Business Strategy and Its Applications

This assignment delves into the realm of business strategy, examining its different types and practical applications. Students are tasked with analyzing provided examples of business strategies employed by companies in various sectors. The analysis should encompass the specific strategic approaches used, their intended outcomes, and the observed impacts on the businesses. Emphasis is placed on understanding how these strategies contribute to organizational success and competitive advantage.

Business Strategy

INTRODUCTION
Company Overview
Waitrose is one of the well known food retail supermarket chain which forms a division
of largest employee owned retailer of Britain. The firm is headquartered in Bracknell, England
and has 352 branches all across the UK (Ackermann and Audretsch, 2013). It was established in
the year 1904 by Arthur Rose, David Taylor and Wallace Waite. The company have 5.1% of
market share which makes the firm sixth largest grocery retailer in UK. The enterprise has royal
warrant of supplying groceries, spirits and wine to Queen Elizabeth and Prince Charles. The firm
began as small grocery retailer in Acton, West London. After 2 years, David had left business
and from the name of remaining founders, the name “Waitrose” was adopted. In year 1937,
enterprise consisting of 10 shops with 160 employees and was taken over by John Lewis
Partnership. It was purchased South Essex grocery business, Martin and Schofield in year 1944,
which had 12 shops in supermarket chain. In 1951, their high street shop was regenerate into self
service store and be the first grocery store that is operated by Waitrose.
Currently, the firm has 5.1% of food market share and in addition to this, Waitrose had
18% of organic food share. As of 2017, the estimated revenues of company is £5,400.4 million
and its operating income is £173.5 million. There are around 91,000 employees working in firm
and successfully run its business operations. By 2017, Waitrose had 352 stores across United
Kingdom and it opened the first cashless shop under Little Waitrose brand. The advertising of
firm focuses on unique selling point (Annabi and McGann, 2013). Their recent marketing has
attempted to represent the business as more ethical in comparison to other supermarkets. In year
2011, the company introduced its loyalty card scheme as myWaitrose. Later, they began to
provide 10% off to cardholders on selected products. Some portion of profits is donate by firm to
charities on proportional basis. Along with this, Waitrose foundation was launched in 2005
which administering funds for worker facilities, education and health services.
As a part of John Lewis Partnership, all employees of Waitrose are allotted the title of
'Partner'. Uniforms of all partners are different according to their departments. The branches of
Waitrose were largely concentrated in Greater London and England. Some of their stores include
an in-house restaurant which is selling hot and cold food. They offers 'Quick Check' to customers
which is a self service system. Waitrose.com is their own website regarding delivery services
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which is available at certain stores only. Customers can ordered goods by internet on this
website.
Business Strategies are defined as a course of action planned to attain certain measurable
& specific goals. These are developed by high level of management and executed by operational
managers under supervision of upper level. Major reason behind formulating strategies is to
accomplish goals, objectives and mission of firm (Auzair, 2011). In the present assignment,
chosen organisation is Waitrose which is British grocery retailer. The report includes assessment
of business vision, mission, objectives and goals as well as factors that should be considered
while formulating strategic plan. It also involves stakeholders analysis, environmental and
organisational audit. At last, roles & responsibilities of personnel in executing strategy and
contribution of SMART targets in successful strategy implementation is defined in this project.
TASK 1
1.1 Evaluation of business vision, objectives, goals, mission and core competencies
Mission:
The mission statement of company refers as the long term plan which depicts that where
they wants to stand themselves in near future. It is a set of purposes which desires by firm in
order to meet expectations of shareholders. It assists in determine how business run, their range
of goods and services, customer etc. Mission of Waitrose is “We make what matters best,
together”.
Vision:
Vision statement depicts about future expectation of firm. It assists in identifying growth
and potential benefit of organisation.
Vision statement of Waitrose is “To be the extremely valued business in eyes of customers they
serve, the communities in which they operate, their committed and loyal colleagues & of
shareholders”.
Objectives and Goals:
These are the basic guidelines which a firm wants to attain in a defined time period.
