Askew’s Foods Versus WalMart Case Study

The case study discusses the problem faced by Askew's Food Inc., a grocery chain in Canada, and the competition with WalMart. It explores the major problems and causes, as well as the response of Askew's CEO. The strengths and weaknesses of both companies are also analyzed.

Running head: MANAGEMENT
Askew’s Foods Versus Wal-
Mart Case study

PRINCIPLES OF MANAGEMENT 1
Table of Contents
Part 1..........................................................................................................................................................2
a. Summary........................................................................................................................................2
b. Symptoms.......................................................................................................................................2
c. Major problems.............................................................................................................................3
d. Cause..............................................................................................................................................4
Part 2..........................................................................................................................................................4
References..................................................................................................................................................8

PRINCIPLES OF MANAGEMENT 2
Part 1
a. Summary
The case study discusses the problem faced by Askew's Food Inc., which is a grocery chain
of Canada. The scenario depicts that David Askew the CEO of this firm arranged board meeting
in October 2011 regarding the challenges faced by the business in terms of two external factors.
Salmon Arm Savings and Credit Union (SASCU) become the financial institution of this grocery
chain firm which faced the issue in giving the appropriate amount of funding for the business
(Lee & Tongarlak, 2017). The SASCU was planning to build a new branch and due to this
reason they were unable to provide proper funding to Askew's company. Another problem is that
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., wanted to build super-center including the supermarket and for them, the
SASCU provided sufficient fund. These two situations have caused an adverse impact on
developing the new store of Askew’s Food Inc., and thus the board meeting was necessary to
overcome these conditions.
With the help of the board, Askew had overcome the issues and thus constructed a shopping
center and designed the store with state-of-the-art grocery (Payne & Niculescu, 2018). In order to
make market position, Askew innovated the facilities and departments of the firm. For
comparing with the elite supermarkets, a proposed cost has been made by the CEO which
become 1.5 to 2 times the cost of a standard supermarket. After reviewing the scenario, it is seen
that Askew’s Food Inc., was located in British Colombia and the business was founded in 1929
by Dick Askew (Cameron, Charlton, Ngan & Sacks, 2016). The company provides rural home
delivery products, mail orders, groceries and frozen food lockers for the people of this region.
The main strategy of the firm is to maintain the competition level with larger grocery chain
by maintaining consumer loyalty aspect in the marketplace. High-quality goods and competitive
prices enables the firm to maintain their position in the market, but after the entry of Wal-Mart
firm, they faced challenges in enhancing their business growth (Simpson & Power, 2016). Due to
the presence of Wal-Mart firm the Askew’s business growth has declined and for this reason, the
CEO wanted to develop new stores. The shopping store will provide huge benefit to Askew’s
firm in order to compete with Wal-Mart and to increase the business growth.

PRINCIPLES OF MANAGEMENT 3
b. Symptoms
From the case study, it is revealed that the Askew Food Inc., faces problem due to two
external factors of which one was lack of funding from the SASCU and the other one was due to
over rising competition with new supermarket store, Wal-Mart (Johnston, 2017). Both these
problems seem to be larger for the firm as this can generate various symptoms for the firm which
may affect their business. The major symptom of the problem is that due to lack of funding the
Askew’s food firm cannot maintain their competitive advantage in the market as Wal-Mart has to
gain huge improvement in their business procedure (Galván, Martínez & Rahman, 2017). Along
with this, another symptom is that the firm may lose their consumers from the local marketplace
as the Wal-Mart company gives high-quality products at a reasonable price.
From this fact, it is seen that Wal-Mart have the capability to attract more number of
consumers from this Askew's Food Inc., the company. In order to overcome these problems the
CEO took help from the board because they are the only one who can provide proper funding to
the firm. Apart from this, the case study depicts that the Askew’s main strategy was to deal with
competition that generates from larger grocery chains and thus if the problems are not solved
then another symptom may arise. The symptom is that the firm cannot maintain their position in
the local marketplace and this provide negative impact on their business function as well as
operation respectively (Cox & Crocker, 2018). Therefore, in order to reduce the adverse effect of
these symptoms proper planning is needed by the firm that will enable the CEO to maintain their
business position in the marketplace.
c. Major problems
The scenario reveals that Askew's Food Inc. faced problem in competing with a similar type
of firms that were present in the Canadian market. From the case study, it is noticed that Wal-
Mart Stores Inc., also wanted to open a new super-center that includes all facilities of a
supermarket in the same region where Askew's firm wanted to develop their new store (Kumar,
Manrai & Manrai, 2017). Due to this reason, Askew's firm faces problem such as the
introduction of more number of grocery stores in the same regions can decrease the consumer
base of the firms. For this prospect, not only the Askew's firm faced problems but also the Wal-
Mart firm can face the issue in enhancing their customer base in the chosen market. Apart from

