Business Failure of Woolworths Group Plc - Case Study Example

Understanding of Business Failure: Case analysis of Woolworths Group Plc.

• Introduction

Woolworths Group Plc. was a popular listed company in the UK which operated a chain of retail stores in high streets of the UK and Ireland called as Woolworths. Woolworths which had nearly 800 stores across the country before its closure, was the main business line of the Woolworths Group Plc. selling a large range of general merchandise (Bloomberg, 2016). Other than this, Woolworths Group Plc., also owned and operated an entertainment business and was the largest wholesale distributor in Britain for home entertainment products. The range of products offered by Woolworths included kid’s clothing, toys, confectionary, household items and entertainment. The company headquartered in London was founded in 1909 by Frank Winfield Woolworth as a principal UK retailer pioneered in household goods (Woolworths Group Plc., 2007). Woolworths offered the consumers a value-for-money on a wide range of retail product and started expanding in major cities of the UK and Ireland since mid 1900s (Woolworths Group Plc., 2008). The company continued to open up new stores as its business grew day-by-day in terms of sales and profitability and it was traded as a listed company on the London Stock Exchange much later in 2001 (Bloomberg, 2016). The company was brought to closure in 2009 when the entire world entered into a period of strict financial crisis that reduced that availability of credit in the economy and subsequent decrease in the consumer spending. Such crises along with the dramatic fall in the share prices of the company from 2006 gave a final blow to Woolworth’s business in the 2009 (BBC, 2009).

The essay critically evaluates the reasons of business failure of Woolworths which was once a successful retail based chain in the UK and evaluates the strategies that could help in turnaround of the business or facilitate its exit from the industry.

• Overview of company performance during its years of operations

Since its foundation in 1909, Woolworths had become the most familiar feature in the high streets of the UK with over 4 million of customer base and employed over 30,000 employees (Woolworths Group Plc., 2007). Over the years, the key focus of Woolworths was to retain their profitability and create a strong profit base in the challenging external environment of the retail sector and in amidst of its extensive internal changes in its business. Each of the business line of Woolworths was making substantial progress during the year which strengthened the overall strategic position of the company in the retail market of the UK (Reynolds et al, 2005).

Financial highlights of Woolworths before its closure are given below.

• The total revenue of the company was £2,969.6 million with an increase of 8.5% from the previous period.
• The profits of the company before taxation increased to £11.7 million from £4.3 million.
• The adjusted profit of the company also increased substantially to £28.3 million from £6.5 million.
• The net debt of the company at the end of 2008 stood at £123.7 million.
• The adjusted earnings per share rose in the year 2008 and were 1.4 pence/share compared to 1.2 pence/per share in the previous year (Woolworths Group Plc., 2008).

The company’s profits increased in 2008. Even though its like-for-like sales were down by 3.2 percent from the previous year, its multichannel revenue rose by 5.2% and gross margin increased by 101 basis points (Woolworths Group Plc., 2008).

Despite of the strong business performances and major turnarounds in revenue and profits, the business of Woolworths was brought to closure in the year 2009. This company was a relevant example of business failure and the aim of the paper is to evaluate the factors that lead to business failure. In simple words, business failure implies the closure of any business initiative in order to create value as it has failed to realise the goals of the business (Pretorius, 2009). In other way, business failure happens when a firm or company fails to meet its liabilities or the management objectives (Pretorius, 2008). The failing business eventually in those organisations will go insolvent until and unless suitable management initiatives are undertaken in order to improve their business or financial performance (Balcaen and Ooghe, 2006; Mueller and Shepherd, 2014). If the management of the organisations fails to do so, it will inevitably result in closure or shutting down of the business.

• Identification of the causes of business failure

Woolworths consistently flourished in its pursuit to remain in the heart of the consumers as a best retailer and kid’s clothier since 1966. Nonetheless, slowly its profits started falling in the lieu of the emergence of large-scale competitors during 1980s like Marks & Spencer’s, Wal-Mart, Argos etc. that surpassed its sales volume and profits in the UK (Kopalle et al., 2009). These competitors became very much prevalent in the retail market because of their low priced products, extensive range of products, better services, better sale facilities etc (Cohen and Mazzeo, 2007). The management of the company eventually decided to restructure its business and sold out many of its unprofitable businesses including adult clothing and food and simultaneously launched entertainment products’, CDs and video sales. Due to such major restructuring of business, the company experienced some boost in sales and turnover in the 1990s despite of the expansion of the some retail chains like Wilkinson in the area where Woolworth operated (Reynolds, 2005).

