Waitrose Business Model Analysis

This assignment delves into a comprehensive analysis of Waitrose's business model. It examines the company's target market, identifying key customer segments and their preferences. The analysis explores Waitrose's competitive advantages, such as its focus on quality products, excellent customer service, and strong brand reputation. Furthermore, it discusses Waitrose's strategies for maintaining a sustainable competitive edge in the retail industry, including its expansion plans and innovative initiatives.

Business Organisation in a
Global Context

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK ..............................................................................................................................................1
Introduction to company business..........................................................................................1
Background information on the Business Environment in Canada........................................3
Business environment analysis...............................................................................................7
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
From the age of globalisation the competition all around the world in every industry
increases. It has also provided companies with an opportunity of expanding into new markets. It
is also to be taken care of that the business environment all around the world has changed
considerably ans has posed a serious impact in operations of the firm (O'Regan and Ghobadian,
2012). There are several factors that decides whether the business will be successful or not. Since
there are various issues that are faced by the organisations which hampers the development of
business in the new areas. In retail sector companies are expanding its business in many other
parts of the world. Here he case of Waitrose and its expansion plan in Canada has been
discussed. This report highlights the market suitability for the expansion plan of Waitrose in
Canada as well as the effect of external factors in growth of the firm. It also analyses Canadian
market in terms of performance of retail company.
TASK
Introduction to company business
Waitrose is a British supermarkets having long chains of outlets. It basically is known for
its food retail division. It is Britain's largest employer company in this industry. It was founded
back in the year 1904 and has an experiences of 113 years of business (Bogatu, Paton and
Fernandes, 2017). Its head office is in Bracknell, Berkshire, England. Alone in UK it is having
350 branches which includes 30 little waitrose convenience stores. In UK it is having a market
share of around 5.1% making it the 6th largest grocery store in the country. By many newspapers
it has been referred to have upmarket reputation. This company is known for maintaining the low
pricing strategy relative to its other bigger competitors like Tesco. Waitrose has a royal warrant
to supply groceries, wine and spirits to Queen Elizabeth
Stats about the performance of the company
 It is is having an employee strength of 91,000
 Generating a revenue of around 5,400.4 million pounds with an operating income of
around 173.5 million pounds.
 First major chain to sell organic food (Tench and Topić, 2017).
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Future plans: This company is planning to expand it business in Canadian which is bigger
market. With so many years of business it can achieve this easily but with a complication that
there are major competitors that are present in the Canadian market like Walmart.
This statistics highlights the annual sales revenues of the Waitrose grocery stores in UK
from the year 2009 to 2017. In year 2009 their annual sales was approx. 3.940 million GBP
which reached to 4.317 million GBP. Till 2015 they were successful in gaining the sales revue
number up to 6.135 million GBP. As compared to the previous years the pace of growth reduced
but still it showed good figures in 2017 that 6.245 million GBP.
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Background information on the Business Environment in Canada.
In the retail market of Canada there is low level of concentration between the demand
and supply of a product and it can be said that this market is highly developed. The reason
behind less gap between the demand and supply is the big retail market and at the same time the
shoppers are also large in number. Due to this, there is great opportunity for the local and small
players to expand into the different parts of Canada. If the current market is studied properly it
can be said that there none of the player who holds all whole area of Canadian retail market. This
is the one thing which brings the opportunity for opening, merging and acquisition of the store in
the coming years. Below mentioned is the information about the environment of US:-
Economical Environment:- Economy of the Canada is considered as the largest in the
world with the GDP touching the figures of $16.8 trillion in year 2013. Although there was big
blender for the economy due to economic recession of 2009. The agriculture sector contributes
approx. 1.1% in the overall GDP but on the other side it only generates 1.4% employment as
compared with the other sectors (Euromonitor International, 2014). It is predicted that till 2020
the population of US will reach up to 333 million. Today, they have 316 million population after
China and India they comes on 3rd position.
According to the business report of the World Bank they have been ranked on 4th position
among 189 countries in terms of ease of doing in the country.
Basis Unit 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013
Total GDP US$
millions
14417950 14958300 15533825 16244575 16799700
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Illustration 1: Annual Revenue of Waitrose in UK from 2009
to 2017

