Marketing Strategy and Plan

This article discusses the marketing strategy and plan of Woolworths, a leading retail supermarket in South Africa. It includes a SWOT analysis, competitor analysis, and identifies market opportunities through an Ansoff Opportunity Utilization analysis. The article also explores different strategies, such as cost leadership and differentiation, that Woolworths can adopt to gain a competitive advantage. If you need assistance with your marketing assignments, Desklib is here to help.

Running head: MARKETING STRATEGY AND PLAN
Marketing Strategy and Plan

MARKETING STRATEGY AND PLAN 2
Table of Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................3
SWOT analysis of Woolworths...................................................................................................................3
Strengths..................................................................................................................................................3
Weaknesses.............................................................................................................................................4
Opportunities...........................................................................................................................................5
Threats.....................................................................................................................................................5
Competitor analysis.....................................................................................................................................6
Identify market opportunities from the analysis for the organization through developing an Ansoff
Opportunity Utilization analysis..................................................................................................................7
Conclusion...................................................................................................................................................9
References.................................................................................................................................................10

MARKETING STRATEGY AND PLAN 3
Introduction
Woolworths is one of leading retail supermarket that deals with the name of Woolworths brand
all through South Africa as well as by the franchise operation in South Africa as well as selected
African nations in Middle East. Woolworths provides several products to customers like food,
clothing as well as general products. Along with this, Woolworths has 160 franchise stores as
well as 250 corporate throughout South Africa and Middle East (Woolworths Holdings Limited,
2019). This report conducts the SWOT analysis, competitor’s analysis as well as, addresses the
marketing opportunities for the company by using the Ansoff opportunities utilization
assessment.
SWOT analysis of Woolworths
Strengths
Strength is illustrated as what each company does finest in its range of operation ad that can aid
to gain a competitive advantage among competitors. The given below is the strength related to
Woolworths:
Market leadership:
The Australian retail sectors are regulated via two competitors such as Woolworths and Coles as
both are market players. In such way, Woolworths has kept about 80% of market share as well
as, it has considerably declined threat for rivalry (Belton, 2017).
Segment penetration:
Woolworths is initiated by targeting wealthy group because it makes sure that company will have
well stock with upscale brand. Moreover, supermarket chain has initiated to move into lower
worth segments by making sure that private labels would have worth brands. Therefore, in the

MARKETING STRATEGY AND PLAN 4
current time, it has strong presence due to offering a range of products and services in South
Africa (Harding, 2017).
Employee policies:
Woolworths can be entailed as very people savvy managers. In spite of utilizing highly diverse
set related to individuals, Woolworths can always aware to make sure that workforces are highly
proficient as well as courteous. To make sure the satisfaction, the company should provide
bonuses as well as perks on a regular basis to workforces apart from salary (Wee, 2017).
Good Customer tracking:
Woolworths can continue tracking the consumers by business analytics techniques particularly
created for purpose as well as social media assessment. It also maintains the tracking of
consumer shopping bills as well as makes sure that their shelves is constantly stock with the fast-
moving goods (Cordell, & Thompson, 2019).
Promotions:
Woolworths consider the aggressive approach for promotions in which, every consumer are
informed about its current offers. The company also focuses on a value proposition as well as try
to maintain entry-level rates at minimum rate in market (Badii, Tiemann, Faulkner, & Hartley,
2018).
Weaknesses
Weaknesses are illustrated as the areas in which business or brand has required for making
improvement. Following are some weaknesses of Woolworths:
Confused positioning:

