Change in Barnes & Noble and Borders Book Retailers

Change in Barnes & Noble and Borders Book Retailers

Introduction

Change management is a tough and challenging task and the companies should make sure that they work in order to manage the change in positive manner. This will help the companies in ensuring that they work and help the company to grow and succeed (Merrell, 2012). Change management is important in today's dynamic business environment. This paper will focus on the change that occurred in two companies, Barnes & Noble and Borders, which are the largest in their respective industry.

Discussion

Companies

Barnes & Noble is the largest book retailer in the United States industry. The company has 705 stores (as of 2011) in the United States. It is owned by Leonard Riggio, a smart entrepreneur who has made the company what it is today. He took over the company in 1971 and since then has not looked back.

Borders is another one of the largest book retailers, and has not liquidated. The company had 511 stores in the United States (as of 2009). The company had international presence and was present in countries such as New Zealand, Australia and Singapore. The company liquidated in 2011 and was unable to find a buyer before the deadline of its bidding. Later in 2011, the customer list of Borders and its trademarks were bought by Barnes & Noble and customers visiting Borders' website were redirected to the website of Barnes & Noble.

Change

With the change in the way things are being carried out in the world today and how people are performing their activities, Barnes & Noble was lacking. Amazon, one of the biggest competitors of Barnes & Noble was ahead of it in this aspect. With the introduction of the concept of e-books, Amazon had launched Amazon Kindle which helped the readers to download, browse and read books on it. Customers do not have to go through the hassle of going to the store and buying the book they want. With respect to this change, Barnes & Noble had nothing to offer to its customers. With the changing trend, more and more customers were moving towards e-books, which is why, Barnes & Noble was losing business. It had to ensure that it comes up with a strategy that will help the customers in getting e-books. This change came when the company decided to launch 'The Nook' - an e-book reader. The change was further supported by Microsoft when it decided to invest in the e-book reader. This helped Barnes & Noble in incorporating the best software in its tablet and providing the customer with the best reading experience.

On the other hand, Borders found it quite hard to face the competition in the industry. The changes that were taking place were not in the company's favor and the company was finding it really hard to make sure that its business works out in the process. There is no doubt that the company tried really hard to avoid liquidation, but the changes ...