Strategic Management of Countdown - Overview, SWOT Analysis, and Recommendations

The report provides an overview of Countdown, the largest supermarket brand in NZ, and its long-term mission, vision, and objectives. It includes a SWOT analysis, corporate, business, and function level strategies, and resources required to implement those strategies. The report concludes with recommendations for sustainability and revenue growth.

Strategic Management- COUNTDOWN
Executive Summary
The report titled strategic management is an over of Countdown which is the largest
supermarket brand of NZ and operates over 180+ stores with a strong team of 18000 people.
The report here provides the long term mission, vision and the objectives of Countdown,
which is primarily linked to company’s aspiration of being customer centric and creating
solution to achieve the goal of sustainability. A SWOT analysis of Countdown is provided
which help in understanding the strength the company will can leverage to retain its position

of leader in the highly competitive retail market. The report also entails the corporate,
business and function level strategies along with the resources required to implement those
strategies. Towards the end, a set of recommendation is provided to ensure the
implementation and execution of the strategies and to bring sustainability in its business
model and revenue growth.

Table of Content
Terms of Reference....................................................................................................................4
Procedure....................................................................................................................................4
Findings......................................................................................................................................5
Strategic Analysis: Assessing Competitive Position..............................................................5
Overview of the Organization.............................................................................................5
Mission of Organization.....................................................................................................6
Vision of the Organization..................................................................................................6
Objectives of the organisation............................................................................................6
Strategic Analysis: Assessing Competitive Position..............................................................7
SWOT Analysis..................................................................................................................7
Findings of SWOT Analysis..................................................................................................9
Strategy Formulation............................................................................................................10
Business Level Strategies.....................................................................................................11
Resources for implementing strategies.................................................................................14
Conclusion................................................................................................................................15
Recommendations....................................................................................................................16
References................................................................................................................................18

Terms of Reference
Source 1: The New Zealand Company
The report titled Strategic Management- Countdown is intended for the board of
directors and the senior management to provide them an overview of the current state of the
organization and how else the organization can benefit by applying various strategic
frameworks and business strategy for growth and development. The report at length will
discuss the overview of the organization, its mission, vision, goals and objectives.
Additionally, the report will also do a strategic analysis of the organization using the SWOT
analysis; this will help the organization to assess the environment of the organization. Besides
this corporate level, business level and functional level strategies will be created for
Countdown organization. The last section of the report will mostly focus on the strategic
implementation, which is basically putting the strategy into action. A set of recommendation
will be provided at the end to help COUNTDOWN to achieve its end goal of sustainability.
Procedure
The report titled Strategic Management utilizes and relies mostly on the channels of
secondary research such as industry reports, journal articles, internet reading, company
background and more so. Rest of the report will be based on the understanding of the key

strategic issues and how different models helps in understanding the issues whilst helping in
strategic formulation to do over with the issues faced by Countdown.
Findings
The section here will be divided into three sub-sections, namely, strategic analysis,
strategic formulation and strategic implementation and resources.
Strategic Analysis: Assessing Competitive Position
The section here will throw light on the overview, mission, vision and the objectives of
Countdown organization.
Overview of the Organization
Source 2: Alamy
Countdown is a New Zealand based full service supermarket chain which is a subsidiary of
the retail giant Woolworths NZ. The Countdown supermarket is in existence ever since 1981,
and the stores of Countdown are generally bigger and larger than any other average NZ
supermarket (Countdown, 2018). The 37 year old Countdown at present has over 184 stores
and employees roughly around 18,000 People. Countdown is one of the leading supermarket
chains of NZ and serves approximately 2.5 million customers every week (Countdown,
2018). The team at Countdown is committed to provide its customers with surplus choice,
value and convenience so that the customers have a great overall shopping experience at
Countdown. The in store team at Countdown is ably supported by four dry grocery
distribution centres, two meat processing plants, one seafood processing plant, a central

