Its Survival In Doubt, Sears Struggles To Transform Once Again

A century ago, it was one of the biggest names in retail. Now, even Sears officials say its future could be in doubt — though they say they have plans to make sure the retail icon survives. Nancy Koehn with the Harvard Business School says that in its early days, Sears Roebuck and Co. was like Amazon is today — a retailer of great disruption. For Sears, it meant a path-breaking strategy of offering all sorts of merchandise in catalogs and building department stores in remote places with ample parking. "It wasn't the Internet, but it was the same idea that no matter where you are you can touch and feel and imagine what these different products could mean in your life by virtue of an outreach, a distribution channel that an imaginative and gutsy retailer — in this case Sears — had created and then invested in and then enlarged," Koehn says. Elgin, Ill., about 40 miles northwest of Chicago, is one town where Sears' innovation is clearly visible. Drive through the streets of one