Woolworths Strategy Essay

The range of competitors within the overall industry include chain and independent supermarkets (Krogers, Safeway, others); mass merchandisers and super centers (Wal-mart,Target); convenience stores; wholesale clubs (Sam’s); restaurants and fast food chains andnatural food stores (Whole Foods, Wild Oats

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 accordance to the annual report of Woolworths Limited 2016, the current accounting practice that is applied to the business regarding its inventory disclosure includes; a perpetual inventory system which continually updates the information by increasing or decreasing inventory from reports throughout the year to verify accounting records (Bragg 2016). A perpetual inventory system in comparison to a periodic inventory system is more efficient and effective for larger corporations. With entities like Woolworths, many transactions occur between themselves and other stakeholders, so by utilising a perpetual inventory system, it saves time and also money (Woolworths 2016)

Rivalry: The rivalry in the retail industry is medium/high. Even though there are may retail companies in Australia with similar product offerings, only few belong to David Jones strategic group. On the other hand, the high fixed cost and industry overcapacity will eventually lead to the exit of the weakest market players.

Woolworths is a significant part of the Australian community and are aware that their actions and operations do have an impact beyond their immediate interactions with customers, employees and shareholders. A result, they are also concerned with reconciling and aligning the demands, needs, interests, and values with suppliers, communities, the environment, and society at large (ICAA, 2011).

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.

Barriers will be placed on all new supermarkets entering the sector; this will be from the existing supermarkets. For example Tesco may have cornered the market for certain goods therefore has established a relationship with its supplier so that it will pay a lot less for large volumes of goods whereas the new supermarket will not be able to find cheap, reliable suppliers this gives Tesco's the advantage of economics of scale. A new, small supermarket chain can only buy a relatively small volume of goods, at a higher

Because Woolworths and Coles generally have homogenous products, they rely on a heavy use of advertising, in order to avoid competitive pricing with each other. Oligopolies tend to avoid competitive pricing at all costs, as the worst case scenario of this is a price war, which generally cannot be escaped, resulting in one survivor, who goes on to become the monopolist.

Cole is an Australian supermarket with large influence and market share in the country. In addition, the company contributes significantly to the nation’s economy. In essence, the company has acquired more than 30% of the market share of the supermarket industry in this nation. Specifically, the company’sproduct line consists of daily products, grocery, meat, deli, fresh produce, bake house, cigarettes, liquor, apparel, general merchandize and over head products. Notably Cole has a culture of low price as its marketing strategy of attracting and retaining customers.

New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland are the regions contributing over 75% of the 18.9 billion industry revenue. Westfarmers (Target and Kmart) and Woolworths (BigW) are the two largest companies competing on low-cost strategies (Porter, 1980). Myers and David Jones, holding 15.3% and 10.5% market shares respectively (Figure 1), compete on differentiated strategies targeting the upper consumer market (Porter, 1980). Over 10% of the total working population are employed in this industry (Productivity Commission, 2011).

Woolworths Limited is a retail company made up of a range of businesses that provide customers with quality, range and value. This report focuses on two parts, Woolworths Ltd Strategic analysis and strategic review in order to provide advise to the Board and Senior Management of Woolworths to obtain a higher achievement in 2012. In the first part, the report demonstrates analyzing the business environment by SWOT analysis, key capabilities, major stakeholder interests and identification of generic business level strategy of supermarket unit. Then the second part provides analysis on two strategies from internal and external environment and the Corporate Balanced Scorecard analysis contributing better implement their

Coles thrive to make itself a better shopping and working place, therefore they lay stress on achieving the goal i.e.

With over 850 store across Australia, customers are much more connected to the business. They are located in almost every metropolitan and regional area, with their fruits and meat suppliers close to the eastern suburbs.

The success of Wal-Mart is due in large part to its ability to consistently produce high quality products at a low cost. This is very critical to the future success of Wal-Mart because it provides consistency to customers who are price sensitive. By committing themselves to "Everyday low prices," Wal-Mart assures customers that the products sold within their stores are competitive in reference to its retail competition. This low price strategy also provides Wal-Mart with a

Woolworths Limited is an Australian retail company. Judging by market share and sales, Woolworths is the largest food and liquor retailer in Australia. The first store was opened on Friday, 5 December 1924, and today Woolworths operates 1000 stores around Australia.