Gap Continued To Decline For Many Years, &Nbsp; CEO Was In A War.

Glenn Murphy, chief executive of GapInc., has five months to stop the Gap brand's declining performance for many years.

The first Gap store in San Francisco Ocean Avenue.

In the past ten years, Gap has been trying to reverse the decline, but with little success.

In recent months, Murphy has replaced the Gap brand global chief marketing director and chief designer, and now is fighting against the clock and is determined to get Gap sales back on track in the coming Christmas season.

Murphy said in his first interview since he took charge of the company in 2007, "my sense of urgency is much stronger than before."

In 2011, the company dismissed the chief designer and was anxious to see the result of the change in the year.

"The Gap brand is so important that we can't just watch the sales decline and not take any countermeasures."

With the advent of Christmas bell, the company's top priority is to solve a major problem:

The 49 year old has been praised for improving Gap's operation and raising profitability.

Gap also has two brands: Old Navy and Banana Republic.

However, he has not yet improved sales of Gap in nearly 1000 stores in the United States.

Since 2004, the annual sales of Gap have decreased by more than 1 billion 600 million US dollars, a decrease of 32%.

In May 19, 2011, Gap announced a profit report.

At the beginning of May, the company forecast sales slumping as of the end of April, with a sharp decline in profit margins.

Gap in the US retail apparel industry belongs to the middle end brand, but this part of the market is in a state of being out of date. It has been abandoned by consumers for many years, because customers either choose cheap public goods or pursue those luxury brands.

The Gap North America Division (GapNorthAmerica) has been shrinking and now accounts for only 1/4 of the company's total turnover.

However, Murphy needs the good operation of the North American division to provide support for its main big move, pushing Gap to overseas markets.

The product production cycle is too long as a swamp, let Murphy feel difficult.

As chief executive, Murphy has long been inculcate the importance of speed to his executives, aiming at reducing bureaucracy and making clothes faster to stores.

In 2010, Murphy found that a product designed and manufactured by the company in Losangeles denim lab was sent to a distribution center several hours away, and then shipped back to a trial store in Losangeles.

When Murphy went to tour, he said to the employees there, "what are you kidding?" he made several phone calls, abolished redundant pportation links, and asked the design team to "produce the clothes and then send them directly to the store."

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Although emphasizing the importance of change, Murphy has been insisting on not changing the chief designer Patrick Robinson over the past few years, even though all aspects of evidence are increasingly showing that Robinson can hardly copy the past successes to denim clothes - Gap reintroduced cowboy products in the autumn of 2009.

In May 2011, Murphy finally split up with Robinson, but the Gap store was already full of Robinson's design clothes. Due to the longer production cycle of the garments, the stores had no new products until the end of the year.

Gap is forced to replace its products before Christmas rush season, because Christmas sales account for 30% of the total annual sales.

Although Murphy admits that Gap's women's clothing has become "dull", he is unlikely to become an ideal candidate to help Gap get out of fashion predicament.

Gap former chief executive Milan de Mickey Drexler (Millard "Mickey" Drexler) has "

The Gap incumbent is not an industry expert, but a detail oriented enterprise operation manager.

Murphy has to break 15 pairs of shoes every year and travel several times a month, shuttling between the stores.

Every time Murphy goes on a business trip, the management of the company warns the new comers who are not familiar with the situation to take good food, because Murphy likes to eat while walking instead of going to the restaurant for lunch.

In the past more than 10 years, Gap has been satisfied with the launch of T-shirts and khaki products in the production cycle of several months, while some so-called fast fashion brands can be launched in a few weeks.

Murphy is committed to reducing the production cycle, because the production cycle is too long, which will lead to the product not catch up with the fashion trend, and extend the time when the wrong products are adversely affected.

He has reduced the ready-made garments from the factory to the store by 1/3.

The company has also set up a new product.

These improvements are being tested by reality.

In the past few weeks, Murphy spent most of his time in the Gap team in New York, focusing on improving all kinds of autumn clothes to stores in August.

In addition, the Christmas rush season products entered the store in the early November, and has become the focus of the company's attention.

Murphy said that not all product lines need to move vigorously, for example, the sales trend of children's clothing department and baby department is very good, and the GapBody home clothes series and men's clothing have also improved.

Jeans wear is one of the key products of Gap, and the sales of jeans for men and women are also good.

This is not the case for women's blouses.

Murphy sits in the rest area of a large Gap store in San Francisco, complaining that Gap's ladies' coat is "dull and full of cosmetics," including the Gap high-end series of clove peach red and beige.

Although these colors look fashionable in fashion magazines, they do not match Murphy's emphasis on Gap's "optimistic" style and are not very pleasing.

Now, there is also a disturbing product on the Gap shelf: T-shirt with chicken wing sleeves, which shows the root of the human arm, but many women do not have confidence in it.

Murphy patrolled the rows of T-shirts and Tank vests and said, "this is not going to work. It has to change. Now it has to change."