support office and three fresh produce distribution centres to meet the store requirement
(Vandevijvere et. al., 2018). The leadership of Countdown is in able hands of Natalie Davis,
who in the capacity of Managing director looks through the organization.
Mission of Organization
At Countdown the company believes in people first approach that is it places its customers at
the top and designs policies and procedures to benefit the customer. AN extension of its
mission statement is linked to the workplace safety, wherein the organization believes in
working together in a safe environment to do a great job and feel valued (Chepulis, Hill &
Mearns, 2017). The team and the management is extremely passionate about what they do
and they want to keep serving the community better and better with each passing day(Zhu &
Xie, 2018).
Vision of the Organization
The vision of Countdown is in sync with the vision statement of its Parent organization
Woolworths, as its vision statement Countdown wants to be one of the world’s most
responsible retailers reflecting its commitment and passionate side to do good business for its
people, customers, community and the planet (Chepulis et. al., 2018).
Objectives of the organisation
Defining and identifying clear cut objectives help the organization to stay focussed on its
goals, even in the times of uncertainty. Some of the strategic objectives of Countdown can
be:
 Countdown wants to encourage gender diversity in its stores and to provide for at
least 40% of the executive and senior manager position for the women (Countdown,
2018).
 Another objective is to move towards a circular economy, which is zero food waste
going to the LANDFILL.
 Sourcing environmentally sustainable commodities.
 Responding towards the climate change by focussing on how to curtail the destruction
to the environment (Parsons & Wilkinson, 2015).

 Increase its revenue, profitability and provide a seamless experience to both its online
and offline customers.
Strategic Analysis: Assessing Competitive Position
The section here will discuss and ascertain the environment in which Countdown is
operating, on the basis of which it will provide an internal assessment of the firm. SWOT
analysis which is a micro environmental strategic framework helps in identifying the
strength, weakness, opportunity and threats for the organization. This further helps the
organization to create a proactive strategy to avoid or minimize the threat and leverage on the
strength to maximize the opportunity.
SWOT Analysis
Source 3: BPlans
Before delving into the strategic analysis of Countdown, it is advisable to have an overview
of the retail industry in New Zealand. The retail industry of New Zealand during the year
2014 employed just 186,000 full time employees, the figure of which has gone up by leaps
and bounds (Countdown, 2018). Additionally, the retail contributes over $ 20 Billion to the
GDP making it accountable for 8% of the country’s GDP. The NZ retail sector has potential
challenges in the form of development of the online channels by established retail players and
also the threat of emergence of other local players to further squeeze the retail market.

The SWOT analysis will help in identifying the strength and weakness which are internal to
the firm and also help in identifying the opportunity and threats which are external to the
organization.
Strengths
 The biggest strength of Countdown Supermarket is based on its operations which are
carried out through a large number of distribution centres, supply chain units and
outlets.
 It is due to such great distribution channels Countdown is effectively able to manage
its customers (Bailey et. al., 2015).
 Integration and usage of ERP, RFID Tags, Self Serving Kiosks to implement an agile
supply chain system.
 The company has gone a step ahead in fostering a culture of innovation at its stores
and in its online foodbank at Auckland, it also provides its esteemed customers with
an iPhone application to create convenience for its customers (Devi et. al., 2014).
 Strength of Countdown is its focus on conducting retail operations in a customized
manner through the generation of customized product offering and loyalty cards.
 Strength of the organization is its focussed efforts on preserving and sustaining the
environment, through the usage of plethora of environmental protection practices and
also as a part of its CSR (Day, Pearce & Pearson, 2015).
Weakness
 The operations of Countdown faced a lot of challenge in the recent years due to the
failure of its EFTPOS machine which created troubles for the customers in checking
counters and also during its billing process (Port, 2014).
 This problem went to a whole new level, when the agitated and frustrated customer
took to social media and ranted a lot about the organization. Besides this some other
weakness identified at Countdown are related to its inefficiency at work and some
incidents of poor customer service.
Opportunities
 Some of the major reasons or drivers which open the avenues of opportunity for
Countdown are related to the increase in the online market, development of emerging

