Retail TouchPoints (January 4)
Despite a strong holiday sales season, “a real department store turnaround will demand a lot of work.” 2018 will represent “a major ‘prove it’ period for department stores. The sector has taken quarterly sales hits for several years, forcing major players to shutter hundreds of stores, but early holiday numbers indicate these retailers have harnessed some positive momentum.”
Tags: Demand, Department stores, Holiday, Momentum, Retailers, Sales, Sales hits, Turnaround
Wall Street Journal (October 29)
Spain may be Europe’s “only real turnaround story in this crisis.” Growth looks poised to hit 1.3% for 2014. “The economy added 151,000 jobs, and unemployment fell 0.8 percentage points.” But Spain remains a qualified success. At 23.7%, the unemployment rate is “still a numbing figure, but well down from last year’s 26%.”
Tags: Crisis, Economy, Europe, Growth, Jobs, Spain, Turnaround, Unemployment
Wall Street Journal (August 7)
“The most striking fact about the recently announced sale of the Boston Globe and Washington Post is their low prices…. The prices reflect the decline of newspapers as a business in the Internet age, which is the kind of creative destruction millions of Americans have experienced. Disruption is the price a capitalist economy pays for innovation, and the news business is merely the latest example.” The new owners should be welcomed as they provide “an opportunity for new ideas and perhaps a turnaround.”
Tags: Boston Globe, Capitalism, Creative destruction, Decline, Disruption, Ideas, Innovation, Internet, Newspapers, Opportunity, Owners, Prices, Turnaround, Washington Post