Can Target’s New CEO Get The Company Back On Course?

In their first public discussion with analysts since CEO Gregg Steinhafel stepped down suddenly two weeks ago, Target will be discussing its first quarter earnings report, scheduled to be released Wednesday. CFO John Mulligan is has taken over as interim CEO and will be discussing the company’s performance in the wake of the holiday hack that left millions of customers’ data exposed.

“The retailer now has to deal with the sustainability of its franchise domestically, where momentum has stalled as the business lacks a clear merchandising strategy,” Michael Exstein, retail analyst at Credit Suisse in New York told the Globe and Mail.

Target’s numbers are expected to have taken a hit during Q1 2014, analysts are predicting that profit-per-share will fall more than 6 percent to 73 cents (U from this time last year.

In a post on the company’s blog, Mulligan wrote “he was not “not simply keeping the ship afloat. We need to accelerate our growth and that means we all have to move faster and empower the people around us to do the same.”

Apart from concerns about security, Target also faces concerns such as lagging e-commerce development in a world where shopping is moving increasingly online, and low inventory levels.

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