GDP
Growth
% -2.8 2.5 1.8 2.8 1.9
Inflation % -0.3 1.6 3.2 2.1 1.5
Exports US$
millions
1056043 1278494.5 1480290.2 1545708.5 1578971.7
Import millions 1559624.8 1913856.6 2208055 2275319.8 2267421.4
Cultural and Political Environment:- Canada is a republic country where President
shares the reserve rights to the national government according to the Constitution of Congress
and Federal Courts. This court gives a sovereignty authority to the state government. The
difference in the political system of Canada and one of the other developed nation is that the
power in Canada is much with the upper house of legislature and supreme court while this is not
the case in those nations(Burke, 2017). The third party does not have much influence as in the
case of other nations. These controls are in the form of state and federal laws, informal media
prohibitions etc. Although the citizens are given Right to expression but there various factors like
political, legal, economic and cultural factors brings black clouds to this.
Cultural and Social environment of Canada has variation as compared with the other
nations who comes in the category of developed nations. It is their society and culture who
makes them the world's most developed country. They have rich racial diversity and this is
because of the immigrates, ageing population, diversity in the workforce, high life expectancy
and infant mortality rate is included in this (Foss and Knudsen, 2013). Canada is known as the
country of immigrants where people from all around the world has came to from a nation.
Individualism, self-reliance and independence are the things which are given priority by the
society out there (Drucker, 2017). Following the same those who are old aged believes in living a
life alone separate from there children. There is complications in the relations because they don't
believe in team work. Culture is one of the factor where they lacks and this is due to the
psychology they have related to the families, friends and working. But it cannot be said that
Canadian society lacks unity as during different activities they come together.
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According to the data, Christianity is the main religion which is normally practised in
Canada constituting 84% of the US population. Normally, 56% of the total population practice
this religion.
When it comes to the appearance most of population who are involved in any business or
work professionally wears a suit with combination tie. The colour of the suit is either grey or
blue and on the other hand working women wears shirt with jacket and pencil skirt or trousers.
The main focus is on the colour as according to them it is the colour appearance which attracts
people and add value to the society.
For the business or any other social talk they prefer doing that thing on lunch and dinner.
To praise someone they write letter and don't accept in gifts, chewing the toothpick in the public
comes in the immoral activity thus showing disrespect to people who are in front of them (Jarvis,
2011). Canada citizens does not allow smoking near their homes and there are also some laws
who restrict smoking in public areas.
Legal and Financial Systems:- Considering the legal system of Canada, patent and
licence is are taken into the federal laws. Any violation of the laws is deal with the judges in the
courts (Galaskiewicz, 2016). The State legal system is almost similar of the Federal legal system
but the major and only difference is that state legal system deal with the claims which are
concerned to the state affairs.
Legal system includes the laws, codes and legislation which is framed by the government
and judiciary and these laws have to be followed by the citizens of Canada. Any violation of the
laws can result into some kind of punishment in the form of jail sentence and fines (Giacalone
and Rosenfeld, 2013). Those whose laws and rights has been violated can appeal into the courts.
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Illustration 2: World Fact Book, 2011