markets, new products introduced at the organization and persistent innovation in the
retail sector (Collins, 2016).
 Along with this, the organization has gained momentum to diversify its audience base
by new product offering on the likes of divisions such as insurance and pharmacy.
 Additionally, the target audience of NZ is becoming more and more health conscious
which is another opportunity for Countdown to stock up its product in health and
nutrition divisions (Zhu & Chan, 2018).
Threats
 The threat of Countdown is related to counterfeit products. For instance, one of the
biggest threats is the problem with incidents related to Baby food poisoning; this
removes the faith of the customers in retail organization (Brooker, 2018).
 Another threat is related to emergence of other players which can further shrink the
profit margins for Countdown.
Findings of SWOT Analysis
Countdown which is one of the largest full service supermarket chain and subsidiary of
Woolworths has the largest stores than any other supermarket in New Zealand. The
supermarket chain’s biggest strength lies in its ability to manage its distribution networks and
channels effectively which ensures that the supermarket chain is able to manage its customers
effectively. The biggest weakness the company encountered was with the failure of its
EFTPOS machines which made it cumbersome for the customers during its check out
process. The company is seen expanding and diversifying its business in NZ to gain and
attract new customers, this is a big opportunity for Countdown to expand its customer base
and create supremacy in the market. NZ in the recent years suffered threats regarding the
poisoning of infant milk and dairy products, this is affecting the sales of the organization
(Farouk et. al., 2018)
Strategy Formulation
Corporate Level Strategies

In the simplest of words corporate level strategy can be seen as the top most level strategy or
the strategy which helps in driving competitive advantage in the market and establish its
supremacy over its competitors. This type of strategy creates values for its business units by
conducting various multi market activities, promotion, customer loyalty and many more. The
ultimate objective or the aim of creating corporate level strategy is to ensure that it meets the
aims, objectives, mission, and vision of the organization and contribute to reach towards its
end objective of sustainability while meeting the needs of the business and customers at the
same time. There are three different types of corporate level strategy; Growth, Stability and
Diversification, lets study each one in context of Countdown organization.
Growth Strategy: As the name reflects Growth Strategy is related directly with the
increasing of revenue through the sales and products of company’s existing product and
services. Thus, growth strategy of Countdown is:
 The company ensures that it remains the number one player in NZ by offering good
quality products to its customers, every single time.
 Countdown has a large range of product offering and it makes sure that its entire
product line is set according to the needs of its target audience.
 The company uses both Vertical and horizontal strategy to take care of its supply
chain operation and also extending the reach of its product and services to other
geographical markets(Adams, 2013).
Diversification Strategy: The understanding of the diversification strategy is created by
looking at the company’s product and services then creating strategies through the use of
sales and marketing. The diversification strategy for Countdown is:
 Foray into segments such as Pharmacy and insurance gives company a chance to
serve a whole new customer segment which it can leverage to bring into its retail
business (Countdown, 2018).
Stability Strategy: Once the company reaches its market share goals, the company then
instead of scaling up its operations focuses on it existing business and retains its market
share. Countdown is focussing on stability strategy by opting for cost efficient measures,
however, the company is in a space which is not saturated, and hence overall growth strategy
is the one making more sense for it (Countdown, 2018).

Business Level Strategies
It is no brainer that the organization’s core competencies should be focussed on satisfying the
needs of the customers in order to extract return from them. Also, business level strategies are
closely related with corporate level strategies with the customers at the locus of interest for
the business organization. Business level strategy becomes more important as it is also related
to the position of the firm in the industry. As mentioned earlier that Countdown is the largest
supermarket in NZ in comparison to all its competitors. The company has achieved this
position owing to its different business level strategies which goes on as:
Cost Leadership: Cost leadership in the simplest of words is offering lowest/ best prices
every single time. Countdown as an organization has been practising cost leadership as a part
of its Business level strategy since its inception. Some of its new initiative in this direction is:
 The company has a “Price Down” programme in place which is broken down in 2
parts: “Price Lockdown and “Price Drop”. Price lockdown implies that items stay low
in price for the longest term whilst price drop mean savings on the items customers
buy most often (The Register, 2016).
 The company has also created an algorithm by which it finds out the basket of
products customers purchase more often, and Countdown reduces the price of such
items to pass on the maximum benefits to its customers.
 Countdown is the second cheapest supermarket in NZ, the first one being Foodstuff’s
Pak and Save.
Differentiation Strategy: This type of strategy is used when the product isn’t the least
expensive in the market; hence the organization tries to add certain differentiation into its
product line to engage with the market audience.
 Countdown with its innovative product pricing, bundle packaging and lock down
pricing adds differentiation to its product line.
 Additionally, the loyalty cards of Countdown also help in creating a differentiation in
comparison to other loyalty cards and benefits of other supermarkets.
 Furthermore in order to support the corporate level strategies Countdown ensures the
same through the fine quality of selected product line features and services it provides
to its customers at an affordable prices.

