by Adam Hartung | Sep 2, 2007 | Defend & Extend, General, In the Swamp, Leadership, Lifecycle, Lock-in, Openness
A few weeks ago this blog talked about the mistake Ford (see chart here) was making by selling off its most profitable group (Jaguar and Land Rover) in order to generate cash to Defend & Extend the broken Success Formula in traditional Ford business. Ford is selling it’s White Space for cash to defend in its old business. Just the opposite action Ford should take to turn itself around.
And one very savvy competitor has seen the opportunity. Tata Group of India is not well known outside its home country (see website for Tata here). It’s best known business is TCS (Tata Consultancy Services) which provides IT services globally. But inside India Tata is known for everything from electricity generation to automobile manufacturing. While Tata makes a complete line of vehicles, from large trucks to very small cars, in India (see website here) these are not known outside it’s domestic marketplace. The company has recently made a splash by developing a quality automobile that it will sell for only $2,000, and potentially taking this new vehicle global (see article here.)
While Tata Motors is not yet regarded on the world stage, the company is very serious about learning how to compete. And the commonly held view is that Tata should produce a cheap car, which is not expected to be very good, and eventually try to migrate up market. This slow approach is what the Japanese auto companies did, and more recently the Korean auto competitors. But Tata Group is very astute. And they recognized an opportunity to take a very different approach.
It has been reported that Tata is considering buying Jaguar and Land Rover (see article here.) And this sort of Phoenix Principle thinking is why Tata has become a very successful, high growth and extremely profitable company. This acquisition would give Tata a fast growing and very profitable auto company operating across the globe. Tata already knows how to make inexpensive high volume automobiles. These companies would give Tata global market access, and two very positively positioned brands. Tata could then migrate its business toward the global marketplace, learning what will work from its acquisition, while developing new skills and capabilities in its very large, domestic business. These acquisitions will provide the White Space that can help Tata Motors continue its rapid growth by developing a new Success Formula which can meet future market needs and help Tata become a world -class competitor.
Ford should have migrated its Success Formula forward with the White Space it has in its premier auto gruop. By selling these businesses it effectively hands over its White Space, probably its most valuable assets, to an emerging competitor very willing, eager and capable of learning from these businesses to accelerate its growth. In effect, Ford will create a new global competitor that may well help accelerate the demise of Ford itself.
Tata has been brillliant in its efforts to expand its information services business globally. It is one of the world’s largest suppliers. And while TCS results are not reported, it is well known in the industry that TCS’s performance is right up there with Infosys (see chart here) – the fastest growing and most profitable competitor on earth. Now, Tata is looking to move forward similarly with its auto business. And Ford is handing the knowledge keys to Tata for some money to short-term protect its badly outdated traditional business. When the fox comes home to eat the eggs, Ford will only have itself to blame.
by Adam Hartung | Aug 18, 2007 | Defend & Extend, General, In the Swamp, Leadership
Thursday of last week Dell (see chart here) announced that it would be restating four YEARS of previous accounts because the numbers had been manipulated at the request of senior executives. The company admitted that account balances were reviewed by senior exexcutives with the goal of seeking adjustments to meet quarterly objectives. The Dell CFO said that the company had found evidence of fraud in revenue transactions that would have to be completely redone. (see article here)
This shows the power of Lock-in when an organization finds itself stuck in the lifecycle Swamp. The business is Locked-in to its Success Formula, but a market shift causes the results to no longer be as good as they used to be. Although the overall market continues to grow, the company doesn’t do as well. From the prosperity of the Rapids leaders find themselves fighting to find faster water as growth, for them, slows. And in most companies, Dell being stereotypical, the answer is to try working harder, doing more, and seeking to be somehow cheaper in order to save the poorly performing Success Formula. When the results just don’t meet expectations, huge pressure is felt to Defend the Lock-ins & Extend the Success Formula. And, in too many cases, under great pressure to perform executives will resort to financial machinations. Sometimes these accounting tricks are completely legal. But, sometimes pressure causes leaders to falsify records in order to preserve the Success Formula.
As we saw during the infamous trials at WorldCom and Enron, (and more recently Tyco and Conrad Black) leaders vocally proclaim all innocence. They become so blinded by their Lock-in, and the need to protect the Success Formula which previously served them and investors so well, that they slowly inch toward taking more dangerous acts. When they start realizing they cannot meet objectives simply by operating the Success Formula, they look for more creative methods.
