Building a Strong

Foundation:
A Proposal for
Marys Books
April 1, 2016

KAMAK
Suite 234 Marshall Fields Store
1144 West Lake Street
Oak Park, IL 60301

Table of Contents
I.
II.

Executive Summary
ii
Our Understanding of Marys Situation
1
A. Important Issues for this Engagement
X
B. What Marys Books Needs
X

III.
IV.

The Goals of this Engagement

X
The Plan for Answering the Competition Question
X
A. Demographic Analysis
X
B. Community Involvement
X
C. Product and Content
X

V.
VI.

Timeline
X
Our Team
X
A. Karly Hammer
X
B. Afton Samson
X

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C. Makenzie Dukleth
X
D. Abdullahi Hashi
X
E. Kingsley Permenter
X

VII.

Budget
X
Benefits
X
Appendix A
X

VIII.
IX.

Building a Strong Foundation: A Proposal for

Marys Books
Executive Summary
The following proposal details KAMAKs understanding of the issues and needs of Marys Books. In addition, it
contains the methods we will use to help Marys Books build a foundation upon which they can make confident
decisions.

Our Understanding of Marys Situation

Marys Books, a long-standing local business, is acutely feeling the anxiety that Barnes & Noble has brought to
Oak Park. There are the obvious concerns regarding market share and profit margins. Additionally, there is
some tension surrounding the maintenance of our locally driven economic community. Despite these worries,
we are certain that Marys Books, as a local, independent bookstore, has little to fear from Barnes & Nobles
corporate structure. In fact, we believe that Marys Books is facing a time of opportunity.

The Goals of this Engagement

1.
2.
here.

Determine if Marys Books and Barnes & Noble are in direct competition.
Use our collected data to lay a foundation for Marys Books and the decisions to be made from

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The Plan for Answering the Competition Question
KAMAK is taking a threefold approach to fulfill our goals. We will be looking at the demographics, community
involvement, and product and content of Marys Books, as compared to Barnes & Noble. This will give us
insight into the roles Marys Books plays in Oak Park, and will help to create a clearer path for moving forward.
The methods we have chosen will be executed over the course of five weeks. This will provide Marys Books
with a prompt answer to their concerns.

Our Team
KAMAK was established seven years ago with one goal in mind: to nurture local businesses in a way that grows
not just our local economy, but also the Oak Park community. Two years ago, to further this goal, we relocated
to the Marshall Fields Building. With two team members from small cities in the Upper Midwest and three
team members originally from the Chicago area, we all understood the value of being directly involved at the
hub of our local economy.

Budget
Considering our timeline, resources, and team qualifications, KAMAK has devised a budget that will meet your
needs and be cost-efficient.

Benefits
By choosing KAMAK, Marys Books will understand their position in Oak Park and their relationship to Barnes &
Noble. We will provide the hard facts and local understanding that cant be found anywhere else.

Building a Strong Foundation: A Proposal for

Marys Books
We would like to thank you for contacting KAMAK and for considering our firm to help you
continue the success of your independent bookstore, Marys Books. We appreciate that
you chose KAMAK to prepare a proposal for Marys Books. Our professional and qualified
team values our community, our history, and our continued economic success in the small
business community of Oak Park just as you do. If you hire KAMAK to help your
independent bookstore, we will help you make the best decision for your bookstore.

Our Understanding of Marys Situation

Oak Park, Illinois has a long tradition of thriving local businesses. For over 25 years Marys
Books has established and maintained a legacy of excellence in the community. Marys

