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"That would be an enormous step forward, that students
at the Wharton School would have a choice of graduating
with a (focus on) retailing," Baker says. "I think when you
look at just two years, we've made incredible progress."
Hoch says Wharton is uniquely positioned to meet
Baker's goals because of the divergent talent of the School's
marketing faculty, talent capable of studying the entire supply
chain, from sourcing products in manufacturing to getting
them to market to retail sales.
"We have people interested in pricing, in assortment, in
the supply chain. There is no other school that has that kind
of depth," Hoch says.
Already the initiative is starting to act as a hub to bring
these divergent groups together.
The advisory board membership list reads like a
"Who's Who" of retail. It includes high-ranking officers
from Williams-Sonoma, Safeway Inc., The Home Depot,
J.C. Penney and Company, Tiffany & Co., Federated
Department Stores, The Gap, Neiman Marcus Group Inc.
and Walgreen's Co., just to name a few. The group is chaired
by Baker, who remains a director of Kohl's Corp., after serving
13 years as its president.
Cody says the first thing Baker, Hoch and he did in setting
up the Initiative was to look across a broad range of the retail
spectrum—at apparel, grocery, department and home stores,
etc.—and then put together a wish list of companies and/or
executives who would be valuable to work with. It worked.
"We have some really terrific people," Baker says. "We've
had many of them speak to students. It has been a rewarding
experience both for them and for the students."
"We have developed some good ties to retailers through
our advisory board," Hoch adds. "We have been able to open
up some doors for potential access to either problems or data
useful in furthering people's research."
He cites the advisory board's annual meeting this past
January as evidence.
During that meeting,
marketing professor
David R. Bell presented
research he co-authored on the rise of
company-owned retail
outlets that compete
with independent retailers
who carry the
company brand. For
example, businesses like Liz Claiborne, Inc. and Polo Ralph
Lauren Corp. now operate stores dedicated solely to their
brands. Right down the road from those stores are often
department stores that carry Claiborne and Polo brands.
Why? Because manufacturers get more control over the way
consumers encounter the product and the independently
owned stores carrying the brands benefit from brand support
supplied by the manufacturer.
Bell and his colleagues found that prices for goods sold at
company-owned stores and at independently owned stores
are higher than when the same goods are sold at independently
owned stores alone. They also looked at conditions
under which "demand at the company store complements or
substitutes demand at the independent stores," according to
their paper on the subject.
The Initiative's next big step is to award research funding
for qualified faculty projects. Before the end of this year,
Hoch, Cody and co-faculty director Louis Stern, WG'59,
will help choose recipients for somewhere between $50,000
and $100,000 in grant money.
In some cases, successful research proposals may come
directly from the Initiative's advisory board members. Hoch
says he's looking forward to talking with many of them
about company data they might consider making available to
Wharton professors. "There's a lot of data out there and we
have all sorts of high-powered analysts...That's exciting."
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