While some few execs will likely get blamed for this 4-year fiasco, in reality Michael Dell and the existing executives are equally to blame. They remained so Locked-in and unwilling to consider modifying the Success Formula that they created the environment which bred this problem. Dell has never maintained White Space, nor has it ever tried to migrate to new solutions for market Challenges. Dell kept pressuring management to do more, better, faster, cheaper. And with that approach he created a no-win environment for divisional presidents and vice-presidents. They didn’t have the option of using White Space to find a better solution, and with that avenue cut off they either fell on the sword of failure or they had to find some way to keep the emporer feeling he was wearing beautiful clothing.
I blogged months ago that Dell was stuck in the Swamp. Now we know it is. A 4-year (I still can’t believe it) ongoing accounting falsification goes to show just how deeply the company is stuck. It takes a significant commitment to Lock-in to overlook something being wrong for that long. And Dell’s current answer is that the errors were not really significant. Give me a break – any time someone can get away with chicanery for 4 years it’s a significant problem. And just by taking that point of view Dell reinforces its intent to remain Locked-in and stuck in the swamp. The company still shows absolutely no indication it will ever set up some White Space to evolve forward to a better competitive Success Formula.
Once stuck in the Swamp fewer than 7% of companies ever get out alive. Most fight off the aligators and mosquitos only so long before being pulled into the Whirlpool of failure. Dell looks to be far too deep in the Swamp to ever get out. And that’s too bad for a lot of suppliers, employees, customers and investors.
by Adam Hartung | Aug 12, 2007 | General, In the Swamp, Leadership, Lifecycle, Lock-in
Frequently investors look for "good markets" when seeking a place to put money to work. On the flip side, frequently management that is performing poorly will blame their weak results on a "bad market." Listening to this, it would be easy to conclude that if you want to make money you need to be in "good" markets, while avoiding "bad" ones. And that begs the question, what’s a good or bad market?
When Tom Monaghan entered the home-delivered pizza business with Domino’s restaurants were growing at less than 3 percent a year, the competition was largely cut throat small pizzerias with no entry barriers, and there was a huge, dominant, branded player in pizza restaurants named Pizza Hut which was owned by PepsiCo and had enormous resources. Was that a good or bad market? Tom Monaghan became a billionaire competing there.
When Sir Richard Branson launched Virgin Atlantic his prime competitor, British Airways, had 90% market share and was losing money. The only other competitor was Freddie Laker, and he had just gone bust. Were airlines a good or bad market? Sir Richard made more than a billion dollars from Virgin Atlantic.
Now, Virgin America is launching service (see article here.) United has just emerged from protracted bankruptcy, while Delta and Northwest are on the brink. All the major national airlines (except Southwest) are claiming that fuel and labor costs are so high they can’t re-invest to upgrade their aging fleets. Meanwhile they are laying off workers, cutting customer services and on-time performance is declining as they struggle to fly planes. So is Sir Richard crazy? Are U.S. airlines a good or bad market?
Rupert Murdoch of News Corp. fame has just paid an enormous premium to purchase Dow Jones & Company (read article here). But investors have been bailing out of newspapers for 6 years. Knight-Ridder busted itself up selling its assets. Tribune Company is going private to try and cut additional costs. Subscriptions and advertising revenues have declined for 4 years as customers have left for internet news in droves. Is Murdoch crazy? Are newspapers a good or bad market?
Success in business is not about "good" or "bad" markets. Success requires understanding how to compete in the future. When customers have a demand, but old Success Formulas produce poor results it indicates an opportunity to make money. Just not using the old Success Formula. Virgin America will not be like United or American. It has a new approach to customers, and therefore it has a plan to operate a different Success Formula and make money. Likewise, News Corp intends to radically change the Wall Street Journal, including putting a lot more emphasis toward the on-line editions. If Murdoch successfully Disrupts Dow Jones, and invests in White Space to create a new Success Formula, he has a tremendous opportunity to make money. People want to fly in North America, and people want to read business news on this continent as well. The problem is that the existing management teams are so Locked-in to their Success Formulas that they accept lousy results as they do the same things day after day. These new competitors don’t need a "good market", they just need to apply new Success Formulas to these old markets.