MARKETING STRATEGY AND PLAN 5
Woolworths target several segments of income for practicing same products. The outcome is
that it conveys confusing signals with the consumers who do not make sure whether supermarket
actually provides the worth rates (Rosenberg Hansen, & Ferlie, 2016).
Partial behaviour to certain markets:
Woolworth’s targets to both premium as well as, value segment to sell both desired and
affordable products. But, the company is identified for partial focus such as providing more
attention and delivers better products and services to the higher-income segment.
Price wars:
Woolworths has price war with its strongest as well as nearest competitors of Coles. In order to
compete for the market, supermarket chain has ended up for making certain pricing blunders and
that result in maximum fatalities (Santos, Melo, Claudino, & Medeiros, 2017).
Opportunities
Following are the opportunities of Woolworths Company:
Focus on experience:
Each retail chain provides specific to value segments. The opportunities are created in the form
of developing the difference within in-store experience. These can involve modified facilities,
personalized reliability plan, and artificial intelligence as per the shopping supports. These
experiences would support in differentiate as well as a supermarket can charge additionally for
individuals who wishes for availing such practices (Öneren, Tayfun, & Yurdakul, 2017).
Threats
The given below are threats that can be detrimental to business growth. These are discussed as
given below:
Competition

MARKETING STRATEGY AND PLAN 6
The biggest key market players for Woolworths in South Africa are Mr Price Group, Truworths
and Yuppiechef. Moreover, online retailers such as Yuppiechef will have penetrated into food
retail and it can provide severe threats to Woolworths.
Focus on health
The increasing issue, as well as awareness about health, is making more conscious to customers
regarding what as well as how they purchase. Moreover, chemical with organic free products are
in higher demand in current times as well as supermarket will require changing their portfolio of
product to accommodate transforming trends. It would be a threat to future (Mathooko, & Ogutu,
2015).
Competitor analysis
Competitor assessment is conducted by Porter’s five force model. It is described as given below:
Threats of New Entrants
There is a large amount of new entrants are coming in food retailing sector i.e. threats for
Woolworths. For entering into food retail sector, there is required to follow restricted food
quality policies. But major competitors of other sector are entering into this market such as
Amazon. Hence Woolworths need to identify the ways for performing things. It also put pressure
on Woolworths limited for declining the pricing approach, declining costs as well as, offering the
new value proposition to consumers (Thompson, Strickland, & Gamble, 2015).
Bargaining Power of Suppliers
There is a large amount of companies in food sector that purchases their raw material through
different suppliers. Hence, the bargaining power of suppliers is higher. Along with this, suppliers
are in the leading position that can decline the margin of Woolworths that it earns from the
market. Moreover, dominant suppliers in the food sector practices their bargaining power for

MARKETING STRATEGY AND PLAN 7
extracting higher rates from company in this sector. The overall impact of higher bargaining
power of supplier is declining overall profitability related to food sectors (Rizea, 2015).
Bargaining Power of Buyers
Purchasers are demanding at a higher extent. They desire to purchase best product and services
available in market by paying a low rate as feasible. This creates pressure on the profitability of
Woolworths limited in the longer run. There is more powerful as the well smaller base of the
customer within Woolworths limited. It creates chances to Woolworths for higher bargaining
power of consumers as well as increases their competency in order to gain their offers and
discounts (Belton, 2017).
Threats of Substitute Products or Services
When new products as well as, services meet similar needs of customers in diverse manners,
then it hampers the profitability of industry. For instance, services such as Google Drive and
Dropbox are a substitute for storage of hardware drives. The threat of substitution products and
services is high when it provides the value proposition. It can be uniquely diverse through the
current offering of industry (Harding, 2017).
Rivalry among the Existing Competitors
Rivalry between current players in retail industry is strong as it would lead to cut down rates as
well as declines whole profitability of industry. Woolworths deals in competitive food retail
industry and this rivalry does take any charge for penetration hence biggest key market players
for Woolworths in South Africa such as Mr Price Group, Truworths and Yuppiechef can
penetrate into this market (Wee, 2017).
Identify market opportunities from the analysis for the organization through developing an
Ansoff Opportunity Utilization analysis