PRINCIPLES OF MANAGEMENT 4
this, one of the plus points of Wal-Mart is that they provide high-quality products which are
environmental friendly and sustainable too (Ruiz-Molina & Gil-Saura, 2018).
For the presence of such benefits, the Askew's firm business growth may be affected in this
selected Salmon market. In order to reduce the negative effect of their problem, the firm uses
proper strategy, but the presence of other local stores like Overwaitea and Safeway may generate
an issue for maintaining their strategy. Another minor problem that has been generated from this
scenario is that Askew's board demonstrated that new as well as the powerful competitor will
provide huge threat for the firm and therefore to overcome this the firm has to develop a proper
business strategy (Ellickson, 2016). For this reason, by utilizing various strategy, the firm will be
going to introduce new uptown development prospect by which they can reduce their problems
as well as threats after establishing their store in Salmon Arm market of Canada.
d. Cause
The major problem faced by the firm is that they cannot maintain their competitive advantage
and thus they wanted to develop a new store in Salmon Arm region. The main causes of this
problem are that in British Columbia the number of grocery shops as well as supermarket were
established that provided tough competition to this Askew's Food Inc., (Ellickson, 2016). For the
presence of a large number of similar stores, the firm faced problem in enhancing their business
performance as well as market share in the British Columbia market of Canada.
Another cause of this problem is that similar firms were providing high-quality goods that are
sustainable and they were localized products. For the presence of locally sourced goods, another
firms provides negative impact on Askew's firm and due to this reason they cannot maintain their
competitive business advantage in the market. Therefore, to reduce the negative impact of
competition rate over this grocery chain, proper strategy should be applied by this firm. In other
words, it is necessary for the firm to innovate their products and they should also manufacture
grocery products from the local resources (Dawson & Henley, 2015). By following this strategy
and utilizing it with proper planning, it can help the CEO to maintain their competitive advantage
as well as business position in the chosen Salmon Arm market of Canada.

PRINCIPLES OF MANAGEMENT 5
Part 2
 From the case study, an idea regarding the strengths and weakness of both supermarket
companies Askew's Food Inc., and Wal-Mart has been generated.
The strengths of Askew’s Food Inc., relative to the local market are as follows:
 High-quality products at competitive and fair prices
 State-of-art uptown store enhances business profit
 Trustworthy relationship with local suppliers help them to carry the local
products to high consumer base (Bishop, 2015)
 Store possess approximately 10,000 national brand products and 15,000 different
inventory goods
 Maintain a long-term, positive relationship with the employee, community to
maintain company position
The weakness of Askew's Food Inc., in the local market, are given below:
 Lack of sustainable product offerings
 An absence of organically grown local sourced goods
The strengths of Wal-Mart relative to the local market are as follows:
 Products are environmental friendly
 A great number of local stores
 Low-cost economies of scale, non-union work environment, and national supply
chains influence them to attract high consumer base
The weakness of Wal-Mart in the local market are given below:
 Growth and entry of box boxes stores possess negative effect on Wal-Mart in the
local market
 Lack of strategy enable the firm to increase the market share
 Askew’s the CEO of Askew’s Food Inc., reveals that Wal-Mart’s main interest in
opening their store in Salmon Arm is only to increase their competitive advantage with
the similar supermarket present within the country (Dawson & Henley, 2015). Another
response of Askew’s is that building a super-center, Wal-Mart can develops supermarket

