Comments on: Karstadt: Death of a legend (business model)

By: Outlet Moncler

Outlet Moncler — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 08:46:36 +0000

The core of your writing while appearing reasonable in the beginning, did not sit perfectly with me personally after some time. Somewhere throughout the paragraphs you managed to make me a believer unfortunately just for a very short while. I nevertheless have a problem with your jumps in logic and you might do well to fill in those gaps. If you actually can accomplish that, I would surely be fascinated.

By: Can you copy business models and transfer them to successful clones? | Business Model Innovation

Thu, 14 Apr 2011 16:41:08 +0000

[...] why did Otto, the largest mail order house in Europe, not react? Or the now defunct QuelleKarstadt? Again it was the human factor of their traditional business model. If you are the king in the mail [...]

By: Business Modelling: Value Propositon vs. Value Perception | Business Model Innovation

Tue, 20 Apr 2010 16:45:24 +0000

[...] not do it, your business model will be another business model that bites the dust like Blogbuster, Karstadt, like Dell or other bad business models. Better be prepared and close the perception gap! var [...]

By: Thomas Middelhof or how to earn money with a bad business model | Business Model Innovation

Tue, 30 Mar 2010 17:49:25 +0000

[...] am following the Arcandor business case for a while and I have written about the failure to innovate its business model in the past. So a recent article of Süddeutsche on Arcandor grabed my [...]

By: How much trust and power can be handed over to external advicers or managers??? | ksenia - gagapost.com

Mon, 22 Mar 2010 17:26:43 +0000

[...] http://blog.business-model-innovation.com/2009/06/karstadt-death-of-a-legend-business-model/ [...]

By: debt video

debt video — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 18:06:31 +0000

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By: Changing financials, changing economics, retailing and business model innovations | Business Model Innovation

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 14:54:53 +0000

[...] receive a proposal like this. For the startups like Aldi the business case worked well. Today, Karstadt is bankrupt, and Aldi is the king of [...]

By: Stefan Heiden

Stefan Heiden — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 11:27:07 +0000

I think that the article is correct in the main part. According to the book “What would Google do?” by Jeff Jarvis ‘middlemen are doomed’. If you fail to concentrate on your customer and are not able to attract him you will fail for sure.

Innovation is essentiell and Karstadt failed at this point (not only with the business model).

Malls face strong competition from trading over the internet where you are able to avoid crowds, nasty people and dissatisfied cashiers.

Facing strong competition and being unable to change the business model made this ship sink.

Much more interesting question is if the company would have survived with a flexible strategy and an innovative business model?

By: Celina Simon

Celina Simon — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 19:54:05 +0000

Dear Patrick,

I really much agree on your point that the main reason for Quelle’s decline was to have missed the chance of innovation. But, I think for being innovative, you have to be aware of the need for innovation and therefore you have to have some slack time to distance yourself from the daily business. In my opinion, there have been some seriouse operational flaws that blocked the Quelle management from innovation or from being able to ask the three central questions. Only to name a few of the flaws: First of all Arcandor did not achieve to build synergies among buying departments timely, secondly they stopped to increase their marketing spendings after the phenomenal jubilee season 2002 and thirdly they had constant quarrels in the top management.
But how to prevent an organisation from getting lost in operational problems to keep the overview and the chance to be innovative??

By: Patrick Stähler

Patrick Stähler — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 15:16:25 +0000

@Bettina @Annika

Thanks for your comments. @Bettina, your are right that with hindsights it is easy to see what went wrong.

But even with foresight we can see certain characteristics in the field of strategizing. First, we are overconfindet about our future and our ability to predict the future. We believe that with market resarch (about past behavior) we can foresee the future. You find an interesting article by Charles Roxburgh from McKinsey at https://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/ghost.aspx?ID=/Strategy/Strategic_Thinking/Hidden_flaws_in_strategy_1288 Another great article about innovation killers in our resource allocation in firms you find with Clayton Christensen http://www.ascendcfo.com/pdfFiles/HBR-How%20Financial%20Tools%20Destroy%20Your%20Capacity%20to%20Do%20New%20Things.pdf