Tiffin University
Unit 2 Case Response
Whole Foods Market in 2010: Vision, Core Values and Strategy
Submitted for
MGT 622 (Section 90)
Strategic Management
Dr. Tara Davis
By:
Michael Bond
May 26, 2013
As you read about Whole Foods and their specific strategies what struck you as positives and/or negatives. Are there certain strategic elements that were particularly insightful about what Whole Foods does? Are there any glaring weaknesses that could jeopardize their success? “Whole Foods Market was founded in Austin, Texas, when four local businesspeople decided the natural foods industry was ready for a supermarket format” (Whole Foods Market.com). From the humble beginnings of one store and 19 employees
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Whole Foods Market has a strategy of team-based management. This is where the workers are organized into self-managed teams and each team “was responsible for a different product category or aspect of store operations” (Thompson, etc., 2010, p. C-13). The teams were given the ability to make decisions to improve the operations. By doing this, the company is telling the employees that they care about them and value their opinions. This in turn makes the employees feel appreciated which can increased their dedication to the company. I do not see any glaring weaknesses in the strategic initiatives or how Whole Foods Market runs the company. One area of concern is within the pricing strategy. Prices at the stores are usually higher than at regular supermarkets due to the “costs of growing, distributing and marketing organic products” (Thompson, etc., 2010, p. C-18) which were 10 to 40 percent higher than non-organic items. (Thompson, etc., 2010, p. C-18) This can become a major issue with the current economic condition of the U.S. With less money, people are cutting back or looking for cheaper products. You always have to be concern that growth could interfere with the ability of Whole Foods Market to implement their strategies the way they normally do. In the last five years, Tiffin University has grown from 500 students on-campus to over 1600. The university has grown faster than anyone expected. We are struggling to
John Mackey and Renee Lawson Hardy, the co-founders of the current Whole Foods Market, simply wanted to provide quality healthy food to the American consumer. This was about three decades ago when the first store opened. According to Mackey, making money was not the first priory, but helping people to eat better was. Happily for Mackey and Lawson, the residents of Austin Texas were hungry, no pun intended, for just this type of product. At the time, though there were several small independent healthy food stores, there was not a full sized grocery store. This is what set Mackey and Lawson apart from their competitors, their enormous sized health food grocery store was a huge success and now Whole Foods Market (WFM) is not only a
Whole foods strategy consists of high margins on premium and natural foods. They also offer a wide variety of prepared foods for affluent buyers. Managers are given freedom to stock their stores based on local tastes. Mackey also opposed the idea of unions because of their parasitic existence.
A weakness that Whole Foods have is their reputation. A reputation for a grocer is key to its survival and they have the reputation of being very expensive or some call it “whole paycheck.”
Whole Foods is a retailer that specializes in organic foods and it has done an excellent job of determining its target market and how to position itself. Instead of going head to head with large food retailers such as Wal-Mart, Whole Foods has found a niche market that works perfectly for itself. This niche market is one that prides itself on being health conscious and environmentally responsible and Whole Foods has done a great job of positioning itself in the same way through its environmentally safe actions and its use of the local community to stock its stores. However, as Whole Foods grows and expands, a person has to wonder if the company will be able to maintain this same position or will have to make
Grocery shopping is more diversified and evolved than ever before. Individuals across the nation have access to everything from exotic products to unique delivery services. Often, specialty stores have limited locations whereas specialty services have a limited reach. However, two retailers have expanded to hundreds of locations while adhering to unexpected market positioning for previously untargeted market segments. Whole Foods Market and Trader Joe’s have become household names while also innovating beyond regional and national traditional chains. Despite comparable size in
Whole Foods Market is a leader in the quality and differentiation food business, they offer natural and organic products. Whole food market was opened in 1980 by John Mackey, Renee Lawson Hardy, Craig Weller and Mark Skiles. It was founded in Austin, Texas. In 1984, they start to expand their business out of Austin such as Houston, Dallas and later to others states within the US. In 2002, they entered the Canadian market in Toronto and they entered the United Kingdom in 2004 by acquiring seven Fresh & Wild stores (Whole Foods Market History, n.d). Whole Foods Market is ranked as the nation’s leading retailer of natural and organic
Whole Foods has to pay close attention to its remote, industry, and operating environments to make sure that they choose the best directions and actions available for its organizational structure and internal processes.
