Has Dick Smith Foods Achieved Strategic Competitiveness?

Trader Joe's faces several threats to its business, as competitors try to invade the company’s niche and attempt to imitate the company’s core strategies. The supermarket industry itself faces a major threat, as larger chains such as grocery retailers Wal-Mart and Tesco have begun to open small-format stores that mimic the Trader Joe's approach. This invasion results in additional cost pressure for incumbents like Trader Joe’s, which had to let go employees in order to become more cost competitive.

Analyze the external and internal environment for opportunities, threats, strengths, and weaknesses that impact the firm’s competitiveness.

The threat of substitutes in the food retail industry can be high among the ‘Big Four’ as switching costs are relatively low and products can be similar. However, most have their own private labels and also target slightly different markets, such as Sainsbury’s having more upmarket positioning and Tesco’s cost leadership. Waitrose offers unique and differentiated products, which are, in the eyes of the consumer, significantly superior. No other supermarket offers such premium quality products with great service and such a large range of organic products as Waitrose, so this makes them extremely difficult to substitute. (Euromonitor, 2008).

The intensity of competition is extensive in the retail industry. Numerous firms in the retail sector that vary in size are in existence. Some of the cut throat direct competitors that Wal-Mart deals with in the retail sector take note of Sears Holdings Corporation, Costco, Macy’s, Kohl’s Corporation, Taregt, Dollar General, Dollar Tree, Kroger and Safeway, to mention a few. The pattern of changes of players in the grocery industry has been in favor of contenders like Wal-Mart, Kroger, Costco, and Safeway, among others. The market share of the large players has been increasing as opposed to the smaller stores, which is attributed to the cost advantage that is obtained because of factors of the economies of scale.

The business environment of an organization reveals much about its competitiveness and the possible influences on the success of its strategies. The focus of this paper will be an environmental scan of the internal and external environments of two real-world firms, their competitive advantages and company strategies for creating value and sustaining competitiveness, measurement guidelines for verifying strategic effectiveness and their evaluation.

So the capacity of competitors increased in different ways, but they have large increments in how they improve their products, which is making food more convenient, affordable and delicious. The high investments make them hard to exist this market, which also prevent the new competitors to come in. Thirdly, I think if buyers’ bargaining power has been a threat is neutral. They will not purchase in large volumes, because the buyers are normal family, they have a lot of choice to make, so switching cost is not high for them. Actually, the products quality is quite important for customers, because it is food and it relates to health.

The Australian Supermarket Industry is the very hot topic that’s why very interesting topic now days. The Australian supermarket and grocery stores have a very severe competition in Australia mainly because of organizations competing in this mature industry are going towards cost reduction initiatives with competing advantage rather than product differentiation strategies, In other words business in this industry increase market share by charging lower prices while making reasonably fair profit. The growing popularity of ALDI – German based company of introducing its own label goods (products manufactured and sold under the retailers own brand) with low cost has forced the two giants –Woolworths and Coles to cut price

Through an internal environment analysis, companies can identify and understand their own unique resources, capabilities, and competencies that are required for their sustainable competitive advantage. Resources, capabilities, and core competencies are the foundation of competitive advantage. There is no competitive advantages are permanently sustainable in any companies, so they have to consist on their current advantages and develop new advantages by internally understanding and analyzing their resources and capabilities. Competitors have their own unique resources, capabilities, and core competencies to create values for their customers. Both tangible and intangible resources, which include individual, social and organizational phenomena, are combined to generate capabilities. In turn, company’s capabilities are used to build core competencies. Also, core competencies are as a source of competitive advantage for a company to win in the competitive market.

The sectors in which WBD operates (dairy, beverage and baby food) are attractive to companies and offer the potential for significant growth (see Appendix C). A dominant force is the unique Russian context acting as a barrier to entry for international companies, although they are overcoming this by establishing production facilities in Russia (see Appendix C). The need for good distribution and regional suppliers acts as a barrier to entry. The potential buying power of major retailers (eg. major supermarkets) can put pressure on food producers and WBD is highly reliant on industry leaders Cargill for supplying juice concentrate and Tetrapak for supplying packaging. The increasing demand for premiumisation is putting pressure on Russian companies to improve quality due to the perception that international companies offer higher quality (see Appendix

These analyses will allow us to form a coherent picture of environment in which the company operates, what actions to take to adapt to the environment, as well as our own internal strengths and possible advantageous opportunities. To assess the internal environment we will use Pascale and Athos’ 7S model. This model highlights the seven elements of the organisation that contribute to organisational effectiveness and success. We will also use Strebel’s Evolutionary Cycle of Competitive Advantage, which is used to anticipate technological and economic changes in the environment and initiate planned organisational changes that will enable a company to remain one step ahead of the

{text:bookmark-start} INTRODUCTION: {text:bookmark-end} It is important for organizations operating and competing at global level to understand how it fits into the external environment that it operates in. The twenty first century has witnessed frequent fluctuations in these international environment in which businesses operate which in turn has encouraged these businesses to concentrate heavily on strategising the manner in which the company survives, grows, competes and achieves its goals. The top management of these organizations take decisions with an ultimate holistic goal of achieving a sustained competitive advantage and in order to achieve this they have been focussing on managing their internal

Strategic planning is defined as a process by which an organization outlines its strategy and makes decision based on the fulfilment of this strategy by the allocation of its resources based on achieving its strategic objective. The senior management of a company is usually responsible for formulating this strategy and hence it is important for them to understand the constantly changing environment to formulate and effective strategy (Mintzberg, 1994). The report deals with a retailing company known as Marks and Spencer (M & S) and the key issues that the company faced in developing and implementing its strategic plan.

Organizations need to be aware of what is going on in their environments that might concern them, and more so, during the planning process. Diverse but overlapping environments ought to be monitored; the macro environment, the industrial environment, the competitive environment, and the organization’s internal environment (Ginter, 2013; Pfeiffer, 1986). At Rapha AL, my chosen organization, the environmental scanning will include distinct internal and external factors that would enable Rapha gain excellent understanding of the current and emerging issues that might affect it, and inspire the setting of clear and achievable goals. In this paper, I will analyze and address the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT); discuss current and prospective customers and evaluate the impact of environmental factors on the organization’s effectiveness to achieve the established goals within the strategic plan. Furthermore, I will address evolving external issues that could influence the strategic plan, evaluate the benefits of competitive analysis and Rapha’s capacity to achieve the strategic goals and objectives in a 3-year strategic plan.

The internal environment consists of the inherent competencies of the firm and the structure of its internal systems and processes. It is imperative for the organization to conduct an internal analysis

The internal business environment includes factors within the organisation that impact the approach and success of the business operations. Formerly presented as core competencies, capabilities, leadership style and culture of an organisation. To understand its sources of competitive advantage from within a firm or an organisation will implement specific tools such as SWOT analysis (Strength, Weaknesses Opportunities and Threats), Value chain analysis, Resource based view, VRIO framework and BCG Matrix for instance.