What is the biggest reason for failure of best of the brands
Can it be to over expansion? Well, yes, it may but one would have to define what kind of over expansion is. One may be, especially if it is a prestige brand, putting it in places that are not known for selling these brands can do it. This has happened with the iNet as many sites found ways to not just show them but cut the prices on them thus lessening the prestige aspect of the brand.
Are their other reasons? You bet there are
* new competition and then not keeping up with or surpassing what the competition is doing. Look what happened to Blackberry and Palm.
* The market has changed and the brand or even the whole genre has gone away or is only a shadow of what it was. In the US (and may have happened in other countries) is the tabletop lines (silverware, dinnerware, stemware, table linens) have almost entirely disappeared from stores. The name of these lines/brands had a long history and many had been around for over 250 years.
Why did the wane? It was due to the growth of the restaurant businesses i.e. when people were to have dinner with friends they went to restaurants vs having a dinner in their home. The other reason why the restaurant business took over was that many women were working and did not have the time to prepare a nice dinner served on a well appointed table. If these are, and they were, the case, who needs the fine table appointments that these stores sold?
* a business being taken over or absorbed by firms who either did not understand the products or really only needed certain parts of what they firms/brands has to offer.
Sometimes this is called "the MBA syndrome" in that business schools were stressing that since all businesses were the same, anyone with an MBA could run any business. Yeh?
(Note. I am not anti-MBAs. I am only against the reasons and attitudes that have caused the the disappearence of the best of brands.)
Part of this problem was that to increase profit the only thing was to decrase quality or raise prices.
* While a brand has value, the business itself was only good for salvageing it for parts.
If stores are brands, then any and all of the above have caused the great retailer in the US to disappear -- B.Altman in NYC, Marchall Field in Chicage, Bulocks in Los Angeles OR Subhiksha in India. And those stores with brand names that are still around are not what made the brands important.
Are their other reasons? You bet there are
* new competition and then not keeping up with or surpassing what the competition is doing. Look what happened to Blackberry and Palm.
* The market has changed and the brand or even the whole genre has gone away or is only a shadow of what it was. In the US (and may have happened in other countries) is the tabletop lines (silverware, dinnerware, stemware, table linens) have almost entirely disappeared from stores. The name of these lines/brands had a long history and many had been around for over 250 years.
Why did the wane? It was due to the growth of the restaurant businesses i.e. when people were to have dinner with friends they went to restaurants vs having a dinner in their home. The other reason why the restaurant business took over was that many women were working and did not have the time to prepare a nice dinner served on a well appointed table. If these are, and they were, the case, who needs the fine table appointments that these stores sold?
* a business being taken over or absorbed by firms who either did not understand the products or really only needed certain parts of what they firms/brands has to offer.
Sometimes this is called "the MBA syndrome" in that business schools were stressing that since all businesses were the same, anyone with an MBA could run any business. Yeh?
(Note. I am not anti-MBAs. I am only against the reasons and attitudes that have caused the the disappearence of the best of brands.)
Part of this problem was that to increase profit the only thing was to decrase quality or raise prices.
* While a brand has value, the business itself was only good for salvageing it for parts.
If stores are brands, then any and all of the above have caused the great retailer in the US to disappear -- B.Altman in NYC, Marchall Field in Chicage, Bulocks in Los Angeles OR Subhiksha in India. And those stores with brand names that are still around are not what made the brands important.
