Business Analysis of the UK Supermarket Industry - Research Paper Example

The paper "Business Analysis of the UK Supermarket Industry" is an outstanding example of a business research paper. The emergence of large supermarkets in the UK was enforced by the replacement of small local convenience outlets by the end of 1990. The supermarket industry in the UK has experienced affluent growth due to the presence of a relatively large and compact market having close proximity with major urban cities. Moreover, the retail sector in the UK constitutes the major part of the economy and contributes around 16.5% of GDP worth 150 billion as a whole (Alderighi and Piga, 2012). In particular, the retail sector in the UK is influential and enormous and presents massive contrasts.

The supermarket industry in the United Kingdom is ruled by powerful and giant players namely Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury’s, Marks and Spencer and Morrison. However, in comparison to the large supermarkets, the demand for convenience retailing has upsurged as more numbers of retailers are focusing back on local stores. Some of the large supermarkets and symbol groups in the UK emphasize consolidating with the convenience stores and this initiative has been joined by the leading retailers such as Sainsbury’s, Asda and Morrison (Yu, Ramanathan and Nath, 2014).

In terms of competition, the supermarket industry in the UK is increasingly polarized mainly between the numerically dominant independent retailers and the huge corporate chains. However, independent retailers or supermarket chains have experienced a competitive decline for some decades as their operational approach, scale and general efficiency is found to be incompetent in presence of modern and effective multiple retailers. The major challenge for the past few years has been on the incorporation of a significant price-sensitive approach within the retail industry, specifically after the onset of the credit crunch recession (Beske, Land and Seuring, 2014). While the leading retailers are still looking for developing large stores, there is a considerable push to develop different format stores depending upon the consumer location and characteristics.