Waitrose & Partners: SWOT, PESTEL, and Porter's Five Forces Analysis

Business Strategy

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
PART A...........................................................................................................................................3
SWOT ANALYSIS.....................................................................................................................3
PESTEL ANALYSIS..................................................................................................................6
PORTER’S FIVE FORCES........................................................................................................8
Critical evaluation of all the analysis.........................................................................................10
PART B.........................................................................................................................................11
Strategic plan.............................................................................................................................11
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................14
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................15

INTRODUCTION
Waitrose & Partners is a multinational brand of supermarkets which deals in selling of
groceries which helped it to become the largest employee-owned retailer in Britain. The
headquarters of Waitrose are in Bracknell, Victoria and Berkshire, London, UK. In UK, it has
338 shops including 65 small shops referred to as Little Waitrose which helped it to gain 5.1%
market share and also it became the eighth largest groceries’ retailer in UK. It does not only sell
its products in UK but also export in 52 other countries having locations in Middle East.
The report will perform the internal and external analysis of the company Waitrose for doing the
strategic planning. In order to do the external analysis, PESTEL analysis will be done and for
internal analysis SWOT analysis will be done. The analysis of the competitive environment will
also be highlighted by using the Porter’s Five Force Model. Furthermore, critical evaluation of
all these analyses will be done (Waitrose & Partners, 2020). After going through all these
analysis, a strategic plan will be devised after evaluating all the findings from the analysis which
will help in examining various strategic directions available to Waitrose and also various
strategies and platforms for growth will be recommended and justified.
PART A
SWOT ANALYSIS
This analysis is done to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the organisation along
with examining the opportunities and the threats which are faced by the company. SWOT
analysis is also used to identify the favourable and unfavourable points that a company needs to
consider in order to achieve the overall objectives (Sarsby, 2016). Waitrose is the British retail
firm of groceries, founded by Wallace Waite, Arthur Rose and David Taylor in 1904 having the
partnership of John Lewis as the parent company (Waitrose SWOT Analysis, Competitors,
Segmentation, Target Market, Positioning & USP, 2020). The SWOT analysis of Waitrose is as
follows:
Strengths
Waitrose is having great marketing experience since 1904. Till 2019, the number of
supermarkets of Waitrose crossed 349 including the supermarkets, department stores, food shops
and distributors which helps in exporting its products to 60 plus countries and territories across
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the world. Waitrose partnered with Ocado in order to facilitate it customers by delivering the
products at their doorsteps but after August 2020 i.e., from September 2020, the customers can
get the products’ delivery at home through the official platform of company i.e., Waitrose.com.
The products of Waitrose are of high quality which made it a high-end retailer It also got various
awards and accolades for being the suppliers of kings like Prince Charles and queens like Queen
Elizabeth (Byskata, 2017). In 2015, Waitrose received the Best MSC Certified Fish Counter of
Marine Stewardship Council and in 2016, it got various awards like Supermarket of the year,
Multiple Cider retailer of the year and many more. The company also offers high quality
products and that too in a wide variety which makes its brand equity strong. The company owns
its brand and farm. The company also earns a strong portfolio regarding the organic foods
(Fatricia, 2016).
As noted in October 2019, the Waitrose stood the eighth position in the supermarket chain in UK
with a market share of 5.1%. It commits to its customers to bring innovation in its products and
services regularly. The customers of Waitrose are also facilitated by the mobile app of the
company named as “Scan as you shop” which helps the customers as soon as the customers put
the product in the basket, they can scan the code in their smartphones so there is no need to scan
its code at the time of checkout. The customers find it easier for shopping and payments which
enhances their quality experience when shopping in Waitrose.
Weaknesses
The most important weak point of the company is that most of the people considers
Waitrose as the retailer whose products can be afforded only by the high earners therefore they
hesitate to go there and make a purchase. This was also identified by various writers and analysts
and also mentioned in the newspapers of UK that Waitrose is having and ‘Upmarket’ reputation
in the emerging markets of US. This is the main reason behind the loss of huge business of
Waitrose and loss of many customers. The company also depends only on the performance of its
own label therefore believes in selling the high quality products at higher rates which make the
customers think twice before making a purchase (Haikal and Herdrawaty, 2020).
Though it faced a rapid success in the retailer industry of UK, but it lags behind the market
leader Tesco by a great percentage as Tesco has a market share of 27%. The company Waitrose
is facing lots of difficulties in competing with the competitors like Aldi and Lidl who attracts the
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