 The business level strategy which can be effectively incorporated at the Countdown
Supermarket is two faceted in nature. At one shot the company can focus on the
development and the incorporation of its multichannel marketing and retailing
network and on the other it can focus on the use of agile supply chain
strategy(Hathway & Maibach, 2018).
 Development of retail kiosks for making its branded products available to a wide
range of audience.
Functional Level Strategy (Operational Level Strategies)
Functional Level Strategy can be seen as a response to operational level strategy and it is
used to back up both the corporate and business level strategies of the business organization.
This strategy aides the implementation of corporate and business level strategy by focusing
on the human and the marketing resources of the organization. The functional level strategy
of Countdown is:
 In order to support the low cost business strategy of the company, Countdown has to
ensure to a large extent that it reduces the input cost of all its products either through
strong partner channel, local sourcing or own labels.
 In order to serve the customers to the best of its needs, Countdown has to ensure that
it expands its horizon of customer feedback and take it more seriously to hear out the
good and the bad things customers have to say about the brand. Accordingly the
feedback can be used to bring improvements in the company’s offering and its
services(Woolworths, 2012).
 The company is keen on its corporate responsible strategy as well, in which it has
moved to a circular economy. It implies that Countdown has moved towards zero
food waste going to landfill and it has improved recyclability of its own brand
packaging as a step towards the circular economy.
 As a part of its human resource strategy, the company is ensuring gender diversity in
executive roles at the organization. At least 40 % of the executives and senior
management positions are to be held by the women and it has also removed any kind
of wage gap between its male and female employees.
 The company is spending big bucks towards its marketing initiatives and coming up
with catchy campaigns to lure the audience into the store.

 The company online store is neatly designed and has almost all the products listed on
the website with great offers and deals for the first time buyers or even the repeat
customers (Westpac, 2015).
 Usage of effective ERP systems along with the RFID tags and Point of Sale
technology will help Countdown in effectively tracking the movement of its stocks
and retail merchandize along units like supplier stations, distribution centres and its
stores(Supermarket News, 2015).
Strategy and Resource Implementation Strategy
Strategy Development and Choice
Countdown which is New Zealand’s largest supermarket chain with over 184 stores across
the nation and serving over 3 million customers every single week is also one of the largest
employers in NZ with a strong team of 18000. Countdown realizes the role it plays in NZ and
thus leverages each opportunity to demonstrate leadership and take positive and active
participation in the society. The mission of the company which is entirely focussed on
serving the customers right every single time makes the company crates policies and
procedures which are a right fitment for its customers and accordingly creates its business,
corporate and functional strategies. Countdown with its unique pricing strategy such as the
“Price Down” programme is an instant hit with the customers. This program enables
Countdown to achieve a cost leadership which makes it a favourable brand for all of its
customer audience(Progressive Enterprises Limited, 2016).
The world is going mobile, thanks to the penetration of internet and digital marketing and the
increase in the millennial population. This fact can be utilized in the multichannel retail
strategy of the company which is based on the development of its effective synergies in its
brick and mortar model, social media marketing, website, m-commerce and e-commerce. It is
also required that Countdown creates different content for promoting on different channels
such as Twitter, Facebook, websites and others. This will pull different audience onto the
website or to its brick and mortar stores, thus engulfing the entire target audience. Countdown
is also required to create software and ERP with the intention of giving the customers a
freedom to compare between different product, prices and even offers. At the very same time,
in order to effectively apply the agile supply chain strategy, Countdown has to encompass all
of its ERP, POS, and RFID Bar Tag and create one comprehensive solution to solve its

