1. While all brick and mortar retailers faced the threat of Amazon and online shopping in general, why did JC Penney perform so poorly while other retailers like Target, Best Buy and Walmart fared much better?
2. Ron Johnson was a start executive at Apple before he came to JC Penny as CEO. At JCP he applied the "Apple playbook" moving JC Penney toward the higher end of the market and going with hunches, rather than applying more traditional decision-making. Why did his attempt to change JC Penney's strategic position from cost-leadership to a blue ocean strategy fail so spectacularly? What are the key lessons from this failure?
3. As a strategy consultant to the new CEL Jill Soltau, what recommendations would you give her? What type of business strategy would you want JCP to pursue and what changes would you recommend?