Charles Lazarus Mission Statement

History
In 1948, 25-year-old Charles Lazarus turned his dream of creating a child-oriented business into a reality. A visionary for his time, Lazarus started a baby furniture store, Children’s Bargain Town, in Washington, D.C. to cater to the post-war baby boom era. Lazarus filled his store with cribs and baby furniture and ran it single-handedly, overseeing everything from bookkeeping to delivering merchandise to customers’ homes. Continually looking for new ways to satisfy his customers’ needs, Lazarus introduced infant products and toys for older children into the company’s growing product assortment. The first toy he added to the inventory was a cradle gym. When it proved a strong seller, he added tricycles, books and other toys.
The vision of Charles Lazurus’ company soon became an overnight success and with that he included his vision and mission statements of the company. The vision statement “Our Vision is to put joy in kids’ hearts and a smile on parents’ faces." To fulfill our mission, achieve organizational success, drive growth over the long-term, and help our constituents reach their goals, Toys“R”Us, Inc. focuses on creating the right environment to deliver results for our employees, customers, shareholders and community (Toys R Us). The company’s commitments are as follows: Employees – growing and developing our employees by cultivating a great place to work culture that fosters teamwork and collaboration, is based on trust and respect, draws on the diverse perspectives and experiences of our employees and encourages inclusion. Customers – achieving customer satisfaction by delivering a quality experience for our customers each time they shop with us. We do this by creating a one-stop shopping destination with a unique and trend-right merchandise mix, friendly and helpful services, rewards for loyalty, knowledgeable sales associates and offering hot products, in-stock when parents want them. Shareholders – achieving consistent, reliable performance
There are benefits and disadvantages to this. However, a key strength is that the company has a diversified portfolio of products, which means that while some ranges are underperforming, others are outperforming. As long as technology allows them to spot successes, and then to focus upon them, they have a competitive strength. These days, Toys "R" Us has no single and sustainable competitive advantage, other than brand. In the US, its traditional stronghold, the company has lost its number one positions as toy retailer to Wal-Mart. Being large may not be enough, when customers can go to another large retailer and buy the same and similar goods, sometimes getting a better deal.\As with all retailers in Western society, Toys "R" Us is heavily dependent upon successful sales during the final quarter of the year. They need to make profit from Christmas. Retail is notoriously seasonal and Toys "R" Us is no different to other retailers. In fact it could be argued that toys are a key Christmas present product, so are even more likely to be dependent upon seasonal sales. There are opportunities for joint ventures and strategic alliances. Toys "R" Us works closely with Amazon.com and its baby products category. This not only plays to the strengths of both companies, but also provides opportunities. Amazon is strong at the online part of the business, creating the web site, warehousing products and delivering them to customers. Toys "R"