Strategic Direction Of Discount Store Aldi

The reputation and recognition make Aldi attractive in the marketing activities and this aspect needs to be improved in the future to compete with both existing and forthcoming rivals. Meanwhile, the high buying power and costs control would help Aldi to diversify its products and increase market penetration to serve diverse Australian population. This leads to the reconsideration of Aldi’s current strategy of limiting product range to adopt other strategies as a number of differentiation strategies has been used by other

In times of recession people tend to be very conservative when spending and the people see that ALDI offers value add to their spending by saving them money in their groceries.

Porter’s Five Forces (1980), named after Michael E. Porter, is a critical framework to access the level of risk and degree of potential profitability of each industry in which firms are competing. Specifically, five forces are shown in Figure 1, are includes competition between rivalry, potential of new entrant, threat of substitute products, and pressure on bargaining power of suppliers and customers.

As Aldi has already established itself as a large discount supermarket chain with over 10,000 stores in 18 different countries including Australia (2001), and holds a large market share in the grocery world due to its business culture and market leading initiatives. This report aims to provide the ALDI board of directors with:

The grocery industry has a relatively high market commonality; a lot of grocery stores are somewhat related in terms of technologies used, labor force and the products or services offered in the stores. Differentiation with other competitors is key for survival in this highly competitive industry.

1.3 Physical Resources & Capabilities The ALDI brothers took over the family business of their parents in 1946. World wide expansion led to enormous growth. This comprises around 9800 stores (1000 to 1500 SQM each). The layout is simple with wide ails designed to refill shelves in the fastest, most convenient way {Brands, D. 2003}. They offer a small assortment of mainly fast-moving items (approximately 700 food – including a slim and organic line- and non food products). Small warehouses are located at the back of each store. Affiliates are equipped with limited technology such as intelligent cash systems high-end product concerning quality and price and bottle deposit machines. ALDI won the 2008 energy management award for great results in terms of cooling systems, illumination etc. Most stores have about 100 parking space and a shopping cart area near the entrance. ALDI has a long history which implies that they have gained great experience over the years. The location and layout of stores are designed to support fast and efficient supply and not especially aimed at customer needs. This is a weakness. Stores advantageously located as there are in convenient reach for consumers. Their product range is adapted to various consumer needs (organic, healthy living). The technological equipments are of high quality enabling fast operations at the checkout (ALDI’s staff are two times faster compared with other similar operations). This is

Porter’s Five Forces is a framework that consists of five competitive forces, threat of entry, power of supplier and buyer, threat of substitution and competitive rivalry. These forces facilitate the analysis of the task environment of an industry or company (Wheelen and Hunger, 2009).

1. The grocery industry is a commoditized industry, which makes it difficult for grocers to sustain through differentiation. Buyer power is high and thus, cost leadership and operational efficiencies are critical. There is fierce competition amongst various grocery stores, with the main players such as Loblaw and A&P holding multi-banner stores in various market segments. Traditional grocery stores also lose some of their market share to drug stores, convenience stores and other retailers who have entered the industry. Threat of substitutes from fast-food and take- away outlets is not as prevalent, since many grocery stores have started stocking ready-to-eat meals and have deli services available for consumers. Competitive

From the time it opened, Aldi has expanded the number of product assortments that allow consumers to find nearly anything they need to supply and feed their families. Aldi developed a strong marketing program and decentralized their pricing and assortments that also include some well-known products. Aldi’s begins its value propositions to shoppers with its amazingly low prices. Their “hard” discount pricing, averages about 30% below standard supermarkets like Winn-Dixie or Kroger’s (Brick, 2016). They attribute their success and growth to the “hard discount” model as it has demonstrated to be highly effective. Aldi is different than “large” discounters like Walmart where Walmart’s varieties are limited in size and led by private label products, and investments are made in stores atmosphere, unfortunately, resulting in lackluster customer service. This allows “hard” discounters like Aldi to win the grocery price war by greater margins than Walmart, making Aldi a major competitor of Walmart (Bartone,

Tesco's has a very high competitive rivalry in many aspects of the market from some major competitors in the food retail Industry like Asda, Sainsbury, Morrison and Waitrose. They compete with one another through price, product and promotions periodically. Tesco's express' main rivals are the Sainsbury local and the Co-op one way in which they compete with Tesco's is through distribution. These businesses have stores where Tesco's has making it competitive to sustain its customers.

The UK supermarket industry is a very competitive and profitable industry. It is made up of four main players with significant share of the market, and then various smaller companies who focus on smaller niches in the market such as the bottom of the market discounters and the top of the line speciality stores. It is an interesting market and this report evaluates the attractiveness of the industry using Porter’s five forces model with an insight into how market nicher Waitrose sustains a competitive advantage. Next this report looks at how major player Sainsbury’s successfully competes against its rivals using differentiation strategies, and analyses current consumer trends and problems can effect this industry.

This report is going to present the current culture of Aldi, critically examining its current culture and possible proposal for a change in culture. It identifies the current organisational culture, its strengths and weaknesses and make recommendations necessary for an organisational culture change.

2. How Porter's Five Forces of Competition impact the company Porter set out his famous Five Forces model in chapter 1 of his 1980 Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors, which has now become the dominant paradigm for the "Structural Analysis of Industries." The model places supply chain forces on the horizontal access and market structure vertically above and below industry competition, which they all point to as the center of potential profitability (Hitt, Ireland and Hoskisson,

Porter’s five forces analysis is a tool is useful for us to analyse the threat of competition in an industry. Porter believed that the industries were influenced by five forces; competitive rivalry, threat of new entrants, bargaining power of suppliers, bargaining power of buyers, and the threat of substitutes. Analysing these areas can allow you to see attractiveness of the market and find a competitive advantage.

“We do not vary our retail offer in line with levels of local competition. We and all the other major grocery multiples have national strategies on pricing, branding, advertising, quality, range and services.” Commented by Tesco (Press association, 2007)