Application of John Kotter’s theory on Borders In the 1990’s, Borders was a top bookselling company that was dominating the market with its competitor, together holding more than 40% of the market share. However, the company soon embarked on an unbelievable series of missteps that led to its collapse. In this paper, the different factors that caused Borders to liquidate 511 stores in the US before going out of business will be discussed. Then, solutions that could have been implemented to prevent this catastrophe will be proposed. Methodology This is no easy task as it requires systematic identification of the most fundamental areas that need to be changed while at the same time overcoming the potential obstacles that are common when dealing …show more content…
From this, a business plan is formulated and solutions are provided. These will be outlined in this section. The first issue is that the company has opened too many stores and almost all of them are competing with a local Barnes & Noble’s. This situation can be remedied by making it clear to everyone in the company that no physical stores should be opened anymore. Also, it would be wise to find ways to close existing stores without affecting the profit margin significantly. Another detrimental factor to the company’s success is that they are too reluctant to engage in selling their products online. This should be stopped and Border should only sell its products through its own website. They should invest in social media marketing and search engine optimization to get as much exposure as possible. They do not realize the potential of creating their own digital reader. In fact, almost no one knew that they were selling their products on Kobo and Cruz, which were practically non-existent platforms at that time. They should have started do develop their own device as soon as Amazon proved that it was profitable