6. How well is Whole Food Market performing from a strategic perspective? Does Whole Food enjoy a competitive advantage over its 3 chief rivals – Wild Oats, Fresh Market and Trader Joe’s? Does the company have a winning strategy? (points 15)
Additionally, it sought to offer the highest quality, least processed, most flavourful and naturally preserved food available. It has thus marketed them in appealing store environments that have made shopping at Whole Foods an interesting and enjoyable experience. The company uses strategies with respect to their growth, store location, product line, pricing, merchandising and even it’s social responsibility and community citizenship initiatives that have helped tremendously in its success.
Whole Foods Market, Inc. was founded and created by four business people in Austin, TX during 1980. The founders opened Whole Foods Market because they wanted a supermarket that offered natural foods. This company was able to be successful because at the time they opened there were less than half a dozen natural food supermarkets in the United Sates. In 1984, they build stores in Houston and Dallas, they then moved to New Orleans, and eventually to the West Coast. A major part of Whole Foods growth has come from the many mergers and acquisitions with companies that have occurred throughout the years. The mergers and acquisitions gave Whole Foods’ even revenues to move to the East Coast.
As discussed above with the SWOT Analysis of the company, Whole Foods certainly is a very financially sound and a major player in the organic food industry, however, it is important for Whole Foods, to continue striving upon increasing/ bettering the customer experience at all of its stores. Whole Foods, has a strong customer base,
Whole Foods has been adaptive in fitting its competitive strategy to its situation. The store first grew to prominence by being a stylish antithesis to the crunchy mom-and-pop organic grocery stores, providing a relatively normal but
Marketed as ‘America’s healthiest grocery store’ the company has successfully grown to 408 stores across the world with sales of $14 billion in 2014 (Whole Foods Market, 2015). The firm is positioned as an upmarket grocery due to the emphasis on natural, organic origins, and as a result are able to charge a premium for their products. Through efficiently running its operations and stores, Whole Foods are able to maintain healthy 4.02% profit margins (Financial Times, 2015) and operating margins well above the American grocery store industry average at 6.58% (Bloomberg, 2015). Looking at 2015’s quarter 1 figures it is clear to see that Whole Foods have had a hugely successful year with sales of $4.7 billion, up 10% from the same period last year. Furthermore, they opened 9 new stores and have signed a further 11 new leases.
Whole Foods Market has expanded by a mixture of opening its own new stores and acquiring already existing stores. Today WFM does not follow this strategy, instead their motivation is to open its own large stores. This is due to noticeable sales differences in larger stores as opposed to smaller stores. WFM locates these newer stores in upscale areas of urban metropolitan centers and high-traffic shopping locations. Not all WFMs are isolated structures; some are located in strip malls. WFM offers a larger selection of natural and organic foods than any other grocery store. WFMs marketing expenditure is extremely small. They spend a measly 0.5% of their revenues on advertising. Their chief marketing strategy relies on word-of-mouth. WFM strives to meet or exceed customer expectations. This is so customers receive competent, knowledgeable, and friendly service and become advocates of WFM. The employees here have a decentralized team approach for store operations. This is so some personnel, merchandising, and operating
Whole Foods Market began in 1970 as a local supermarket. Over the past 31 years, Whole Foods Market has grown from a single store in Austin, Texas, to becoming one of the worldwide leaders in providing consumers with natural and organic foods. They have grown to over 300 stores in both North America and the United Kingdom. (Whole Foods Market, Inc., 2011) This report examines the chief elements of the strategy that Whole Foods Market has put into place. Also, it uses past financial data to provide an assessment of the condition of the company going forward. Those assessments include recommendations of future actions, along with concerns I have about the way the company is currently operating and some difficulties that may be on the way.