The myth is that growing markets offer an easier place to compete. That growth creates more resources is true, but growth also attracts a lot more competitors. When you find a gold nugget, within minutes you’ll be surrounded by hundreds of additional prospectors. While the gold may be more available in that part of the stream, those trying to grab it are far more plentiful as well. No matter what the growth rate, high or not, returns go to those businesses that develop new Success Formulas which overcome market Challenges. And that is what we’re seeing at Virgin and News Corp. The leaders of these companies are not afraid of any market. And they have shown they can make money by building new Success Formulas that reap profits while Locked-in competitors stall and fail.
by Adam Hartung | Jul 24, 2007 | Defend & Extend, General, In the Swamp, Leadership, Lock-in
Wal-Mart has been stumped in finding a growth path for several years (see chart here). Once one of America’s fastests growing companies, Wal-Mart now trails Target, Kohl’s and JCPenney’s growth rates – and profit margins. Dropping prices only went so far with shoppers in a highly competitive retail marketplace – as merchandise selection, store ambiance and store personnel also contribute to the selection of where to spend our money.
Nonetheless, Wal-mart keeps plugging away at doing the same old thing. Never one to recognize a Challenge to its out of date Success Formula, Wal-Mart maintains its Lock-in to "low price" as the only tool for competition. They demonstrated that they would even fire any executive with the nerve to try changing the merchandise mix when they publicly humiliated the last VP of Marketing while giving her the heave-ho. Last Christmas they tried cutting prices to drive revenue, only to be met with yawns by shoppers.
So, what is Wal-Mart doing now? According to CNNMoney.com (see article here), they are….. take a guess…… cutting prices (cymbal crash heard in the distance). Another 16,000 items are intended to see the scalpel applied, with even deeper discounting than in the previous holiday season. We know for sure that will cut further into margins. Whether it will drive same store sales growth….. well….. it hasn’t worked for the last 6 years.
A slave to its Lock-in Wal-Mart follows the adage "if at first (or second, or 65th time) you don’t succeed, try, try again." But successful businesses know that in a dynamic marketplace that strategy is death. The better phrase would be "If at first you don’t succeed, learn something from what you did and try a different tack." But that would require Wal-Mart be willing to Disrupt itself and use White Space to find new solutions. And that seems to be the one thing Wal-Mart’s leaders are completely unwilling to consider.
by Adam Hartung | Jun 30, 2007 | General, Leadership, Lifecycle
I was in a heated argument this week with a stock broker. His claim was that all anyone should care about is earnings. I told him that was not true. In fact, what is most important to investors is the business growth which can lead to future cash flow.
Take WalMart for example. The company has continued to grow it’s EPS the last few years, but the stock has been mired in a trading range over the same period (see chart here). Why doesn’t WalMart stock price go up with earnings? Why does the price/earnings multiple decline? Because investors are very unsure how the existing management team will ever grow the business as it previously did, given that efforts to expand in Europe, South America and China have fallen flat. Wal-Mart is now trying to cut costs and buy back its stock in an effort to dress up earnings per share, but investors aren’t fooled as they see all the problems WalMart has faced and how the company’s old Success Formula simply isn’t as competitive any longer.
Or take a look at Tribune Company (see chart here). Just a few months ago Tribune announced it was repurchasing all its equity via a Sam Zell led leveraged buy-out, But recently the stock has fallen below the repurchase price. Investors have been made aware of how the management team manipulated earnings and cash flow last year to "dress up the pig" for market, and there is now risk if the bonds can be sold to generate the cash to buy the remaining stock (see article here.) When there is no growth in the business, such as the no growth scenario at Tribune, even debt investors realize that they cannot expect a return on their investment.
Just a week ago I quoted in this blog a Merrill Lynch daily report by David Rosenberg to be careful and not confuse financial re-engineering with business building. Rosenberg went on to quote the New York Times this week "a raft of bond offerings for recently announced deals… have been scaled back after facing resistance from investors." And "the term ‘loan covenants’ is making its way back into the investment lexicon." (see source here page 2.) Within two days Rosenberg said "there was supposed to be a $250bln corporate bond pipeline in the next few months to fund all these deals that have been announced, but in a sign this is no longer an ‘issuers market’, many are being scaled back or postponed" (see source here, page 3).