Objectives are targets for short term that company wants to attain by utilizing their skills as
business (Azar, 2011). Goals are the plans for long term and objectives are for short term plan of
an organisation. Goals & objectives of Waitrose are:
 To maximize profit by developing organic range.
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 Motivate staff to increase customer service level.
 Build links with local community.
 Increase profits by opening new stores.
Core competence:
These are the special qualities and skills that assist in making business distinctive from its
competitors. It supports in creating a strong brand image for consumers and attain their loyalty
towards firm (Bharadwaj and et. al., 2013). The core competence of Waitrose is their retail
network which assist in successful attainment of purposes.
1.2 Analysis of component that are considered while explicate strategic plan
Strategies planning is procedure by which an organization can define its action , plan and
strategy which help in making decisions about resource allocation to obtain this strategy. This
also render plan to employ this strategy.
Their are various forces which help in considering in explicating strategic planning. They are:
Industry:
In industry planning, the examination of whole industry is important. Under this, size of
market, its potential growth, competitive profitability, new market entrants, threats must be
focuses when analysing the industry. Because of such factors, organisational activities may
influence highly.
Competition:
Competitor analysis is very essential aspect that must be considered by management at
the time of explicating strategic plan. A firm could not able to accomplish success without proper
knowledge of marketplace and existing competitors. An organisation tries to find out its strength
and weakness of the competitors and they are able to determine the way by which rivals meet the
needs and want of customers (Bucolo and Matthews, 2011).
Strengths and Weakness:
SWOT analysis is important tool for organisation which provide help to companies in
knowing their strength and weakness. These are the internal factors of an organization and the
threats and opportunities are external factors. Under this organisation tries to ascertain its internal
strength and try to enhance its image in market. On the other hand, it is essential for company to
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determine its weakness also. If company able to identifies its weakness then they are enable
make more betterment and can overcome its weakness.
1.3 Evaluate the effectiveness of techniques used when framing strategic business plan
The suggested techniques for Waitrose to evaluate the effectiveness of strategic plan are
as follows:
BCG matrix:
The matrix represents 4 kinds of situations that may confront by firm. According to
matrix, Waitrose would face the below mentioned conditions:
Stars: It depicts high market share and increased growth. In this condition, firm requires
large amount of funds for making decisions regarding their growth and sustainability in market
and acquiring high market share (Jocovic and et. al., 2014).
Cash cows: It shows high market share but relatively low growth. Under this position,
firm may face decline in market growth but same time, company have increased market share by
which they are able to generate high revenue.
Dog: It depicts low market share and reduced growth. In this condition, firm have to cut
down its unneeded costs. When goods of firm stops to generate profits, the firm must close its
business & start a new business.
Question mark: It depicts low market share but relatively high growth. Risk is includes
in this condition due to decline in market share which indicates that company is in loss. It shows
that company should introduce new product in market.
Advantages of BCG:
 It assist in evaluating current portfolio balance of company.
 It facilitates in making decisions regarding future actions. It is a simplest model which is easy to follow (Kalyani and Sahoo, 2011).
Disadvantages of BCG:
 Difficult to get data regarding market share and growth.
 Sometimes high share market can represent low profitability.
 It eliminates synergies effect between business units.
PIMS (Profit impact of marketing strategy)
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It helps in sustaining competitive advantage by administering evidence to aid procedures
and policies. Thus, Waitrose will enable to make achievement in execution of policies &
procedures (Klettner, Clarke and Boersma, 2014).
Following facts are considered by PIMS strategy:
 Budget allocation.
 Production process structure.
 Operating activities.
 Strategic development.
 Nature of business environment.
 Competitive position of business.
TASK 2
2.1 Analysis of current strategic positioning of firm by conducting organisational audit
Organisation audit for Waitrose can be done by SWOT investigating which assists in
determining strengths, opportunities, weaknesses, and threats of firm. It helps in estimating
strategic positioning of company (Auzair, 2011).
