corporation as the number of young people is progressively increasing, thus increasing consumers (Miller, 2011).
- Dominant mentality and culture specifics: most Canadian buyers prefer experimenting with goods and services they buy. Therefore, Canadian Tire Corporation has to rethink its trade politics that incorporate these traditions.
- Alteration in tastes and preferences: the perceived future of the Company as seen by Canadian customers is determined by media outlets, primarily traditional public issues, and popular social media. Canadian Tire Corporation should use this feature to attract more customers and reach them by targeting them with the right tastes. The corporation should also consider altering the social hierarchy norms that affect customer decisions.
Technology
These are the technological changes in Canada that affect the operation of Canadian Tire Corporation. The following factors play a significant role in analyzing the technological changes: how the Internet influences the market environment, possible trends in emerging technologies, the impact of rapidly advancing mobile technologies on the construction of the market environment, and innovations in modern information technologies that drive competition (Offman, 2012).
Legal
Canadian Tire Corporation’s operation should be consistent with the Canadian system of justice, primarily the absence of legal biases. The Company should be aware of the intellectual property and data regarding the norms that regulate potential discrimination cases. The Company should be aware of the changing privacy and intellectual property protection (Offman, 2012). Currently, patents and copyrights demonstrate a high level of protection from the breach in Canada, and therefore, CTC should stay aware of such perspectives.
Environmental
Strategies used by CTC should be ecologically friendly to prevent pollution. Canada is currently struggling to fix environmental issues through cooperation with NGOs and the government. Therefore, companies like CTC are expected to upgrade their operations and politics concerning the pollution-related materials they produce and carbon released. Ecological friendly strategies are costly. Therefore CTC is incurring excess expenditure to upgrade its politics and operations. The Company is also not compatible with pro-environmental changes dependent on technological innovations (Miller, 2011). Therefore, implementing the Paris Climate Agreement is another financial burden to the Company. As a preferred retailer, CTC is expected to care for the environment and the future and not for profits only.
Output
With the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, drastic changes have been witnessed in the operation of the Canadian Tire Corporation: from its primary tasks and operations, people, to production and distribution of its final products to the market. However, the corporation has tried its best to remain congruent by positively aligning all its strategies and the transformation process. The Company has been able to recover its primary market position through positive alignment of some areas, which gives the Company a priority to its long term plan. The corporation has strengthened its core retail by continuously rolling out new stores and executing strategies to ensure a quality in-store customer experience. The Company also expanded e-commerce and investigated cross-business integration opportunities that matched the prevailing COVID-19 challenges. The pandemic challenges made the corporation’s marketing department rethink and develop more reliable and friendly strategies to enhance store networks to promote customer satisfaction and build customer loyalty. The Company also invested more in the newly established retail sectors such as sports products since they seemed promising despite the new COVID-19 challenges and had a contemporary string of retail outlets in a slightly different market (Offman, 2012). Canadian Tire Corporation expanded its financial services by increasing the number of operational areas for its products and services. The corporation only considered itself a brand, and it never considered the idea of expanding its operation into new geographical areas such as growth outside Canada. The pandemic made the Company consider this avenue for growth and development of new business developments within the home market. Through diversification, Canadian Tire Corporation improved its efficiency and enhanced business sustainability, which helped them cope with the strict market conditions after the COVID-19 outbreak.
Recommendations
The Company has shown dramatic improvement since 2019, upon the outbreak of COVID-19 and the post-2018 recession. The Company’s ability to manage to retain its market position, despite the recession and pandemic outbreak, through the six primary product lines is evidence that further diversification and company growth outside Canada can be a significant move in keeping the Company congruent, comparing revenue generated before and after the expansion of e-commerce shows that e-commerce is a reliable strategy that should be invested in for more returns. The Company’s organizational structure should be purely formal and departmentalized through function and product lines (Miller, 2011). The structure is stable and helpful in efficiently managing the Company’s wide range of products and consumer base.
According to the prevailing strategies and plans, the Company is expected to improve this year, 2022. A significant rise in profits and sales is expected, which means that stock prices are likely to increase with the stock performing better than the market return. Therefore, Canadian Tire Corporation is a company worth investing in.
References
Offman, C. (2012, August 24). How to fix Canadian Tire. The Globe and Mail. Retrieved from http://www.theglobeandmail.com Canadian Tire Corporation, Limited. (n.d).
Miller, D. (2011). Building customer confidence in the automobile age: Canadian Tire 1928‐1939. Journal of Historical Research in Marketing.
Naraine, M. L., Dixon, J. C., & Horton, C. (2015). New to the Board: A Case Study of Canadian Tire Corporation and the Potential Purchase of the Forzani Group Limited. Case Studies in Sport Management, 4(1), 120-131.
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