If you don’t keep growing your business, your value cannot grow. No matter if you are public, or want to be private. You must have a Success Formula that meets competitive customer needs and keeps you in the Rapids. You can’t count on unthinking debt investors to give you money, hoping you will let them "clip coupons" as you lazily sit in the Flats. Investors are wisening up, and realizing that you have to keep your business in the Rapids of business growth to create value – or you quickly lose value. And no one wants to be stuck in a ship without a current of growth pushing it.
by Adam Hartung | Jun 11, 2007 | Defend & Extend, General, In the Swamp, Leadership, Lock-in
My last email on WalMart prompted a comment from Barney. He asked my opinion of the 5-year, 10-year and 30-year prospects for Wal-Mart. Great question, worthy of a response to all readers.
The longer out the timeline, the more bearish I am. Strategy sees its results long-term rather than short-term, so given more time the impact becomes more evident. Predicting share prices short-term is hard, even for stock traders and mutual fund managers. But WalMart is definitely NOT a long-term buy-and-hold investment.
Five years out I believe Wal-Mart will be in a similar situation to today, but much more defensive about itself. The years of external attack will wear away the veneer and some of the barbs will lead to noticable wounds. The company will not succeed internationally, nor will the company substantially increase any new businesses. The traditional WalMart and Sam’s Club same same stores sales will not keep up with inflation, and new store growth will diminish (as management has said they intend). Management will waiver between investing in trying to maintain share, via ongoing lurches into price wars, and buying company equity stock in order to defend itself from investor attacks. There will be some ups and downs for the stock price, but it will not keep up with the market. Although WalMart will still be America’s largest retailer, it will not be competitively advantaged.
Ten years out WalMart will have taken a dramatic act, or two, to try and further Defend & Extend its Success Formula. It will start using cash to make acquisitions, in an effort to find some "retail synergy". It will buy into some area where it claims it can use its "core competency" in volume and supply chain to better serve customers – like furniture retailing. It will probably try to do something dramatic on the internet, albeit more than a decade late, like purchasing NetFlix, or Amazon, in hopes of re-positioning itself. But there will be no synergy, nor any value creation. Just lots of confusion for investors. And the company value will, again, not keep up with the economy or the market. It will have become a perennial also-ran investment.
Thirty years out, WalMart is today what General Motors was in 1977. People will talk about what once was a great company. WalMart will be trying to use size to defend itself, but finding that impossible as better competitors match WalMart’s skills with additional benefits.
WalMart is horribly Locked-in, with no signs of a meaningful Disruption on the horizon. Senior leadership is taking the opposite actions, buying back stock and otherwise using cash in efforts to Defend & Extend its outdated Success Formula. WalMart is in the Swamp, and it will stay stuck in the still water until something negative happens that pulls it toward the Whirlpool. WalMart will find lots of great retail companies there – in the Whirlpool – Woolworth’s, Montgomery Wards, S.S. Kresge, TG&Y and of course Sears and KMart.
by Adam Hartung | May 29, 2007 | General, Lifecycle
Last week Coca Cola (see chart here) announced it was ponying up over $4 billion to buy Glaceau, a company with only $355 million in revenue (see PR announcement here, see article here). Rarely are such lofty prices paid for a company not in high tech, so investors have to wonder if Glaceau is worth it. After all, Glaceau’s products are just another form of flavored water – in this case vitamin enriched water and energy drinks.
There are two criteria which determine if the price is right on this acquisition. Firstly, where is Glaceau and its products in the life cycle? If late in the cycle, then such a premium is not warranted. But if you believe that these are a new category of drink, and that this category will have rapid growth by eating into plain water, traditional sodas and possibly sport drinks you could claim that these products are just at the beginning of their lifecycle. And this is critical. Coke has had practically no White Space, so the company has nothing early in the lifecycle. Organically, Coke could spend years trying to develop something on its own, and who knows if they could pull it off. If you believe that Energy Brands have the potential to grow like sports drinks, then this price will look absolutely cheap in just a few years.
The second criteria is how will Coke manage this acquisition? Should Coke decide to buy the company and integrate its products and marketing into Coke then this would be just $4 billion thrown down the proverbial rat hole. The Coke Success Formula is so powerful around traditional soft drinks it would kill the learning necessary to grow a new Success Formula and develop this new market. As we can read in the press release, Coke has chosen to keep Glaceau as a completely separate business unit, and the existing management team has been given 3 year contracts to stay and run the business. In a nutshell, Coke is setting up White Space for Glaceau, and that dramatically improves the chances of the acquisition fulfilling its potential and value.
