Woolworths Ltd Analysis - Case Study Example

Woolworths Ltd case study Name: Institution: Terms of Reference This is a report that is focused on the culmination of efforts to study as well as updating the way Woolworths Limited runs, as a nominated ASX Company. The report focuses on the strategies, objectives as well as the mission and vision statement of the company. This is all aimed at establishing if Woolworths Ltd has worked its way through goal achievement by following and sticking to its strategic plans. Procedure We look into a case study that had been published earlier on giving a number of issues stated strategically to act as the company’s stimulus. There is also the use of other materials such as the company’s database to give us insight into the activities that have been undertaken within the company. There also are books, articles and journals that have been created to elaborate more into the company’s business ventures. All these will aid in establishing and learning Woolworths Company’s development through strategic management. Our report coverage is over the three year strategy whereby we look into the company’s past year as well as to the next year’s objectives. We will also focus on the sustainability and financial results ranging between those periods. FINDINGS Woolworth Ltd.’s Operations Presently, Woolworth Ltd has been known to be Australia’s major retailer. With a market share of 31%, the Company’s major ventures have been engaging itself in activities such as general merchandise, food, petrol, liquor and even consumer electronics that have been channelling through store operators as well as entertainment, gaming and hotel operations. Their major brands have included, Dick smith electronics, Safeway supermarkets, Dan Murphy, Tandy, Big W, BWS and powerhouse. Its supermarket industry has been termed as the most successful and prosperous by reporting $47.06 billion sales during the 2007/08 year of finance and this was a representation of a 10.7% growth as compared to that previous year. To its history, the company’s first store that was based in Sydney as a basement outlet was opened in the year 1924. The company has undergone expansions through acquisitions making it a major dominant force among the Australian retail industry. During the end of the 2008 calendar year, the company was already operating stores up to 3,000 in Australia as well as New Zealand employing about 180,000 people. Recently there have been changes within the company’s Australian supermarket industry that included ALDI which is a Germany supermarket giant entering into its market. There was also a success for the company in taking over Coles Group Ltd by Wesfarmers. Generally, Woolworth Ltd has engaged itself in the retail businesses in Australia as well as countries like India and New Zealand. The company is operating nine hundred and ninety six supermarkets in Australia under the brand names Woolworths and Safeway. In New Zealand, it operates under the Woolworths, countdown and food town brand names. The company also runs under 11 Thomas Dux in Australia. Others are the liquor outlets via BWS, Safeway and Dan Murphy brand names. There also are the 581 petrol canopies within Australia whereby 132 have been cobranded Woolworths/Caltex. The company goes as further as operating 165 BIG W stores of general merchandising, supplying technological products via Trandy and Dick Smith stores that operate in New Zealand and Australia. They provide 64 retail stores that have been understood to operate under Croma brand name India with wholesale services. In addition to the above businesses, the company also runs282 hotels that include dining, bars, gaming, and venue hire operations as well as accommodation with hardware stores ranging up to 19. Woolworths Ltd Objectives and Strategies Company’s Plans for Growth Woolworths Ltd has plan of growing within the business world has been attached to four major strategic plans as seen below i. The first is defending and extending its leadership in the food and liquor industry ii. Acting on the company’s portfolio with the aim of maximising their shareholder values iii. Maintaining the companies track records in regard to the construction of new businesses iv. Putting into place new era growth enablers The long term goal of Woolworths Company has been to ensure that the company claims recognition as the leader to sustainable retailing operations within the retailing sector (Bradmore, 2005). This has led to integrating their corporate sustainability and responsibility in every day to day business life to being the company’s high priority. The company in ensuring that there was a commitment to their goal, targets, priorities and initiatives came up with a publication “Doing the Right Thing: Sustainability Strategy 2007-2015” in 2007 November. The company in wanting to ensure that each division is up to the goal did incorporate all the divisions to their sustainability which has been targeted for the five year strategic plan. The overall responsibility within the company’s management and governance system rests with the Board. This Board oversees workability of the company’s safety as well as the employee’s safety and health focuses which is done via its people policy committee. Woolworths Ltd Company Mission, Vision, Strategy and Information on Various Perspectives An organization mission is the overall focus on the business an organization performs in terms of core values and principles. The vision on the other hand defines the organization desired future to those who accept and understand it. A mission statement outlines an organization core purpose and provides a basis for its vision. When developing mission statements most organizations take into consideration financial focus .Woolworths Ltd Company being a marketing organization must therefore base its mission and strategies on financial performance. The company focuses on customer satisfaction through innovative products and services while at the same time must ensure an improvement in financial results. It is only by being financially secure that the company is able to achieve its mission of providing