PRINCIPLES OF MANAGEMENT 6
that can easily attract their targeted consumer base towards this firm. In other words,
Askew's demonstrates that by proper planning, Wal-Mart can develop their new stores in
Salmon Arm only because to reduce the business growth of general merchandise stores
that present in this market. In other words, Askew depicts that opening a new store in the
Salmon Arm region can attract 60 percent of the residents, but due to Wal-Mart the
percentage of resident attraction has decreased (Adam, Jensen, Sommer & Hansen,
2017). Hence from this view, it is clear that the response of Askew reveals that Wal-Mart
wanted to enhance the competition rate in the country and thus they developed new stores
in the Salmon Arm region.
 After reviewing the case study, it is seen that Askew's Food Inc., wanted to develop a
new uptown store in the eastern side of the Salmon Arm market but with the entry of
Wal-Mart in this market can generate various challenges for Askew’s firm (Adam,
Jensen, Sommer & Hansen, 2017). With the invention of Wal-Mart new store in the
Salmon market, the Askew’s business growth can be affected, and thus their market
positioning will be disturbed. The firm Wal-Mart wanted to open a super-center which
includes all facilities provided in a supermarket and due to this reason the consumer base
of Askew's firm may affect. From the case study, it is revealed that with the introduction
of Wal-Mart store the business performance of Askew's and other merchandise store has
declined to 10 percent to 40 percent (Payaro & Papa, 2016). Hence, for this reason, the
business procedure of Askew's firm can cause negative impact which eventually may
reduce their market share as well as position in the selected market. Thus, these are those
several ways by which the entry of Wal-Mart can affect the market position of the
Askew's Food Inc.
 The local business environment creates various unique factors as well as issues for both
these companies. From the scenario, it is seen that the residents lived in this Salmon Arm
region are fond of eating fresh and organic grocery food items (Rahman, Galván &
Martínez, 2017). Therefore innovation of these two competitors’ stores in this region can
approximately attract about 60 percent of the residents to purchase foods from their
shops. Hence the presence of this unique factor can provide a positive impact on the
business procedure of both Askew's Food Inc., and Wal-Mart. Apart from this, it is seen
that the two major grocery stores of Salmon can create unique issues to both Askew’s

PRINCIPLES OF MANAGEMENT 7
firm and Wal-Mart firm respectively. The two grocery stores Overwaitea and Safeway
Foods are becoming well-established food chains that provides locally produced high-
quality, sustainable products for the residents of Salmon Arm (Gamad, 2019). Presence
of these grocery firms can affect the business growth of both Askew's firm and Wal-Mart
firm and to reduce the negative effect proper strategy should be applied by these firms.
 If I am in the Askew's Board, then I will suggest the CEO to develop the state-of-the-art
building because it helps the firm to compete with Wal-Mart along with other two
grocery stores Overwaitea and Safeway Foods firms. With the development of a new
building, the firm can attract high consumer base from Salmon Arm and thus it can
enhance their market share as well as business performance respectively (Rahman,
Galván & Martínez, 2017). On the other hand, developing a new store in Salmon Arm
region will enable the firm to increase their grocery production rate and thus in future
they can also introduce new store in another region of Canada. Apart from this, it is
recommended that developing a new building will be effective as it can improve the
profitability level as well as it helps the firm to maintain the competitive rate in the
competitive market. Hence my suggestions for developing new building by Askew's firm
will thus help the firm to maintain their position in the whole Canadian market.

PRINCIPLES OF MANAGEMENT 8
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PRINCIPLES OF MANAGEMENT 9
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