If Coke can follow through on allowing Glaceau to develop its new market, this could be an important turning point for the moribund Coke organization. Glaceau could develop a new Success Formula which Coke could migrate toward. Revenue could regain old growth rates, and margins could improve as focus shifts to innovation rather price wars. Big companies need new businesses which are early in the Rapids – not just a lot of Wellspring ideas. They need to catch waves early, give the new business White Space (money and permission to try new things) and then learn how to migrate forward. And Glaceau could be just the right acquisition for Coke. If Glaceau can help migrate Coke forward, and out of it’s Locked-in ways, then $4.1 billion was not too much to pay at all.
by Adam Hartung | May 21, 2007 | General, In the Rapids, Leadership, Openness
In January of this year I blogged about the White Space prevalent in the highly Disruptive Virgin culture. Sir Richard Branson has built an empire from small beginnings by constantly Disrupting his organization and creating White Space. Many high paying jobs have been created, and lots of money made for investors, due to this Phoenix Principle culture.
But there can be a definite downside if a Phoenix Principle culture is not managed well. Disruptions and White Space can be opportunities to overspend, and overinvest, leading to losses and failure. White Space is not child’s play. It is where new Success Formulas are formed via the crucible of competition. It is critical that managers in these environments have their "feet held to the fire" to produce results. Otherwise, cash flow is negative and profits never materialize. That’s bad news.
All businesses need a mix of Explorers and Stabilizers. Explorers usually become in short supply in Locked-in cultures, because optimization of the old Success Formula says that these kinds of managers are unnecessary. So Locked-in companies have to recruit Explorers to identify and create Disruptions, and then to have the skills for managing the creation of a new Success Formula.
White Space companies, and projects, need Stabilizers as well. Activities need to be disciplined and directed toward managing for cash flow and profit in the Rapids. As we saw all too well in the 1990s internet boom, too many Explorers make short shrift of these requirements, and their businesses simply flame out.
And that risk is now at Virgin Media. Using clever planning and intense hard work, Virgin Media has built itself into a large and powerful company that delivers mobile phone service, land-line service, internet service and satellite television service across Europe and other parts of the world. The company has made several growth-oriented acquisitions in the process, and those acquisitions have saddled the company with a huge debt load (see article here). This is big trouble for a business in the media game, because assets are not long-lived. So the debt payments go on after the technology needs to change – sucking up cash that should be used for changes and growth. Virgin Media is now losing money, and forced to make debt payments, while its primary competitors (the Murdoch-controlled Sky and British Telecom) are in far healthier financial shape. This is a risky situation, that may require someone buy out Virgin Media or it risks a precipitous decline that will be bad for Virgin as well as its investors, suppliers, employees and customers.
In the headlong rush to grow at Virgin Media, the managers may have been short a sufficient number of Stabilizers. The Explorers, which are sure to be popular in the Virgin culture, have been allowed to push the company growth. But now the entire Virgin Media organization is at risk. If there had been a more balanced management, with more Stabilizers, it is very likely the company would be in better financial shape and more competitive.
Everyone loves a party. And we all want to have a good time. But, if someone gets drunk the party can come to a crashing, unpleasant end. White Space can not be run like a party. It is a business. And if there aren’t Stabilizers around to control the consumption of resources, then the White Space business can find itself crashing.
by Adam Hartung | May 12, 2007 | Defend & Extend, General, In the Swamp, Leadership, Lock-in
On May 5 the rumor hit the newspapers that Microsoft was considering buying Yahoo (see article here). Both companies insisted this rumor was unfounded. Then, on May 10 it was reported that Microsoft bought a 4% stake in CareerBuilder (see article here), competitor of Monster and Yahoo! HotJobs, for an undisclosed sum. These reports drive home the differing viewpoints between investors, who want White Space to drive value, and management, that wants to Defend & Extend the past.
Microsoft built its empire upon a Success Formula as a near monopoly. Systematically and effectively Microsoft first dominated the market for small computer operating systems with MS-DOS. They leveraged that knowledge and kept the company in the Rapids with the hugely successful Windows operating system. Then they overwhelmed all competitors making their suite of personal automation products (Word, Excel and Powerpoint supported with the Access database and a slew of supporting free products such as Internet Explorer and Outlook) a near monopoly as well. This Success Formula of building a totally dominant position in software products for PCs now dominates all decision-making.
