USA landscape in real estate

I interviewed a realtor in Long & Foster company, and talked about the USA landscape in retail industry. Long & Foster is the largest real estate company in the Mid-Atlantic region. Lucy Lu, has worked in this company for years, she is a realtor in the company and is responsible for the real estate transaction. As a realtor, she has both clients that want to sell and buy houses in D.C area.

From the interview, I have known that in Lucy’s opinion, Washington D.C is a good place for real estate. Because D.C is a political center and also a cultural center in the U.S. It is also the capital of the U.S. These characteristics make D.C a very potentially place to do investment. Due to D.C is a city that has lot job opportunities in government, so there will be people from other cities transfer to D.C, and then they will need a house to settle down.

D.C area is a very potential place to invest real estate. Because Washington D.C has a lot tourist points and a lot convention centers. Also, it is a political center and a cultural center, there will be a lot students come to study here, and also will be a lot people come to work here. These lead to an increase in catering industry and tourism industry, it leads to more job demands. Again, this will lead to more houses demands.

Interview with Sony employee

My information interview is Mr. Yoshio Ishibashi. Mr. Ishibashi is retired from Sony company three years ago. During his time at Sony, he has been working as a logistics manager, CEO of China branch and senior advisor. Mr. Ishibashi stressed the importance of company loyalty in Japan. Japanese society is tend to respect people who contribute their whole life to one company, and it is very weird if someone change jobs. Which is also why Mr. Ishibashi works for Sony all life long.

Mr. Ishibashi pointed out that communication skill is very important for retail industries, especially for multinational corporations. For instance, Sony has many factories in China, so as the CEO of China branch, Mr. Ishibashi needs to negotiate with local factories to ensure they can fit the Sony standard with the lowest price. When he was working as the logistics manager, he also needs to communicate with the factories and stores to make sure the amount of store in order to keep the lowest cost. Besides communication skills, it is also important for employees to be familiar with cost table and stock market.

I also asked Mr. Ishibashi if Sony has any particular positions for entry employees. According to him, Sony has a quiet different system for entry employees from US companies. For all the entry employees, who are called as “New People” in Sony, they have particular courses that need to be taken at Sony, and will work for different departments. After couple years, those “New People” will be signed for actual positions and start working as all the other older employees.

Different corporations have very different company cultures, which are also affected by countries’ cultures. However, there are common characters that all corporations will require from their employees, such as communication skills.

Informational Interview White House | Black Market

For my Informational Interview I personally interviewed Katie Salah, the store manager for White House | Black Market at Wisconsin Place. White House | Black Market is an American fashion store targeting women 25 years of age and older. White House | Black Market is known for its sleek lines, and its focus on white, black, and other variants of the two colors. The brands significant focus is on creating a comfortable, inviting and hospitable atmosphere for customers. Seating is available in store with water available. During special events food and refreshments, and catering are occasionally offered.

While talking to Miss Salah she told me about her responsibilities which include hiring and training new employees, motivating the associates to sell, making our numbers every day and how the store performs at the end of every week day month year, and also solving any conflicts within the store, if any. When talking about hiring and training Miss Salah pointed out that the retail industry in general has a high turnover rate; therefore, it is her job to be constantly training new staff. We also discussed where she believed there would be an increase in employment in retail in the future. She answered that where she sees room for developing is in technology, and improvements to the system that is used to “ring up” transactions. “I think there’s going to be more technology in the stores, for example right now we have some of our marketing has a barcode on it that if you have that app in your phone you can scan it and it pulls up like a list of styles or something like that or advertisements in magazines.” Also she remarked that the social media, such as Twitter and Facebook has helped the store sell more since people know about discounts and specials sooner and the WHBM is also able to reach out to an extremely large clientele.

When I asked her how WHBM differed from its competition such as Anne Taylor, Liz Claiborne and other stores, Miss Salah said that WHBM has a higher level of customer service since they make shopping more of an experience, and the people who work there are not just sales people they are personal stylists: “We try to give every customer the same experience we’re not just there to go get them sizes and ring up their transactions, but were there to help them see how to wear things, how to do it differently and to make them feel comfortable and beautiful.”

Lastly we talked about how WHBM and the whole retail industry in general was impacted by the recent economic recession, she answered that people were more conscious about what they were spending their money on, maybe less disposable income, so less money to spend on the things that they want and looking to purchase just the things that they need, getting what they need for a particular occasion and that particular season and not really going overboard and getting all they want.

Informational Interview with the Wilmington Country Store

The Wilmington Country store is a specialty store that sells upscale clothing and accessories. It carries brands such as Vineyard Vines, Lilly Pulitzer , Eileen Fisher, and Ugg. Margaret’s job at the Wilmington Country store entails all the things a sole-proprietor does. As a sole-proprietor, she calls herself mainly a buyer. As a buyer, she must find vendors with various sportswear, dresses and accessories that fit the image of her clientele. Margaret works with vendors at trade shows to select merchandise for her store.

Margaret hires people from all ages to work in her store. High-schoolers work there during peak seasons, such as time surrounding holidays. However, she prefers employees with more retail experience. Typically, the employees have a 3-day training period where they learn how to run the software and how to deal with returns and manage sales. She mentioned how working on the retail floor an employee has to act as a “marketer and psychologist.” The marketing part refers to selling the item, and being a psychologist means having good conversations and relations with the customer. The employees she hires must be cheerful, adaptive and “leave their problems at the door.” Margaret’s business upholds a relaxed, yet clean and preppy look, which the employees are expected to embody as well.