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Books stands out among these, but others, such as the Lake Theater and Papaspiros have
served the community for more than 75 years, making Marys Books seem a relative
newcomer to our historic community. In many ways, Marys Books serves as a doubleanchor for Oak Park businesses; the flagship store anchors the Marshall Fields Building,
which in turn anchors the Lake Street business community. The small business community
in the Marshall Fields Building is a tight-knit onewhen KAMAK moved in, we were warmly
welcomed by the staff of each small business. Our success is connected to our Marshall
Fields neighbors and the way in which we work together to uphold the small business
community.
So in recent months, we, like Marys Books, have found ourselves worried: for our
community, our history, and our continued economic success. When Barnes & Noble
arrived in Oak Park, they dramatically changed our community and its traditions. Their
nationwide presence and big box, corporate structure are unnervingnot just to Marys
Books, but to all of us who care about our community.
Our community is one that has prospered based on our shared values of good wages,
employee benefits, and ensuring a workforce that could both work and spend in Oak Park.
When box stores, with their low wages and lack of benefits move into our community, they
bring low wage workers who do not live or work in Oak Park, and who will not be able to
purchase lunch at the Jerusalem Cafe, or art for their homes from ABC Gallery. Those
dollars leave our community. In contrast, Marys Books has anchored our community by
providing careers, full-time work and benefits, for our young, college-educated villagers.
Barnes & Noble represents a threat to important jobs.
In addition to the threat Barnes & Noble presents to our workforce, they have already torn
down a historic buildingthe Weidbolts Building was one of only a few Art Moderne
commercial structures remaining in Chicagoland. Its loss was a sign of the small value
outside corporations place on our historic architecture, the lifeblood of our tourist industry.
According to the Chicago Tribune, of February 2016, in Oak Park, travelers spent a total of
$211 million in 2014. Those tourist dollars drive our economy, and destroying our unique
architecture means destroying our economyand sending corporate profits not only out
of Oak Park, but out of state.
Although nationwide, big box bookstores have struggled against the online giants like
Amazon, Zachary Karabells recent article in Slate suggests that independent bookstores
like Marys are coming backespecially in places like Oak Park, a place with high incomes

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and high levels of educational attainment. Nearly half of Oak Parks population have
college degrees; in fact, Oak park is #18 on the list of most educated places in America. In
addition, the median income of $77,760 in 2013 is significantly above the state and national
average. While bookstores may be in trouble many places, the trends noted in Karabells
Slate article suggest that Marys Books is likely to outlive Barnes & Noble. Barnes & Noble
may be in trouble because according to Karabells article in Slate, the independents offer
something neither Amazon nor the chains can: attention to the quirky needs of their
customer base...those stores have turned out to be irreplaceable.
Oak Parks website describes those who visit our community: they come for the culture
and the restaurants and the 12 distinct shopping districts. They come because the
residents are as educated as they are opinionated, as creative as they are progressive, as
tolerant as they are welcoming. At KAMAK, we want to maintain that Oak Park, the
independent spirit that keeps tourists coming, and members of our community happy and
healthy here. Rather than fearing for the future, we are seeing the potential for some great
opportunities that Marys Books can capitalize on.

Important Issues for this Engagement

In order to help Marys Books capitalize on these opportunities, we need to understand and
address several important issues:
Is Marys Books in direct competition with Barnes & Noble?
How will Marys Books and the small business community be affected by the
arrival of Barnes & Noble?
How can competition be quickly addressed before Marys Books loses market
share?
What direction, if necessary, should Marys Books follow?
How can Marys Books use this potentially changing landscape to become
stronger and respond more fully to the needs of Marys clientele? Marys
employees? The community of Oak Park?
Being able to recognize, respond to, and resolve these important issues will provide a
sense of permanence and security for Marys Books in Oak Park.

What Marys Books Needs

6
To resolve these important issues, you need a consulting firm that knows your business,
knows Oak Park, and can move quickly to assess competition and respond to
opportunities. Most importantly, you need to decide whether or not Marys Books is in
direct competition with Barnes & Noble. If Marys Books is in direct competition with
Barnes & Noble, how can competition be quickly addressed before Marys Books loses
market share? If given the opportunity to work with you, we will work in a timely and costefficient manner to help you make the best decision for not only Marys Books, but for the
small business community and the community of Oak Park. KAMAK will provide you with
the research necessary to make the best decision.
Given our understanding of your situation, we have thoroughly designed a plan of action
acknowledging your issues and needs of Marys Books. We look forward to working with
you to help Marys Books prevail in the small business community of Oak Park into the
future.

The Goals of this Engagement

KAMAKs understanding of the complex situation Marys Books, and by extension, the
entire community, faces has led us to establish the following objectives for this
engagement. We will determine whether or not Marys Books and Barnes & Noble are in
competition with each other. Competition will be evaluated on the following three metrics:
1. Demographic Analysis
2. Community Involvement
3. Product and Content
These measures have been chosen in order to provide the most complete understanding
of the situation. This in depth understanding is necessary to fulfill our second objective.
We will establish the groundwork necessary for Marys Books to make a decision on how to
move forward.