Unfortunately, the market for personal computers no longer has the high growth rate it once did. Customers don’t feel compelled to purchase upgrades, as the recently released Vista has shown. Instead, they are doing more with other tools such as PDAs, mobile phones and even MP3 players. Additionally, the growth in PC usage has turned much more to internet environments such as search and entertainment (such as Google and YouTube) rather than the PC as a personal productivity tool. But Microsoft’s Lock-in to their old Success Formula has kept them out of these new markets.
Investors look at the slower growth and huge cash pool at Microsoft and long for the company to find new White Space. Yahoo! would be large enough and in a market with enough growth to actually represent an opportunity for Microsoft to move from its low-growth Swamp back into the high-growth Rapids. So investors are pushing the company to make moves to create and fund White Space to drive future value enhancement.
But Microsoft is so Locked-in it shows no inclination to take such a move. Dabbling into a segment such as career tools keeps the investment very low. Four percent of CareerBuilder in no way Challenges the Lock-in, and does not offer an opportunity to create a new Success Formula. By making this investment Microsoft tells investors "we have no intention of addressing new Market Challenges. We intend to remain Locked-in and hope Vista will someday give us the kind of growth we used to obtain from such new releases."
Investors will remain disappointed with Microsoft. But management, which is insulated from external investors by the large holdings of Bill Gates and its extremely large market capitalization, can ignore this disappointment. And by overlooking the White Space opportunities in favor of near meaningless small investments management signals investors the company has no intention of doing anything different any time soon.
Which should make the executives at Google extremely happy!
by Adam Hartung | May 7, 2007 | General, In the Swamp, Leadership, Lock-in
Eddie Lampert has finished yet another year at the helm of Sears Holdings. And during that time he’s proven he can cut costs. He hasn’t proven he can make money – even by selling assets. The stock remains highly priced largely on the belief he’s building a war chest to do great hedge fund deals, but so far he’s not demonstrated Sears and KMart give him the resources to pull that off. Instead of looking like Warren Buffet, his idle who turned a worn out textile company named into Berkshire Hathaway into a tremendous investment vehicle, Mr. Lampert looks more like the captain of the Titanic who kept up reassurances until imminent peril took down the ship.
Mr. Lampert was once a banker, and he’s never one to ignore the opportunities for financial machinations. Sears most recent quarterly financials show a profit. But all of that was engineered from one-time items like dividends from Sears Mexico and gains off a legal settlement with Sears Canada (see article here). Meanwhile, sales at stores open a year turned out another decline – this time of nearly 5%. Quarter by quarter Sears stores keep selling less and less. And more stores are closed. And the cash current is getting thinner and thinner.
Mr. Lampert closed the investor relations department. So to know what’s going on is opaque, to say the least. At the recent annual meeting he declared that his plan is to rebuild the Sears and KMart brands (see article here). After practically killing the previous ad budget, he intends to start new ad campaigns (although the budgets were not revealed.) His plan, or should I say hope, is that by "positioning" Sears and KMart he can improve performance. Yet, he’s said nothing about why WalMart, Target, Kohl’s, JCPenney, Loews and Home Depot would roll over and let him start eating into their market shares.
Mr. Lampert would like to make some acquisitions. But the problem is that 2007 is not 1977. Mr. Buffet started Berkshire Hathaway when the world of deal-making was still pretty small. There weren’t dozens of multi-billion dollar hedge funds with ample resources chasing every imaginable deal. Bershire Hathaway was able to pick and choose its deals, using very conservative financial analysis when valuing investments. Today, only the most aggressive investors become buyers, and that means paying a pretty price for those acquisitions. So Sears Holdings can’t generate enough cash to play into the huge deals, and the competition is so intense on smaller deals that none can be had. Mr. Lampert is reluctantly being drug into trying to keep Sears and KMart alive, but he has no idea how to do that.
Sears and KMart were companies in trouble when purchased by Mr. Lampert. But he never Disrupted them. He never set up White Space. Instead, he tried to milk them of their cash in order to buy other companies, and he’s proven he can’t do that well. So he keeps trying to string along the company another quarter, but meanwhile competitors are pounding away at the weaknesses of a company with no viable value proposition. And as a result, Sears Holdings drifts closer toward the Whirlpool.
