When Target Missed the Target: All Time Strategy Trap Fail #9
In 2013, Target stormed into Canada with the confidence you’d expect from one of America’s most beloved retailers. They opened more than 100 stores in a single year.
Canadians were eager. Surveys showed 52% were excited about the launch.
But when the doors opened, the dream collapsed. Shelves were half-empty. Prices felt higher than promised. On opening day, some stores even hung signs out front that read: "We're open (mostly)."
Behind the scenes, it was "data hell". Warehouses overflowed with products nobody wanted, while stores sat empty of the essentials. By 2015, just two years after opening, Target pulled out at a total loss of about $5 billion.
The Vision Made Sense Target’s brand was strong. Its quick expansion was fueled by the acquisition of 189 Zellers leases. All they had to do was renovate, stock the shelves, and open the doors.
The Trap: The Immovable Date Inside headquarters, frustration grew. Data errors were everywhere; dimensions entered in inches instead of centimeters, shoes classified like electronics. Warehouses had too much of what nobody wanted and none of what they did.
One employee described it as “data hell.” Store managers stopped trusting the system. Deliveries didn’t match demand.
By fall, hundreds of employees gathered for a town hall. Tony Fisher, Target Canada’s president, promised progress, but everyone knew the truth. “Nobody wanted to be the one person who stopped the Canadian venture,” one former employee later said. “It was just a constant elephant in the room.”
The stores kept opening. The problems multiplied. By 2015, Target admitted defeat and shut it all down..
The Way Out: How the Six Cs Would Have Helped Target Canada didn't fail because of the market; they failed because they ignored the conditions for execution. While there were likely issues across all six Cs, a couple stand out:
Capacity: Applying Capacity would have forced a staggered rollout. Instead of a "Big Bang" launch, the framework would have dictated opening 10 test stores first. This would have allowed the supply chain to iterate and stabilize before taking on the weight of 124 locations.
Communication: A proper Communication protocol would have turned those daily meetings into decision points. Instead of ignoring the "bad news," leadership would have used that data to trigger a "stop" on the launch until the "data hell" was resolved.
The Lesson: You cannot speed up the harvest by rushing the planting. Ask yourself: Is my deadline driving the strategy, or is the strategy driving the deadline?
Master the Six Cs These stories are just the warning signs. The solution is the system. You can learn exactly how to apply Co-creation, Capacity, Clarity, Communication, Coordination, and Coaching in my upcoming book, The Strategy Trap.
Pre-order from your favorite bookseller at TheStrategyTrap.com
Next Week: Failure #8. We look at a group of pioneers who thought they found a shortcut, only to find a trap.
