Mucha do about The Gap.

Finally The Gap woke up... It seems as if Gap executives just sat down to look at the numbers and realized that 28 out of the last 31 months the Gap experienced a decline in sales. They also noticed something very peculiar. The slump in Gap sales began ever since Paul Pressler, President and CEO of The Gap Inc. joined them in September of 2002. Hmmmmm.... They put 2 and 2 together and came up with a 14 million dollar goodbye present (Paul Pressler's severance package).

All I can say is wow, wow, wow, and wow! Does it really take this long to realize that something isn't working out? Especially when you have concrete information quarter after quarter...

Enough of my complaining. Here is my Gap solution:
1. Hire a CEO (Leadership) that has shown successful fashion retail experience.
2. Feature 1 designer per year to do a limited Gap line. If it worked for Target then it will work for The Gap. There is no point in reinventing the wheel.
3. Have a new advertising campaign, "celebrity families". The Gap Inc. is supposed to be a place where you shop for everyone in your family. I'm thinking Kelly Ripa and her family. Jessica Simpson and Ashlee Simpson commercials where they share clothes but both have different styles (same top different bottoms, etc...).
4. And lastly, The Gap needs to start cutting costs because they have been losing big and should do it by closing some retail stores. There is absolutely no need to have 12 Gap stores, 9 Banana Republic stores and 1 Old Navy store within a 7 mile radius. This is called over saturation (too much supply). They need to create some demand for the product.

The Gap doesn't need Goldman Sachs. The Gap needs ENID P. They just don't know it!!

ENID P. "Dare to Dream"