Sewell Avery was once the chairman of Montgomery Ward & Co. Avery was responsible for Ward’s failure to open a single new store from 1941 to 1957. Instead, the big retailer piled up cash and then sat on it. Ward’s amassed $607 million, earning them a dubious Wall Street nickname: “the bank with the department store front.” Why didn’t Avery join in the nation’s postwar expansion by following Americans to the suburbs? He held firmly to the belief and vision that a depression had followed every major war since the time of Napoleon. “Who am I to argue with history?” Avery demanded. “Why build $14-a-foot buildings when we soon can do it for $3-a-foot?”
On the other side of Chicago, Ward’s rival, Sears, Roebuck & Co., had a different idea. In 1946, Sears gambled its future and began a costly expansion into suburbia. Had another depression occurred, Sears would have been financially devastated. Instead, Sears doubled its revenues while Ward’s stood still. Sears never looked back, and Ward’s never caught up. In fact, Ward’s eventually went bankrupt. How could corporate planning go so wrong? Montgomery Ward’s fell into disaster because the company stood where it was instead of taking the risk to seize the opportunities of the future.
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Holwick: Sears ended up doing the same thing…