SWOT analysis:
Strengths:
 Sixth largest retail firm of world which perform its operations in various countries.
 Has good revenue and profit generation policies. Has great strategy of business.
Weaknesses:
 Largely dependent on market of United Kingdom and Europe.
 High transport cost.
 Lack of geographic diversification (Köseoglu and et. al., 2013). High price of Waitrose as compared to other firms.
Opportunities:
 Fostering home delivery and online sales services.
 Possibility of increasing area diversification. Able to administer high quality goods and services.
Threats:
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 Growth of firm is at unsafe position due to high rate of unemployment in recent years.
 Decrease in income which affects badly the sales of company.
 High competitive market (Murano and et. al., 2011).
2.2 Environmental audit of firm by using appropriate tools
For carrying out an environmental audit, PESTLE analysis is conducted by Waitrose. It
includes 6 factors which are defined as follows:
Political: As firm operates their business worldwide, its operations are influenced by
global political factors. These factors includes government policies, tax rates etc. Various nation
allow Waitrose to operate its business in their country because it provides a lot of job
opportunities to unemployed people.
Economic: Variables like price, demand, profit etc. put great influence on operations of
Waitrose. Any decline in market can influence business negatively. It depicts that, firm will be at
high risk. Diversification and internationalisation are major reasons of company's success.
Social: Social changes are crucial for firm as due to these, Waitrose starts to offer non
food items. Activities of business are influenced by attitude and behaviour of customers. Because
of this, firm adapting changes and focus on improving supply chain management and operations
to increase overall performance of business.
Technological: It is concerned with changes in technology. Technological advancement
brings significant success for Waitrose. Now, firm is offering home delivery and online shopping
services to customers by utilizing advanced technology (Oestreicher-Singer and Zalmanson,
2012).
Environmental: One of the important aspect of is to doing business in ethical manner.
Waitrose is highly concerned with CSR and with satisfying its stakeholders. They minimize
waste to save environment and make commitment to decrease carbon footprint by 25%.
Legal: Policies and legislations made by government directly influence performance of
Waitrose. Firm adhere all the laws made by legal authority of respective country.
2.3 Importance of stakeholder analysis while formulating new strategy
Stakeholders are individuals, organisation or group who has involvement in business.
These includes employees, government, suppliers, creditors, directors etc. Stakeholder analysis is
a method utilized by firm to determine the individuals who support business activities.
Significance of stakeholder analysis in developing new strategies are:
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 Get support from powerful stakeholders.
 Able to determine reaction of people regarding business.
 Get essential opinion from stakeholders (Schaltegger and Wagner, 2011).
 Understand stakeholders nature by making interaction.
Steps includes in Stakeholder analysis for Waitrose are defined below:
Step-1: The initial step is to estimate individuals who are participating in business
operations and influenced by it.
Step-2: In this, influence, interest and power of stakeholders are determine. For this,
Waitrose should develop a stakeholder grid.
Step-3: It is the last step in which a good understanding is developed of important
stakeholders for firm to get their sufficient support and feedback.
2.4 New strategy for business based on stakeholder analysis and organisational audit
The principle strategy of Waitrose is to create value for customers and emphasize on
increasing their satisfaction. Firm can adopt a strategy, i.e., new product development. It enables
Waitrose in meeting different needs and desires of customers by offering them a new product.
The strategy will assist in generating high revenues and developing further opportunity for firm
regarding expansion (Scholes, 2015).
TASK 3
3.1 Appropriateness of alternative strategies regarding substantive growth & market entry
Market entry:
Organic growth: When firm doing development on its own company in the same manner
it done in first.
Strategic alliance: When more than 2 firms share their assets for attaining its objectives
then it refers as strategic alliance.
Substantive growth strategy:
It refers to the market share growth by utilizing merger, diversification, joint venture &
acquisition. If Waitrose use this strategy, it will leads the firm towards future growth and also
helps in creating wealth. But the main disfavour of company is that rivals will emerge & try to
step out the firm (Slack, 2015).