In the early years of 2000s, the management of Woolworths re-evaluated the entire business and reconsidered the expansion and realignment of its management structure. This reinforced the infrastructure and brought accurate management of the stocks that maintained their prices at the optimum level (Miles, 2011). The management reduced the number of suppliers in order to cut down costs and improved their own branded products. All these efforts resulted in the some enhancement in sales and profits of Woolworths and the financial results in 2005-06 showed some rise (Robinson, 2008). However, in 2008, when the entire world was in recession and entered into the phase of acute financial crises, there was substantial fall in the credit availability from the financial institutions along with loss in consumer spending (Sands and Ferraro, 2010). The banks providing loans to Woolworths refused to give further loans and demanded back the repayment of its outstanding loans (BBC, 2009). On the other hand, due to the economic downturn, the business sales suffered hugely and its share prices started falling dramatically (shown in figure 1).

Figure 1: Share Prices of Woolworths in 2008

(Source: BBC, 2009)

Therefore, looking at the above information it can be clearly stated that the impact of credit crunch in the global economy accompanied by loss in consumer spending has provided the final blow to Woolworths’ business when the company was already struggling hard to retain its profitability in the competitive retail market. The following section will be presenting the macro and micro environmental factors through tools of PESTLE and SWOT analysis for evaluating the main causes that impacted Woolworths’s potential, competitive position, market trends and company’s direction of operation. Furthermore, the major financial instruments of Woolworths has showed deterioration in year 2008 from previous years which clearly reflects the decline of the company’s financial position prior to its closure (refer to Appendix).

• • PESTLE Analysis

Political Factors: There were no major political threats to Woolworths in the UK that affected the performance of the company. However, the implications of tax rates on consumer goods and the Labour party indulgence in reducing the spending of the consumers because of unforeseen economic conditions are some of the factors that affected the sales revenue of Woolworths (Hall, 2009).

Economic Factors: The dawn of economic recession during 2008 was a main economic factor that led to descend of the Woolworth’s business. The period of economic downturn across the world which was accompanied by credit crunch reduced the availability of loans to the businesses. The lenders of Woolworths also refused to borrow and instead demanded repayments, making situation difficult for Woolworths as its outstanding debts or borrowings in 2008 were high compared to 2007 and 2006 (Robinson, 2008). This financial crisis along with substantial decline in consumer spending affected the profitability and sales of Woolworths.

Social Factors: There are some social factors that contributed towards the decline of Woolworths’s business was the change in the consumer’s tastes and preferences towards modern clothing, households and other retail items (Dixon, 2013). The new retailers like Wal-Mart, Argos, Marks and Spencer’s, came up with differentiated and premium quality products that meet up the high expectations of the consumers which Woolworths failed to do (BBC, 2009).

Technological Factors: Woolworths had limited scope only to UK and Ireland while other supermarket retailers have international market presence worldwide (Robinson, 2008). It followed an old school style of managing its business and did not practice lean supply chain, product differentiation through innovation, one-stop stopping, etc. It failed to invest adequately in store refurbishments from time to time while Marks and Spencer’s and Wal-Mart have attractive store formats (Hall, 2009).

Legal Factors: There was lot of complaints from the trade unions regarding collective redundancies and they initiated legal actions on the basis of absence of consultation of the workers representatives before the UK Court of Appeal (Pal, Medway and Byrom, 2006).

Environmental Factors: The UK Government governs the approval of environmental concerns and the process of assessment of the companies which implies that Woolworths had to practice environmentally sustainable policies in its production and distribution. The Greenpeace movement in 2007 claimed that the company had not tried to remove the sale of incandescent light bulbs in its stores (Woolworths Group Plc., 2008).

• • SWOT Analysis

Strengths

Weaknesses

• Large stores in the prime locations in the high streets of Australia and New Zealand.
• Wide range of product comprising of toys, kid’s clothing, home and entertainment, confectioneries.
• Special line of business which is Entertainment Wholesale and Publishing that held 40 per cent share.
• It offered value for money on a wide range of products.
• Some trademark brands such Ladybird, Worthit!, Chad Valley.

(Woolworths Group Plc., 2008)

• Traditional stores and old school style of management.
• Small number of stores
• Market presence was restricted to the UK and Ireland
• Some unprofitable sales in electrical and computing products (Woolworths Group Plc., 2008).

Opportunities

Threats

• It added value to their services through management of retailer’s inventory, use of market research and know-how.
• By focusing on ‘Kids and Celebrations’ line of business, it strived hard to become the worldwide accepted partner of choice for kid’s clothing.
• Through bespoke strategies, it created exclusive branded products and promotions that differentiated their products.

(Woolworths Group Plc., 2008).

• Rise in competitors like Walmart, Argos, Marks and Spencer’s, Next, which offered products at low prices, highly valued customer services and extensive range of products that meet the modern expectations of the consumers (Scott and Walker, 2012).
• Decline in like-for-like sales due to unprofitable product lines.
• High costs for distribution, tech support and customer services as it practices traditional methods of management.

The major weaknesses and threats reflected the fragile situation of Woolworths in the retail industry and these factors accompanied the declining financial parameters of the company due to economic recession contributed towards business failure of Woolworths.

