Hardware Retailing The Industry's Source for Insights and Information
Minneapolis-based Target Corp. has announced the coming departure of one of its top executives, after the retailer’s leadership team decided to abandon multiple tech innovation projects.
On April 27, Target CEO Brian Cornell publicized the exit of chief strategy and innovation officer Casey Carl in an email to headquarters employees, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports. Carl is scheduled to leave the company May 5, according to the Star Tribune article.
Since the time Cornell took over as CEO in 2014, only two of 11 executives on the senior leadership team are the same, the article says. Cornell had promoted Carl to the role he is leaving.
“When you get a new CEO, you expect a lot of turnover,” Brian Yarbrough, an analyst with Edward Jones, says in the article. “But this is a lot of turnover. And some of these people are people [Cornell] promoted or brought on board. So you have to wonder if he’s not feeling some pressure.”
Disappointing 2016 holiday sales and stiff competition from Amazon and Walmart have pushed Target to shift its focus away from investing in some of the futuristic projects Carl oversaw, such as a store with robots, to lowering prices, remodeling stores and launching or refreshing Target-owned brands, the article says.
Moving away from some of its technology projects allows Target to keep its core business as its primary focus, the Star Tribune says.
“I think this makes sense,” retail expert Leon Nicholas says in the article. “I’m disappointed like everybody else because it does indicate that Target is more present-focused than future-focused, but I don’t necessarily see that as a bad thing.”