Limited growth strategy:
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In the stage of limited growth, there is little diversification in product line or limited
expansion in market share. The disadvantage for Waitrose is that it can not get merits of
economies of scale. The main aim of company is to earn high profits by satisfying customers.
3.2 Justification of selection of new strategy based on alternative strategy analysis
Main objective of Waitrose is to become successful international retailer. To attain this
objective, firm must adopt strategy of market development. It assists company in initiating its
business operations in other countries by food & non food items. Company can do strategic
alliance with other firms by adopting this strategy. It will assist in further expansion of strategies
that can facilitate in increasing revenues. In order to differentiate with competitors, firm can
adopt product development strategy.
TASK 4
4.1 Roles and responsibilities of personnel in charge in implementing strategy
The strategy implementation need a person who can give more advantages to other
individuals and delegate the work among various worker as per their roles and responsibilities
and level in firm. The workforce of WaitRose who are trying to execute these strategies must
have some roles & responsibilities. If company want to implement these strategies they must
have clear roles and responsibility according to personnel which they defined clearly. CEO of
this company is also responsible to communicate different strategies which is related with
information to workforce & other parties. CEO is also accountable for making proper planning
for work (Svee, Giannoulis and Zdravkovic, 2011).
In strategic planning, the human resource of Waitrose who are in charged for strategy
execution must have proper duty to maintain correct records. It is very important for planning
which help in avoid lawful obligations. To maintain legal and ethical standards it is important
duty of workforce for this execution. For this proper planning is required so that organisations
utilize it in proper manner for better success. They do proper monitoring as well as controlling
which means taking a intermittent summary of action. This help in determine that whether actual
steps are taken by workers apply the actions.
4.2 Analysis of estimated resource requirements to execute new strategy
In order to apply various effective strategies, mainly three types of resources required
namely, Human - resources, financial resources and time and material resources.
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Human resources:- For the successful implementation of strategy related with human
resources have to be followed by wait-rose .Human resource Department is important
department which help in making strategy which give better performance in their growth. The
performance of company depends on much more in HR. For this company given strategies
require the HR who have adequate knowledge, technical and productivity (Scholes, 2015).
Financial resources:- This deals with how Wait-rose finance their strategy in order to
make it more effective. Finance means goods or movement of money. Financial resources are
assets which help in level of liquidity. It includes cash, credits, bank deposits, divided and
ownership into shares and bonds .It can be done in two ways debt and equity. In comparison to
both equity give more return in future because it is more desirable as there is no interest imposes
on bearing cost on principle.
Time and material resources:-To apply any strategies in the organisation it requires a
longer period of time not short period of time. It is simple to frame out the growth strategy but it
comparatively take more years to execute the strategies in real time. Under this initially the plans
are made, finance and resources are collected than the strategies are implemented. Wait-rose
should use latest and advance technology and machine for completing their development strategy
(Ackermann and Audretsch, 2013).
4.3 Contribution of SMART targets to accomplishment of strategy implementation
With using Smart Objectives or Targets it means the goals which is set by Waitrose
company that must be accurate in nature which can be computed with defined criteria that help in
accomplishing in time .
Importance of SMART objectives:-
 These objectives help the Wait-rose which help in clarify it vision and make it
emphasize on the strategies and if the vision are clear to their employees and managers
then the strategy can be executed in terms of its vision statement .
 This also helps the firm in identifying their priorities and help in move toward right
direction (Annabi and McGann, 2013).
 In this if target are not specific or clear that what they desired to accomplish, then all
their efforts will go in vain or waste for haphazard situations.
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 If ore-defined target are not measurable as per the established targets then it is not
possible to determine any problems.
 If Wait-rose set a target which is unachievable in nature then they set target so that they
can attain on time.
CONCLUSION
As per the above mentioned report, it has been figured out that an effective execution of
strategy rely on analysis of environment in a proper manner. Main business strategy of firm is to
satisfy customers and creates value for them. It is suggested that firm can expand their business
operation in more areas. Effective execution of strategy rely on prevailing situations of target
market.
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