The Plan for Answering the Competition

Question
Demographic Analysis

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The foremost concern when a potential competitor enters the community is how their
presence will affect the bottom line. In order to address this question, we will focus on
demographic analysis. We will look at security camera footage from Marys Books both
before and after the opening of Barnes & Noble. We are looking to answer these
questions:
1. What percentage of people who enter the store make a purchase?
2. What are the demographics of the customer base?
3. Did either of these answers change significantly after Barnes & Noble
opened?
Answering these questions will illuminate whether the buying habits of Marys customers
have changed after the opening of Barnes & Noble.
We plan to review two full weeks of video data. The first week we review will be from
before the opening of Barnes & Noble, and the second week will be from after the opening
of Barnes & Noble. Three of our team members will be assigned to this task. In order to
review two weeks of video data in a timely manner, the tapes will be run at double speed.
One of our interns will be focused on entry demographics; using a brief check-box grid, the
approximate age, race, and gender of each person entering the store will be recorded. If
any unique trends become apparent these will be noted as well. The same check-box grid
will be used by our intern focused on purchasing demographics. Overseeing the process
will be one of our full-time consultants, who will ensure accuracy and assist with data
collection.

Community Involvement
While it may not directly affect profits, being involved in the community is an important
aspect of the question of competition. Events get people involved at the local level, and
promote a sense of community essential to thriving local business. This facet of our
investigation asks:
1. How many community events are either hosted or sponsored by Marys
Books and Barnes & Noble?
2. Are these events diverse in content and goals?
3. How well-attended are these events?
These questions are all getting at the basic idea of who is more directly involved in the
community. We will be collecting data on how many events are hosted or sponsored by

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Marys Books in an average month, and comparing that to Barnes & Nobles monthly
average of events. Additionally, we will be looking into the diversity of these events. If the
same event is held every week, and the same 25 people attend these events, the average
outreach per month is only 25 people. If, in contrast, there are different types of events
held every week, and 10 different people attend each of these events, the monthly
outreach is 40 people. The reason were interested in community outreach is twofold.
Getting more people in the door means more people become familiar with the store.
Familiarity with the store means an increased likelihood of returning to shop there or
recommending the store to others. This portion of our research is primarily focused on
foundation building, so that Marys Books has a greater knowledge of how the community
is involved with the store beyond the customer-provider relationship.

Product and Content

A direct comparison of inventory between Marys Books and Barnes & Noble is a project
that is simply too large and time consuming for the issue at hand. Additionally, it would
require total cooperation from Barnes & Noble. Therefore, KAMAK has decided on two
simple, straightforward questions that can give us a solid comparison of the content
carried by Marys Books and Barnes & Noble.
1. Which publishers are carried by Marys Books? Barnes & Noble?
2. How is floorspace utilized?
To compare publishers, we will first ask Marys Books to provide us with a complete list of
all their carried publishers. After receiving this list, we will begin our comparison process.
The ten bestselling books from each publisher will be determined. Beginning with the
bestselling book, we will search Barnes & Nobles website. If Barnes & Noble carries the
book, we will use the in-store pickup feature of their search engine to determine if the
Oak Park Barnes & Noble has the given book in stock. If Barnes & Noble carries any of the
ten bestsellers, we can infer that they also carry other books from that publisher. If they
do not carry even one of a publishers ten bestsellers, it is safe to believe they do not carry
the publisher at all. We are, of course, expecting some overlap in carried publishers. We
are looking for how much of an overlap exists. If there is a significant overlap in publishers,
then an overlap in content, and subsequently competition, is much more likely. If,
however, Marys Books carries a wide variety of publishers that Barnes & Noble does not,
then the likelihood of content and competition overlap drops dramatically. This task will be
undertaken by one of our full time consultants.

9
Another of our consultants, along with our third intern, will work on determining and
comparing floorspace use. Because Barnes & Noble and Marys Books are of comparable
size, at five- and four-thousand square feet, respectively, we have decided to measure floor
space utilization as a percentage. We have determined five primary uses of floorspace for
the two stores. Fiction, nonfiction, reading spaces, checkout area, and gifts. We are
expecting at least some overlap in how the stores utilizes their space. What we are looking
for is, again, how much or how little overlap there is. Should Marys Books use a much
greater portion of her floorspace for fiction and nonfiction, where Barnes & Noble focuses
on gifts and reading spaces, the likelihood of competition again drops.

Timeline
Given the above methods, we have designed an estimated timeline laying out the duration
of each method with a tentative date we will start and end each method. Once our data
collection and data analysis are complete, we foresee having created a recommendation
report for you within two weeks.