Civil, common and religious laws are kind of laws which are part of the legal system. Following
are the sources of laws which are explained below:-
 Constitutional Law:- It is related to the formal documents that briefs power of the the
Supreme Court. Federal constitution law has originated from the Canada constitution and
on the other side state constitutional law has came from the individual state constitution.
 Statutes and Ordinances:- These are kind of legislation which is framed at federal, state
and local stage.
 Common Law:- Such laws shows the priority and states that how the court defines the
law. In this the present case is judge with the previous decision and this is done by the
judge who gives the final result after hearing the case (Jozsa Jr, 2011). This can be useful
in the scenario when the current case is similar to any of the previous cases. So it can be
said that through this a better decision can be made.
 Administrative Law:- Such kind of law is framed by the administrative bodies which
highlights the intention of legislative body who passed the laws.
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From the above things it can be analysed that those who are willing to do any kind of
business in Canada has to have knowledge about these law and should be ready for any kind of
modification (Martin, Myant and Drahokoupil, 2011). Although the Canadian economy is totally
open and any kind of investment from the private bodies are allowed but Defence, commercial
aviation, maritime industries, commercial fishing, power generation, banking and mining are the
things where investments are restricted. Only those who are part of Canada can do investment in
these sectors. Those who are foreign investors and willing to invest in Canada by opening any
company or business have to register themselves to different government bodies under the
following acts:-
 International Investment and Trade in Services Survey Act 1976;
 Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act 1978;
Money Laundering is seen as crime and comes under Anti-money laundering laws and
government does not allow foreign investors to receive any kind of incentives on their
investments. To make sure that the country receives foreign investment the government give a
special visa that is EB-5/million dollar investor visa. With this visa the investor can become a
citizen of Canada permanently (O'Shaughnessy, 2013).
Registration Formalities:- The company who is going to debut in the market has to
registration and need to get a certificate of incorporations from the Secretary of State of
Delaware. The personal information of the board of directors is also needed.
Financial systems of Canada includes Banking System, Non bank financial bodies and
the stock market. Federal system, commercial banks, foreign banks, offshore banks, saving
institution and credit unions are different bodies which are part of the banking system. Financial
markets includes, equities markets, debt administration money markets and etc. On the other
hand insurance firms, asset based financing firms are categorised into non banking financial
institutions.
Business environment analysis
Waitrose is looking forward for opening new stores in Canada with the aim of increasing
the market share. Two kinds of approach can be adopted for this that Pestle analysis and Porter's
5 forces model.
PESTLE analysis of Waitrose are as follows:-
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Political:- Waitrose is affecting the lives of people as individual prefer to buy products
from a single place only. It is there brand image which help them in entering the Canada market.
The company should take care of the political instability so that they can make the things happen
properly. The stability of Canadian government provides a source of confidence for foreign
companies who wants to do businesses in Canada. Nations that face frequent regime change and
political turmoil have a harder time attracting foreign investments.
Economical:- They have valued or priced the products which they sell in right way that
if is of good quality as well as not much expensive. Retail sector in Canada is the largest private
employer in Canada. Through levying tariffs and executing other trade restrictions, government
can to some extent protect domestic organisation from international competition.
 Opportunity:- They support 42 million jobs and provide $1.6 trillion in labour income
thus contributing $2.6 trillion annually in GDP of Canada. This is an advantage for
Waitrose as they will be creating more jobs thus adding more value the economy. This
way they will able to improve their brand value.
 Threats:- In the economy they have to face a tough competition from Wal-Mart, The
Kroger Co., Costo and etc. are some of the biggest players and on the other hand the
small companies trading in this sector will also give tough competitors.
 Advantages:- The advantage available with them is that they are in Canada there is
increasing trend of online shopping and they are launching their services on online
platform.
Socio Cultural:- People in Canada looks more the organic product and looking at this the
company deliver the organic product in their every market. People wants that they should get
healthy food and it is objective of Waitrose to provide healthy food thus paying the attention to
the consumer preference in the society. It is necessary that their food and drinks products are
fresh and frozen in almost every store.
Technological:- This is one of the factor where they lack from their competitors as still
they are adopting the traditional way of accounting, services and etc. where technological up
gradation is required. Everyone is aware of the fact that social media is spread all over the world
and sites like Facebook and Twitter can be used to reach a large number of customers in less
period of time and can be used for the marketing purpose. As they are opening their stores in
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Canada they should announce the date and offer at the social media platform thus getting a free
promotion.
Environmental:- Waitrose needs to make sure that they follow the environmental
protection laws, waste disposal and energy consumption laws. They ensure that from their
activities they does not harm the natural setting of the place where they are operating their
operations. Their store should promote greenery thus using eco- friendly methods.
Legal:- There are various laws like employment law, healthy and safety are some of the
laws which Waitrose has to abide. It is an organisation's legal obligations to ensure that their
products and packaging are safe for their customer's well-being. An unwanted item or element
founded in products might cause them great loss as their market value will go down.
Porters five forces for Waitrose:
The Canadian super market is one of the profit leading industry. In this Waitrose wants to
develop their market for getting better competitive advantage and also improve their process to
capture large market share by providing best products and services to their target customers .
Every company wants to develop their business in various location to improve their brand image
for this they undertake various researched to set their products and also identify the market
trends. With the help of this process company easily capture large market by and satisfied their
customers demand in systematic manner (Scheer, 2012). Mainly cited company provide food
products to their customers in order to achieve their higher satisfaction which directly impact on
its productivity as well as profitability. They used porters five forces to expand their business
operation in Canada market in order to get positive outcomes. All the forces are as follows:
 Level of competition: In today's market competitors are very high so that Waitrose face
more competition in market place. For taking competitive place, it is more important for
company to provide high services as well as products at affordable price so that it leads in
becoming a successful company in Canada market in most effective way.
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 Threats of substitute: there are less substitute of the products and services of Waitrose so
that they easily provide high quality services to their customers in order to get their
higher satisfaction and also enhance their overall productivity in market place . Threats of new Entrants: In this entries of new business is very low so that they easily
develop their operational activities in the market in most effective manner and get better
results in more effective manner. Although they are the new players in the market so they
have to face a lot of issues to expand their business in Canada and they sustain their
market they have to put a lot resources.
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Illustration 3: Canada retail companies

 Bargaining power of buyers: In this customers buying power is very high so that they
focus on their taste and preferences to get their higher satisfaction. With the help of this
Waitrose easily fulfil their customers needs by providing quality services at affordable
prices. The income growth is expected to go high in short or medium term. This thing has
come when the rising asset prices. House prices have crossed good number and hit all
time high thus boosting consumer spending. This can be an opportunity for the Waitrose
and on the other side this more act as disadvantage factor as there are lots of competitors
are available.
 Bargaining power of suppliers: In present time, bargaining is getting high so that they
produce their own raw materials without any support of suppliers. With the help of this
they get extra benefits as well as margin in most effective manner. The bargaining power
of the suppliers as increased with the increase in the import duty so the retail company
like Waitrose have to pay more to imports the products and goods. The other thing which
has impacted the business is the online platform as now the suppliers are directly dealing
with the customers rather than the retail sector employees.
All these factors are more effective for the Waitrose to develop their operational process
in Canada in which they easily provide better services and capture large market share form its
rivals in most effective manner.
CONCLUSION
There are various issues which might be faced by Waitrose in expanding their business to
US. The culture, society and interest of the Canadian people are quite different from the other
nations so they have to make strategy which can brings better outcomes. They have to set the
target market and should deliver the quality products to the customer on suitable price range.
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REFERENCES
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