current challenges. This is extremely important for Countdown as it is only after the effective
integration of the above mentioned system that it can track the movement of merchandizes
along its all strategic business units(NZHearald, 2016).
Besides the regular operation of Countdown, the firm is also committed to create a Healthy
Aotearoa New Zealand. This is another of company’s corporate level strategy to move
towards a circular economy, as a part of which Countdown is inching towards a zero food
waste going to landfill and it is also improving the recyclability of its own brand packaging.
In a bid to move towards creating sustainable products, the company is sourcing
environmentally sustainable commodity and also raising awareness regarding sustainably
sourced products. This strategy will add wings to Countdowns differentiation strategy and
would also put it ahead of all its competitors( NZHearlad, 2014).
Resources for implementing strategies
Creating strategies for the company is just half job done; the second half of the job is to
facilitate the resources to ensure the achievement of the above mentioned strategies. This
makes resources pivotal to the business organization. The three different types of resources
which are important here are Financial, Human & Raw Materials:
Financial Resource: Many strategies of Countdown require strong financial backing,
particularly in technology upgrade, ERP software, RFID, POS, Self Service kiosk and others.
These techs will ensure that the company is able to manage its multi-channel supply chain
solutions effectively. Additionally, the company also require financial backing for its
marketing campaign. The bright side here is that the company has been posting solid profits
YOY thus the money can be easily reinvested into the company after creating a consolidated
financial plan spanning all the department of Countdown (Min, 2015).
Human Resources: Human resources are one of the most important assets of any company,
hence it is required to value the employees and hire those resources which are right fitment
with the organization. In order to make sure that the staff is well aware of the goals of the
company and is better suited to accommodate the new strategy, the human resource is
required to be exposed to plenty of training related to tech, sales, customer services and other
such modules. The company has to ensure that it does a gap analysis of their human resources
present skill set and required skill set to create a training calendar for their overall growth and
development and achievement of company’s objectives (Mcnicol, 2014).

Raw Materials: As mentioned in the earlier section, Countdown is going forward with
sourcing of sustainable products and is also creating an awareness of such products in the
market. This step will help the company to source material which will be good for the health
of the planet. Additionally, the company is building strong partner relations or alliances to
ensure the continuous availability of raw material without creating a bottleneck in any of its
business operations(Hume, 2016).
Thus, it can be said that the company’s strategy can be executed only if its foundation is
strong. The foundation is based on the three strong pillars of Human, financial and raw
material resources which will not only ensure the attainment of its strategy, but would also
give the company a competitive edge over its competitors.
Conclusion
The report can be brought to a logical conclusion by saying that Countdown has created a
position of leadership in the NZ supermarket brands and is leading by a huge margin. The
strong 18000 member team serving in over 180 locations with the sole objective of building
customer advocacy is doing a fantastic job by bringing out products and service which are
highly desired by its customers. Based on the data, some of the observations which can be
made out are as follows:
 Countdown is the leading supermarket chain of NZ which is part of Woolworths
group and is serving over 250,000 customers every week with over 20,000 products in
each of its 180+ stores.
 Countdown is required to build its tech infrastructure, specifically related to the
integration of its ERP, RFID tags, POS and self- servicing kiosk for the
implementation of its agile supply chain strategy.
 The innovation, product development and the diversification the company is showing
in the NZ region is helping it to inch closer to its ultimate goal of sustainability.
 Undertaking and development of agile supply chain and multichannel retailing
paradigms is important for enhancing the existing business potential of Countdown.
 The company to focus on creating a strong human resource pool to effectively carry
out its corporate and business level strategies.
 The Price lock down programme has put the company as one of the low cost provider
of product which gives it a leading edge among its competitors.

Recommendations
Some of the recommendations which will help Countdown to effective implement its
corporate, business and functional strategy are as follows:
 Retail in NZ is a high undifferentiated market, hence it is required that company
offers differentiated product or services to its target audience. The differentiation can
be related to providing multi-cuisine food during the customer engage in shopping,
play zone for kids and many others.
 Internet penetration in NZ is over 88% which makes it a tech enabled country, it is
required that Countdown leverages this options and markets products and services to
customers using its online channels. The online channels will engage with the target
audience and help in creating awareness on the new product line as well as to build
and drive strong customer relations strategy.
 It is again recommended that in a bid to build agile supply chain solution, Countdown
leverages the ERP to ensure systematic monitoring and movement of all its stock in
all of its 180+ stores in NZ.
 Customer feedback is something which plays an important role in the success of any
business organization. Countdown has to ensure that it conducts surveys with its new
and old customers with the intention of better understanding their taste and
preference, accordingly creating a customized trolley for their customers. This will
help the company to achieve its goal and objectives while executing its business and
corporate strategy effectively.

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