GAP INC, A Case Study

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Gap Inc. is a leading international specialty retailer offering clothing, accessories and personal care products for men, women, children and babies under the Gap, Banana Republic, and Old Navy brand names. There are four brand names included in Gap: Gap, GapKids, BabyGap, and GapBody. There are worldwide Gap headquarters in the San Francisco Bay Area, product development offices in New York City and distribution operations and offices coordinating sourcing activities around the globe (www.gapataglance.com).

Today there are more than 4,200 stores worldwide in operation by Gap Inc. If you are out of the country and want to shop Gap Inc., there are five countries outside of the United States: Canada, France, Japan, Germany and the United Kingdom. Banana Republic and Old Navy are only located in the United States and Canada. Gap Inc. employs about 165,000 people (www.gapataglance.com). You can receive your product within seven to ten days or you can receive overnight shipping (www.gap.com).

The President and CEO of Gap Inc. is Paul Pessler (www.gapataglance.com).

Donald and Doris Fisher founded Gap Inc. in 1969, in San Francisco, California. Gap Inc. was originally a single store with only a handful of employees. They opened their jeans-only store the Gap, after "the generation gap," and concentrated on selling Levi's jeans. The Fisher's were focusing mainly on the teenage generation, and they continued expanding throughout the 1970's, and began making their own private-label clothing and accessories in 1974. The Fisher family hired a man by the name of Millard "Mickey" Drexler, in 1983. At the time when he joined the team, the Gap was "an undistinguished apparel chain" with sales over $480 million. He helped them make several profitable transactions (www.esm.ucsb.edu).

The purchase of Banana Republic in 1983, only led to Gap furthering their expansion. The company continued to grow in...