Charles & Keith
Brothers Charles and Keith Wong sure understand women’s fetish for shoes and handbags. Give any girl one of these – or better yet both – and you’re guaranteed a smile plastered on her face.
Leveraging on women’s incessant desire to own stylish shoes and accessories, Charles and Keith opened their first store in 1996 and has more than 350 stores worldwide. This fast fashion brand is famous for stocking chic pieces and updating 20-30 contemporary designs in their stores weekly.
Case Study Retrieved from: “The Smart Local Singapore – 20 brands you never knew from Singapore” (2014). Bay, Denise, 30 Dec 2014. https://thesmartlocal.com/read/singapore- companies
The Task:
Based on your learnings within this module, complete the following task:
1. Critically evaluate Charles & Keith’s business strategy and how it managed to outperform others in a challenging industry during the last decade.
2. Critically analyze how Charles & Keith had managed to successfully stay ahead and in doing so, briefly outline how the International Business Environment in Singapore has evolved and how that had impacted the fashion industry.
3. After your critical analysis, recommend international strategies that Charles & Keith should pursue in order to maintain / improve its market position and justify your recommendations.
4. Students are highly advised to use Porter’s five forces when analyzing and from the analysis, come out with recommendations on how Charles & Keith can retain its current market share and at the same time expand into different markets globally.
Outline:
1. Introduction (Their current situational analysis, how many countries that they are in, revenue they make per year, how many product lines) -> Introduce the country that will be discussed in the paper is the new country that Charles and Keith should enter) – 20 marks
2. (Any business framework to analyze such as SWOT or PESTEL) – 20 marks
3. Porter 5 Forces (Analyze how C&K compete within 5 factors in that new market, new country) – 30 marks
4. Recommend Entry Strategy to enter to that new market (Identify the country to know which business strategy is suitable for C&K to apply) – 20 marks
5. Conclusion – 5 marks
6. Reference: Harvard Referencing – 35 sources with at least 10 academic sources and at least 15 journal. – 5 marks
The new market should be: Australia or USA or USA or UK. You may choose another country you want. But make sure that those are the countries that Charles and Keith doesn’t have existing outlet and have information to work on.