Interview Questions for Manager A at Sainsbury regarding the closure of Netto's operations in the UK

INTERVIEW QUESTIONS: Manager A (Sainsbury)
1. Was the decision to close down Netto’s operations in UK because it was not
making enough business? Did it not live up to expectations?Could you
elaborate on this.
No not really. Netto met the laid down expectations for business. So it was not
that. Its more to do with that Salisbury felt that for the venture to be successful on
a larger scale, it needed a lot of investment, not that it was not a good opportunity.
We did not feel that the path to our future goals aligned with the investment that
was required for taking Netto to the big leagues. Netto was however a very
valuable learning experience and like it has been said before it was not only about
penetrating the discounter market, but an exercise in building efficiency in
business and that is a key takeaway. Its just that to make Netto big, you need a lot
of investment and Salisbury is did not feel that it could commit to that right now,
especially with the new deal with HG coming up.
2. What are the challenges that the venture faced?
One of the primary challenges was securing property for the physical outlets. It
was tough to find spots and gain permission where business was deemed to be
promising. Also, it was felt that perhaps the UK public are not well adjusted with
the kind of promotional sales that have worked for Netto among the Dutch public,
so Netto needs to come up with an alternate strategy that would draw in people
here as well. Lookoing at our competitors ALdi and Lidl, you can say that they