innovative products to customers while at the same time remain within established strategies (epmreview.com, 2012). The mission statement of Woolworths Ltd Company is mainly based on the variety of products that the company comes up with and on the perspective of financial operations the delivery of these products should ensure the following: the company must ensure it creates value to its stakeholders in the process of delivering the products in its mission. Its financial perspective thus focuses on objectives and measures that will ensure maximum stakeholder value. I have identified three objectives to improve Woolworths Ltd financial performance (epmreview.com, 2012). Objective 1: increase capacity for enabling technology-this relates to the company products in its mission and its vision of being the best nutrition and other products company. Measure: customer perspective to maximize satisfaction. Target: continually lead in identification of innovative measures. Action: university partnerships, industry consultation and recruitment of experts that will aid in uplifting the company’s activities and services. Objective 2: Improve project management expertise in Woolworths Ltd this fastens their production and actual action on mission and vision through efficiency. Measure: internal process perspective. Target: to always define a clear path through analysis of results and expectations. Action: Encouragement of the team to create motivation thus ensuring adjustments are taken positively whereby the whole team will be focused on ensuring the company’s mission and goal is achieved appropriately. Objective 3: Improve cross discipline teamwork-this ensures that every action is aimed and focused on the vision and strategies and not on personal interests. Measure: learning and growth .Target: to develop effective cross functional teams in Apple. Action: training staff on how to develop strong and collaborative teams that are focused on growth. Woolworths’ Economic as Well as Business Environment As in any other economic venture, the government will create direct impact on the retail and supermarket industry whereby Woolworths Ltd falls. This includes the legitimate working terms and conditions whereby the company should be in a position to offer its employees reliable and appropriate working conditions. By doing so the government looks into ensuring that there are regulations that should be adhered to by Australian companies and that the Australian competition and consumer commission’s stipulated terms are followed to the letter. By working to the expectations of the law, the company puts its self in a better position to serve more clients and gets the opportunity to widen its market. The working environment within the company has been set in such a way that all the stakeholders within the production and consumer industry are able to benefit sufficiently getting better business terms within their market. To start with, within the field of entrepreneurship, innovation is seen to be the manner in which better services, opportunities, products, services, and more effective products are created within an organization (Grant, 2002). Innovation is known to be differing from creativity to another in that it could mean the use of ideas that have not been practiced early on or improving on the already existing ideas. On the same level, innovation management is the process used in management and development. This is with the aim of developing factors such as products as well as other innovations within an organization. The major focus to innovative management is to allow an organization to give sound response to opportunities arising both internally and externally using its creativity to give rise to improved notions to product stability within its intended market (Grant, 2002). In innovative entrepreneurship, entrepreneurs are required to avail themselves with business qualities like the capacity to come with a great team which is effective in its work, drive, efficiency in leadership, as well as great creativity (Wolpert, 2002). In order to achieve success, it is useful that both innovation and entrepreneurship go in hand with each other effectively. It has been possible within different organizations such as Woolworths Ltd Company that, innovation exists in two processes. These are the process being either pushed through development or being pulled through it (Wolpert, 2002). Within a pushed process there is the existence of newly inventions of technology which the organization accesses as it tries to look at the possible profitable measures of putting the application into use. In a pulled process, the organization tries to look at the possible areas where there is less satisfaction of customer needs. The organization will then try to find solutions to the vice of customer dissatisfaction. Woolworths Ltd Company, being among the largest retail companies, has strategized upon the success of innovative management to aid the company achieve its business goals of making total profits and domineering the food production industry. The company has tasked itself with different retail and business ventures and its products have been meant for both international and domestic markets (Grant, 2002). The company has engaged itself in organisational innovation and in this case coming up with changing structures to business models, marketing innovation whereby they get to develop alternatives in marketing procedures and techniques to improve on their prices, market position, product packaging and design as well as the mode of product promotion (Wolpert, 2002). They have also worked on supply chain innovation a case in which they are looking into how there could be improvements in the way the company products are delivered to customers and at the same time having a steady and efficient supply of materials. There also is financial innovation whereby the company brings together different financial concepts. This are matters such as risk sharing, ownership to produce new and good financial services, credit within the company and ways to create new financials from other relevant sources (Grant, 2002). All