Figure 1. Estimated Timeline

Figure 1 exhibits our estimated timeline. This timeline will allot our professional and
qualified team enough time to complete our plan of action in a cost-efficient manner.

Our Team
KAMAK has just the right team in place to undertake this intensive research in a
condensed, five-week timeframe, getting you needed answers as quickly as possible.
KAMAK is a relatively small consulting firm. We have five full-time consultants and three
Dominican University sponsored internships. We do work within the small business

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community, and our personnel are focused on only one client at a time, in order to ensure
a prompt, efficient consultation. Our mission is to nurture local businesses in a way that
grows not just our local economy, but also the Oak Park community. We are community
focused, locally rooted, and progress minded. We value our community, our history, and
our continued economic success in the small business community of Oak Park.
KAMAK was founded in 2009 and has been striving to make a positive impact in Oak Park
for 7 years now. Moving to the Marshall Fields building 2 years ago has given KAMAK a
better look at the historical values of Oak Park and furthered our desire to work locally for
the businesses in our community. We value our clients and strive to provide the best
possible consulting to our clientele and the people of Oak Park.

Karly Hammer
Karly was raised in Edison Park, a neighborhood in Chicago. She graduated from Chicago
State University in Chicago with a Bachelors degree in University Studies. She then moved
to Oak Park to receive her Ph.D. in Communication from Dominican University. She worked
at The Boston Consulting Group for four years as a human resources manager before cofounding KAMAK.

Afton Samson
Afton grew up in Fargo, North Dakota. She graduated from North Dakota State University
with a dual degree in Community Development and English. She earned a Master of Fine
Arts degree from Dominican University. She worked at Deloitte Consulting for six years as a
technical writer before moving to Oak Park.

Makenzie Dukleth
Makenzie was born and raised in Lake Bluff, a suburb in Chicago. She attended Dominican
University where she received her Bachelors degree in Business Management. Afterwards,
she moved to Arizona to earn her Master of Business Administration degree from Arizona
State University. She spent nine years with PricewaterhouseCoopers Advisory Services LLC
as a business development manager before moving back to Lake Bluff.

Abdullahi Hashi

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Abdullahi grew up in Pelican Rapids, Minnesota, and moved to Minneapolis to attend the
University of Minnesota where he graduated with a Bachelors degree in Finance. He
earned a Master of Science in Finance Economics from Dominican University. He has been
working at KAMAK for the past seven years as a research analyst specialist.

Kingsley Permenter
Kingsley was born and raised in Oak Park. He received his Bachelors degree in Graphic
Design from Dominican University. He later went on to receive his Bachelors degree in
Industrial Design from the Art Institute of Chicago. He spent eleven years with IBM Global
Business Services as a public relations specialist before co-founding KAMAK.

Supplementing our highly qualified team are three interns from Dominican University who
share our values and our desire to positively impact the business Oak Park community.
With this small, dedicated team, we are capable of providing efficient, innovative, and
prompt solutions to our clients problems and opportunities.

Budget
Considering our aforementioned timeline and qualifications, our professional and qualified
team has estimated a cost-efficient budget. Please see Appendix A for an estimate.

Benefits
This five-week consultation will be an investment for Marys Books, and the benefits to both
Marys Books and the Oak Park community will begin to accrue almost immediately.
Quickly understanding whether or not Barnes & Noble represents a competitive threat to
Marys Books will enable rapid action and immediate peace of mind as you develop a
strategy for moving forward. In addition to that obvious benefit, we will be able to assure
you that the right decision will be made, not only for Marys Books, but for the Oak Park
community as a whole. We will also be able to provide Marys Books with a better
understanding of their clientele and how big of an impact Marys Books has within Oak
Park.

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Here at KAMAK we understand Oak Parks community values and will strive to uphold them.
We understand the community and as residents of Oak Park, working with Marys Books
will ensure that our local background with the community will benefit any and all tasks that
are achieved. At KAMAK, the methods we utilize will provide Mary with the answers to all
the important issues as well as give information that will further progress Marys Books.
Once KAMAK has completed our analysis of the situation, it will be clear whether or not
Marys Books and Barnes & Noble are in competition. With the data we collect, we wont
just be answering the competition question. We will also have laid the foundations for
answering the real question. Marys Books must decide if, how, and why any changes are
made due to the arrival of Barnes & Noble. KAMAK is here to inform the best decision.

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Appendix A
A cost-efficient budget for Marys Books would be embodied here.