Target

Target Moving Fast To Fix What's Wrong

Target is moving at lightening speed to right what has been wrong, cleaning out the executive ranks, announcing new digital initiatives and doing the rarest of things for this company, admitting mistakes.

Of course the data breach that exposed personal and credit card information of roughly 70 million Target shoppers was the biggest reason, but it wasn’t the only one. Merchandising has gotten stale, online sales are not growing as they should and Canadian operations lost nearly $1.6 billion in its first year. 

Clearly there is a lot going wrong.

But the speed with which Target’s board of directors is moving to fix things is to be applauded. I’vewritten a lot about how out of the ordinary it is for this company in particular to accelerate change. Target has historically been slow and prodding, very much a stay-the-course kind of retailer, to its benefit. And now when it’s clear the course is wrong, the board has acted swiftly and decisively.

Gone are the executives responsible for the data breach, Canadian market entry (and failure) and merchandising at U.S. stores.

In are new initiatives meant to accelerate lagging digital programs by enlisting technology executives from outside the traditional retail space to form a digital advisory group intended to help speed innovation and guide the retailer’s digital strategies.

The council consists of four leaders from tech companies: Match.com CEO and OkCupid founder Sam Yagan, Orbitz Worldwide’s Roger Liew, Bain Capital Ventures’ Ajay Agarwal and Accompani CEO and former Google Analytics lead Amy Chang.

Already Target announced plans to test same-day delivery in three markets: Boston, Miami and Minneapolis. There is a newly expanded monthly subscription and product fulfillment program and

Pointing to a recent Deloitte study identifying digital interactions with brands as influencing more than $1 trillion in retail sales, Target has declared digital transformation one of its top three priorities. “We need to accelerate our digital transformation and become a leading omnichannel retailer,” said interim CEO John Mulligan during a recent earnings call. “To do this, we will move quickly to become more flexible in how we serve our guests, eliminating barriers that prevent them from shopping with us where and when they want.”

Target is getting serious about its digital transformation, if only in that the effort has become a public priority.