the above show the what the meaning of innovative management is to Woolworths Ltd Company, through the measures they have employed in ensuring that their goal is being achieved without incurring extra costs. With respect to the generation of (substantial, disruptive) innovation, the company has experienced strengths and weaknesses in their business endeavours. In the strengths side of view, by its sales the company has established itself as the largest food producer within the high riding Australian market (Wolpert, 2002). The company has had a strong focus in the development of value added productions. There has been annual growth in gross sales upwards of 20% and this has been seen as an impressive performance within its sources. The company has also ventured in diversification to its production mix focusing on value added products to strengthen its position in the market, full of competitors. Technology Technologically, the company has got aid via the use of innovative management and machinery which has aided the working environment and decreasing the work load that exists within its ranks. Employees will not have to go through poor and harsh working conditions as the company has acquired machines that make work easier to handle. As a leader in the retail industry, Woolworths has had no reported problems in embracing new technology within the company. For instance, it is known that Woolworths company Ltd has been among the first retail company to have subscription to GEMMnet during the period of 1994. This helped in linking and connecting Woolworths to other remote companies. Conclusion As per the above research, we can conclude that there is financial innovation within Woolworths Ltd Company whereby the company brings together different financial concepts. This are matters such as risk sharing, ownership to produce new and good financial services, credit within the company and ways to create new financials from other relevant sources (Grant, 2002). All the above show what the meaning of innovative management is to RKR through the measures they have employed in ensuring that their goal is being achieved without incurring extra costs. Through Woolworths’ Ltd innovativeness, the company has seen a rise in its activities and have made forward movements in achieving their business goals. Recommendations For better sales and future progress, Woolworths Ltd Company should work on an explicit action plan which should be aimed at improving and promoting their mode of production. This can range from branding strategies, consistence, competitive pricing, and established creditability (Porter, 1998). Branding brings out a vivid picture to the consumers elaborating what the company and its own products stand for. Successful branding strategies will guide the audiences into formulating what a company’s products entail. Positive attitudes from the audience could turn them into potential consumers. The company should aim at capturing their potential consumer’s attention through their advertisements. The way they package their products should be considered as this will also affect the consumer’s preference. In a nutshell Woolworths Ltd Company should aim to work on their already existing branding strategies to open up their market (Wolpert, 2002). After all the branding, the company should aim at being consistent with its products and maintain their initial brand. That will equip the consumers with something to look for example a logo of a certain product. This logo could act as an identity to certain products whereby the consumer could easily choose that which they desire with much easy. For consistency in this case, the company should try to acquire the most suitable brand for itself and its products (Porter, 1998). That will avoid the incidents of switching from brand to brand. Inconsistence could also give way to counterfeit products which may interrupt the accountability of the company. The company should also work towards achieving established credibility with a strong consumer base to create good reputation for product delivering. This can be done through advertisements and other marketing strategies such efficient service delivery and good pricing. Lastly, we can talk of competitive pricing which largely determined by the company’s product. In the case of Woolworths Ltd Company, dealing with food stuff is not at the same level with a clothing company. Food business is more established than most business ventures there should be more competition in productions (Porter, 1998). In this case, Woolworths Ltd should aim at coming up with prices that will tend to be flexible to consumers from different classes within the community. References Bradmore, D. 2005, Competitive Advantage Concepts, Pearson Education, Frenchs Forest, Sydney. Carter, T. 2005, Retail Pressure, viewed Augus 2012 . Coles Annual Report 2006. Corbett, R. 2005, Quarterly sales report, Woolworths corporate presentations, April 2005, pp. 1-4. Data Analysis, 2007, WOW company report. Deresky, H. 2002, International Management: Managing Across Boarders and Cultures, 4th edn, Prentice Hall, New Jersey. Fischer, J.W. 2005, At Your Service. The Culinary Institute of America. New York. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Grant, M. 2002, Contemporary Strategy Analysis. New Jersey: Wiley-Blackwell. Meyer, D. 2006, Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business. New York. HarperCollins. Mill, C. 2007 Restaurant Management: Customers, Operations and Employees. 3rd Ed. New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall. Ninemeier, D. & Hayes, K. 2006, Restaurant Operations Management: Principles & Practices. 1st ed. New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc. Porter, E. 1998, Competitive advantage: Creating and sustaining superior performance. New York: Free press. Wolpert, J. 2002, Breaking out of the innovation box. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Washington 2003, Logistics: The chain gang Business Review Weekly, 16 October 2003. Woolworths Limited Company Results 2008, viewed 15 September 2008 . Woolworths Limited website 2012, viewed 10August2012 . Read More