TJX Maxx was founded in 1976 by Bernard Cammarata, in Framingham Massachusetts. The original name of the company was Zayre until they sold their name and renamed themselves to the TJX Companies Incorporated. TJX is a retail store selling items like apparel, shoes, toys, furniture, and many other items. TJX has stores not only in the US, but also in the UK, Germany, Australia, Ireland, Austria, Poland and the Netherlands. Some of TJX Maxx’s largest competitors is JC Penny’s, Nordstrom and Isetan Holdings.
If we are talking about TJX competition, companies like JCPenney and Nordstrom are not nearly as uccessful as TJX has been lately. Looking at quick SWOT analysis written by Nwalozie, Co some of their biggest opportunities are, “Disposable income is increasing of the customers, tapping the international market specially emerging economies, acquisition of smaller retail chains and more visibility through advertising and customer focused services. ” Some threats to TJX Maxx are things like, “Economic fluctuations and government policies, inventory issues can be a problem and expanding competition and entry of new players.
B. Governmental Action For a long time TJX never had a “run-in” with the government, ut that all changed in 2007. In short, the company had a data breach that affect over 45. 6 million customers. The hackers were able to steal information from TJX over a 18 month period, without them noticing. Along with credit cards being hacked, the hackers also gained information “in connection with the return of merchandise without receipts by about 451,000 individuals in 2003 was also stolen” (FTC. gov).
With a data breach of this size it was inevitable that the government had to get involved. TJX had to report immediately to the US Securities and Exchange Commissions. TJX had clearly iolated federal guidelines set forth by The Federal Trade Commissions. In this case TJX did not follow these guidelines set forth and they did not follow the guidelines on how to and when to report these breach’s to The Federal Trade Commission. Some of the laws the TJX is now dealing with because of the breach is a serious inquisition from the US Securities and Exchange Commissions.
The political challenges for TJX companies is the biggest backlash from Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley, who stated, “This requires a settlement that ensures companies cannot write-off the risk of a ata breach as a cost of doing business. ” What this means potentially for the TJX companies, is a large settlement. Along with a large settlement TJX is not getting added pressure from the government and impending investigations. Another factor to keep in mind when we are talking political effects, this does not just stop at the US Government, “eleven people from U. S, Ukraine, Estonia, Belarus and China have been charged for their roles in the hack, which involved penetrating the company’s wireless network at various weak spots and intercepting unencrypted credit card data. ”
C. Organization and Teams TJX like many large corporation are broken down by their teams which they refer to as governance. Of this team you have, the executive committee, executive compensation committee, audit committee, finance committee and corporate governance committee.
According to their corporate governance they claim, “As part of our governance practices, we are committed to high standards of ethics, which are reflected in our Associate Global Code of Conduct, Code of Ethics for TJX Executives, Director Code of Business Conduct and Ethics, and Corporate Governance Principles. ” For their government regulations they ave a whole section in their TJX Global Code of Conduct. They specifically talk about a few different things. Some topics that apply here are fair dealings, anti-corruptions laws, interaction with government, and political activities and contributions.
Some interesting takeaways from this Code of Conduct, “TJX does not make direct contributions of corporate funds to candidates or political parties. Use of Company funds or resources for political advocacy is to be limited and must be approved by our CEO, CFO, or General Counsel in accordance with internal procedures. Any such advocacy is overseen by the Corporate Governance Committee of our Board of Directors. ” With a code of conduct that does not allow direct contributions to fund political parties, means that in this particular dilemma the company may not have political protection.
Their current website doesn’t hold much information in regards to how TJX deals with political agendas. Their simple statement is, “We are truthful and straightforward in our dealings with government entities. We deal honestly and fairly with all government representatives and law enforcement agents. We comply with valid governmental requests and demands for information” (TJX. com). There is no “past” for the TJX companies really to deal with, this is the first major run in with government for the company. How it moves forward truly will define what the company is capable of.
D. Stakeholders: Describe the company’s internal and external stakeholders. The internal stakeholders for TJX company’s are all of those individual within the organization. Such as, employees, owners, board of directors, managers and investors. As covered above TJX has rules and regulation’s for it’s internal stakeholders. They do not donate to any political agenda. But they do make sure to stated, ” TJX values the right nd responsibility of Associates to participate as private citizens in political and governmental affairs. Any decisions about whether to be involved are personal and voluntary.
You may not pressure or coerce another Associate to make an individual contribution to a political campaign” (TJX. com). As for the actions of the internal stakeholders, this does not affect the business interest and every is free to act on their own affair. The external stakeholders for TJX company’s include suppliers, customers, creditors, and even the government. This external stakeholders is really where the influence on the political interest affects TJX. The security breach affected it’s external stakeholders in a way that has never been seen before.
Customers, creditors and the government were outraged to hear about the monumental security breach. That the demanded political action and the Security and Exchange Commissions started mandating states to have Data Breach Laws. California already had laws in place since 2002, but this TJX breach really got the government on the forefront of Data Breach Laws. After the breach, “The Massachusetts security breach and data destruction law and security regulations are considered to “constitute one of the ost comprehensive sets of general security regulations yet seen at the state level.. And] are clearly modeled after aspects of developing data security law at the federal level “(Berstein).
E. Current Environment Surprisingly the breach had very little effect on TJX sales overall. Even after the new first broke about the breach and the offical numbers were released, TJX did not see an affect on it’s current sales. Customer’s still went to the stores, T. J. Maxx and Homegoods did not see a dip. The current environment of the TJX franchise is as is, the fourth quarter fiscal earnings for 2016 f 93 centers per share, this is an increase of about 15%.
Sales are at a steady increase of about 6. 5% year over year to 8. 5 billion. Zack’s investment firm states, “We are encouraged by the company s strong fundamentals and strategic initiatives to improve its retail business in North America, Europe and Canada. Moreover, we commend the company s focus on e- Commerce and aggressive marketing strategies. The company s low-priced products work well in the challenging macroeconomic environment. However, rising input costs and lack of international presence prompt us to remain on the sidelines” (Zacks. com).