• Strategies for exit or turnaround

When businesses fail, the entrepreneurs either seek for appropriate turnaround strategies for revamping their business in a new way to return to profitable position or simply exit the industry when they see less chances of recovery and experience high operating losses (Longenecker, Neubert and Fink, 2007). Based on the analysis of business failure of Woolworths in 2009, some appropriate recommendations are made for Woolworths for strategic exit from the retail industry of the UK. There are two exit situations for firms that is situation of gain and loss (DeTienne, 2010). The situation of profit implies high performance and situation of loss implies low performance. The exit can be taken by the firms through sale or liquidation (Hamrouni and Akkari, 2012). In case of sale, the business of firm is sold to some another owner who restructure the business and continues it. While in case of liquidation, the owner of the business liquidates all the assets of the business and results in permanent closure of the business (DeTienne and Cardon, 2012).

Figure 2: 4 Distinct Exit Routes of Firms

(Source: Wennberg et al, 2010)

The above figure shows the major turnaround strategies which can be applied to Woolworths to prevent its closure. As per Wennberg et al. (2010), there are two strategies of exit for low performing firms namely distress sale and distress liquidation. The situation of high performance is not applicable for Woolworths as it faced heavy losses and substantial decline in operating margins. Thus, the strategies of distress sale and distress liquidation were available to Woolworths.

The sale of the firm in the situation of distress relies on the features of buyers and the sale of the business should be equivalent to harvesting the value of business (Shepherd, Wiklund and Haynie, 2009; Amankwah-Amoah, 2011). This strategy is preferred to prevent bankruptcy or liquidation of the week performing firms (Pancholi and Arshed, 2014). More precisely, such alternative is used when the entrepreneur started generating huge loss and was unable to turn around the situation due to less accumulated profits and low operating margins (Stam and Schutjens, 2006). Thus, distress sale is the appropriate choice for firms like Woolworths who are in financial distress.

The strategy of distress liquidation can be also used by the firm which experiences low performance for a consistent period of losses and plans to exit the industry when there is no scope for improvement (Ucbasaran et al, 2013). Entrepreneurs of businesses experiencing the situation of failure often fund the business with equity to avoid bankruptcy and choose to liquidate it, selling off all the assets and paying all the creditors (FitzRoy et al, 2012).

The emergence of large number of retailers and supermarket chains offering varied range of products at low prices and the state of economic recession impacted largely the sale and credit availability of the company. This situation is perceived as a situation of extreme financial distress for Woolworths. It did not have any opportunities to return to business through restructuring as credit crunch in the economy due to recession prevented financial institutions to lend them further money which it could invest for restructuring its business (Salvato, Chirico and Sharma, 2010). Although the financial performances of the company were weak during 2008 with fall in profits and the outstanding liabilities, the profits were still positive and current assets of the company were high. Also, the prospect of retail industry is always high because of the products are basic necessities and demand are ever rising. Hence, liquidation of the business is not appropriate for Woolworths as it results in permanent loss of the company’s business name, trademark products, distinct business traits and will also lead to unemployment of the workers engaged in the company. Thus, it is suggested that distress sale will be the appropriate strategy of exit for Woolworths during its business failure.

• Conclusion

Woolworths, a popular listed company in the UK prospered very swiftly in the retail industry in its pursuit of mission to become the best retailer and kid’s clothier since 1966. Even though its profits started falling during 1980s due to appearance of many large-scale competitors such as Marks & Spencer’s, Wal-Mart, Argos etc, the profitability of the company did not decline much. The competitors became very much prevalent in the retail market for their low and reasonable priced products, extensive range of products, better services, better sale facilities etc. Nevertheless, in 2008, when the whole world experienced economic downturn due to recession and entered into the phase of severe financial crisis, there was considerable fall in the credit availability to the businesses from the financial institutions along with loss in consumer spending. Thus, the banks offering loans to Woolworths refused to give any loans and instead demanded back their outstanding loans. On the other hand, the business sales also suffered hugely and its share prices started falling dramatically.

The analysis of business failure of Woolworths in 2009 helped in providing some appropriate recommendations to Woolworths for strategic exit from the retail industry. There are two exit situation for firms i.e. situation of gain and situation of loss. The situation of profit implies high performance and situation of loss implies low performance. The firm can make an exit through sale or liquidation. It was suggested to Woolworths to choose the strategy of distress sale for exit in the situation of its business failure. Distressed sale will keep the job of employees unaffected and provide relief to the investors and creditors. It provides an opportunity to bring back the business in a new shape and new way and the traditional appeal of Woolworths will help the purchasing company to attract customers. Also, under this strategy, the trademark products of the company can be retained which would not happen in case of distress liquidation.

• Reference List

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• Appendices

Table 1

(Source: Woolworths Group Plc., 2008)

Table 2

(Source: Woolworths Group Plc., 2008)

Table 3

(Source: Woolworths Group Plc., 2008)