MARKETING STRATEGY AND PLAN 8
Cost Leadership
The cost leadership can be a feasible alternative for Woolworths that could be competent for
regularly diminishing the cost of performing the company. Moreover, Woolworths should keep
low overhead expenditures as well as negotiating favorable acquisition costs to suppliers can be a
key strategy for executing it. Woolworths can execute cost-leadership with different manners. In
such a manner, it can develop a higher profit margin by providing the industry average rates
(Cordell, & Thompson, 2019).
Differentiation
A differentiation strategy can be effective for Woolworths as it does not have higher cost-
advantageous and does not desire to emphasize on strengths in resale or production. The key
intention for implementing this approach is to address the requirement of consumers, designs and
maintains the product quality as well as, services proceeds for matching the market. It can also
use several factors to make differentiated products such as distinct features, influential facilities,

MARKETING STRATEGY AND PLAN 9
quality of a product as well as, environmental responsibilities (Badii, Tiemann, Faulkner, &
Hartley, 2018).
Cost Focus
In the food retail company, Woolworths can lead the business from lower to the middle-income
buyer by maintaining very low business. It can enable the company to offer the minimum price
to most budget-conscious purchasers of grocery.
Differentiation Focus
Under this approach, Woolworths can promote the best selection of food product by recruiting
the proficient workforces as a manner for persuading the company throughout the general
merchandise retailers as well as discount stores. This approach can make competent the
Woolworths for creating strong loyalty as Wesfarmers would particularly emphasize on the
requirement of a specific set of consumers (Santos, Melo, Claudino, & Medeiros, 2017).
From the analysis, it is found that the differentiation would be best approach that can provide
higher market opportunity to Woolworths in South Africa.
Conclusion
From the above interpretation, it can be concluded that there are different strengths of
Woolworths such as segment penetration, market leadership, employee policies, good tracking of
customers, and promotion. Confused positioning, partial behavior towards certain markets, and
wars in prices are some weaknesses of Woolworths. It can be concluded that the company should
focus on experience to grab the opportunity for declining the threat of competition and health
concerns. Porter’s five force model is used to assess competitiveness in the food retail industry.
Along with this, a generic strategy is used to analyze the opportunities that Woolworths can grab
from the market (Öneren, Tayfun, & Yurdakul, 2017).

MARKETING STRATEGY AND PLAN 10
References
Badii, L., Tiemann, M., Faulkner, R., & Hartley, N. (2018). Smart specialization–a collective
awareness platform and toolset for ris3 strategy implementation. Economic and Social
Development: Book of Proceedings, 700-709.
Belton, P. (2017). Competitive Strategy: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance. Macat
Library.
Cordell, A., & Thompson, I. (2019). The Procurement Models Handbook. Routledge.
Harding, S. (2017). MBA management models. Routledge.
Mathooko, F. M., & Ogutu, M. (2015). Porter’s five competitive forces framework and other
factors that influence the choice of response strategies adopted by public universities in
Kenya. International Journal of Educational Management, 29(3), 334-354.
Öneren, M., Tayfun, A. R. A. R., & Yurdakul, G. (2017). Developing competitive strategies
based on SWOT analysis in Porter’s five forces model by DANP. Journal Of Business
Research-Turk, 9(2), 511-528.
Rizea, R. D. (2015). Growth Strategies of Multinational Companies. Petroleum-Gas University
of Ploiesti Bulletin, Technical Series, 67(1).
Rosenberg Hansen, J., & Ferlie, E. (2016). Applying strategic management theories in public
sector organizations: Developing a Typology. Public Management Review, 18(1), 1-19.
Santos, R. R. D., Melo, F. J. C. D. M., Claudino, C. N. D. Q., & Medeiros, D. D. D. (2017).
Model For Formulating Competitive strategy: the supplementary health sector
case. Benchmarking: An International Journal, 24(1), 219-243.
Thompson, A., Strickland, A. J., & Gamble, J. (2015). Crafting and executing strategy: Concepts
and readings. McGraw-Hill Education.

MARKETING STRATEGY AND PLAN 11
Wee, C. H. (2017). Think tank—beyond the five forces model and blue ocean strategy: an
integrative perspective from Sun Zi Bingfa. Global Business and Organizational
Excellence, 36(2), 34-45.
Woolworths Holdings Limited. (2019). About us. Retrieved from:
https://www.woolworthsholdings.co.za/overview/our-history/