Corporate Strategy Benchmarking Composition
By
Kelli Schroeder

I chose JC Penny and Harley Davidson as my two companies to research for this assignment. JC Penney was founded in 1902 with the opening of its first stores along the west coast in small mining towns. It was popular because it brought goods at “one fair price” and also led the way to bring east coast fashions to the west. In 1963 JC Penney mailed the first catalogs out to customers in eight states and paved the way for the mail order business. What made this company strong, fashion at a fair price, was lost among the plethora of items from cookware to scarves that they now sold by mail, and later in stores. ("International directory of," 199) The early nineties brought struggles of competition with lower end stores like Wal-Mart and midrange stores such as Kohl’s. JC Penney found their merchandise had become diverse like Wal-Mart; however, their prices were higher like their competing boutique stores. Product value was perceived by consumers to be suffering. Profits for the more than 1200 stores fell two percent in only one year, leading JC Penney in have the worst performance of its peers in 2011. (Clifford, 2012)
Harley Davidson has also struggled with the same issue of losing itself amongst fierce competition and diversification. Harley-Davidson began in a shed in 1903 by two brothers who set out to make the best American made motorcycles that money could buy. As Harley-Davidson became more successful, management decided to expand their success with two more companies. They deviated from the heavy touring and custom bikes and began producing a wide range of sport performance cycles. Buell sport cycles were the first to be developed and an even more premium sport cycle under the MV Agusta name came next. A very lightweight sport cycle was added later under the Cagiva name.