The greatest competition for a specialty store such as the Wilmington Country Store is the internet, or vendor competition. The internet can sell the same item directly for the company for cheaper than the Wilmington Country Store. Vendors can also decide to open up their own stores, which draws consumers away from speciality stores.

Margaret believes that the internet is also the place where the retail industry is growing the most. She mentioned that rents and costs keeps rising, but internet costs remain the same and clothes are much cheaper online. For her personal store, in the future she hopes to make her company more vertical by adding more stores and then manufacturing her own clothes, instead of buying from vendors.

VF Corporation Still Strong

The current CEO of VF Corporation, Eric Wiseman has been instrumental in helping his company stand its ground during the 2008 economic meltdown. VF Corp. sells its well-known brands, such as Lee, Nautica, The North Face, Wrangler, and Vans, through more than 67,000 retailers in about 150 countries. The company owns and operates more than 700 retail stores, including about 60 outlet stores.

Prior to 1998, VF Corp. derived most of its revenues from manufacturing brands such as such as Lee, Rider, and Wrangler, and selling them wholesale to large retail stores. In 1998, VF Corp. aggressively began acquiring well-known active wear and contemporary brands, such as Nautica, The North Face, Eagle Creek, Eastpak, lucy, Vans, and several others. The company rid itself of unprofitable brands. In 2004, VF Corp., which had revenues of $6 billion, launched a bold growth strategy to transform itself into a global lifestyle apparel manufacturer and retailer. "We Fit Your Life" became the mantra for the company's growth strategy.

With Eric Wiseman as CEO, at VF Corp. they have been controlling expenses, investments and lowering inventory and capital expenditures to make up for the revenue decrease of about 5% during the economic recession. In 2008, VF Corp. reported an all-time record for revenue and an all-time record for earnings per share. They delivered $679 million in cash flow, which was above the five-year average and the second highest number in five years. Also, 2008 was the 36th year in a row that they increased our dividend to our shareholders. It is a good part of why VF Brands is a good investment. They ended that year with more cash than they started and they ended the year with less debt than they started with.

In November 2010, VF Corp. began a process of outsourcing their IT services to CSC, a global leader in providing technology-enabled solutions and services, in a seven year outsourcing agreement. Under the agreement, CSC will bring new, innovative approaches to VF’s business use of IT, covering a broad spectrum of services, including service desk, end user support services, network services, distributed computing services and data center management services. Work will be performed utilizing CSC’s worldwide network of delivery centers. The transition from VF’s current information technology services provider to CSC is expected to be completed by the end of August 2011.

http://www.enterpriseleadership.org/blogs/Articles/2010/06/26/vf-corps-ceo-talks-about-forging-a-strategy-to-become-a-global-leader-in-branded-leisure-apparel

Mike Duke -- The World's Largest Retailer.

Mike Duke, the fourth CEO of Walmart, had been handed the reins of the world’s largest retailer. He was outlining his heightened expectation for walmart’s leadership role in the global sustainability effort. Mr. Duke’s decades of experience in the retail industry, his years of executive leadership experience across multiple operating divisions of our company, his international retail experience, and his expertise in corporate strategy, development and execution, all of these made him an Influential leader in retail industry.

Also, under his operation, walmart is changing the structure. Wal-Mart is combining divisions and creating three distinct geographic business territories in the United States.The changes will make the company more efficient and accelerate growth, according to Eduardo Castro-Wright, Wal-Mart vice chairman. The restructuring includes aligning Puerto Rico stores with Walmart US; dividing Walmart US into three business units, Walmart West, Walmart North and Walmart South; creating e-commerce through a global.com organization; and combining logistics, real estate and store operations under the same leadership. Wal-Mart eliminated “a relatively small number” of field merchandising positions spread across the country, said Dave Tovar, Wal-Mart spokesman. He declined to provide a number of jobs lost, but said former associates would be paid until April 9, could apply for other Wal-Mart jobs and would get help finding other jobs.

LVMH

LV, Fendi, Givenchy, Dior and Hennessy etc. Everyone has heard at least some of those luxury brands, and we all know how expensive they are. However, you may not know that all those luxury brands are all managed by one company, LVMH. LVMH is the biggest luxury products group. It was founded in 1987 as a result of merger between Louis Vultton and Hennessy, which is also why those two brands are still on the front page of its website today, even LVMH has decades of other luxury brands now. In October 2010, LVMH bought 14.2% of Hermes, it said that it is not seeking control o

f it, but LVMH’s leading position in luxury retail industry seems unshakable now.

Like the blog I wrote before, luxury brands like LVMH seems has not been affected by the economic decline in the past few years. Actually, all the data show that it has a very strong sales growth. Compares to the other retail stores that are been struggled by the decline, LVMH is very unique. However, it has its reasons. Luxury brands have a very large market that has not been opened up yet. Rich people in countries like China, Brazil are still seeking for goods that can help them look as rich as they are. According to the article “LVMH’s Net Income for Year Soars 73%” from New York Times, the net income of LVNH 2010 surged 73 percent to $4.1 billion. The article also states that “Demand from the newly affluent, especially in Asia, is driving much of the rebound in the luxury industry after overall sales slumped around 8 percent in 2009.”

LVMH is now the model of retail industry, especially when people are still wondering if the economic crisis has gone at this point. Consumers still have confident on luxury brands like LVMH, while the investors should look at this more seriously.