Business Management and strategic management

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Business Management and strategic
management

Business Management and strategic management 1
Executive summary
The report will consider the strategic capability analysis for which the resources of the
organization will be assessed through VRIO strategic framework to assess which of the resources
of the organization can lead to competitive advantage for the firm. From the previous
assignment analysis it can be found that the technological environment and environmental
factors could provide opportunity to the company. Moreover the opportunities identified were
significant growth, implementation of carbon taxation, strategic acquisitions.
From the resources that have analysed in the previous section it can be said that the key strength
found for Woolworth that have reflected a sustainable competitive advantage for the company
are distribution network, financial resource, employees of the company and patents that the
company acquired. The key opportunities and found for the Woolworth through which
Woolworth would turn out the competitive disadvantage into competitive advantage. One of the
strategic initiatives that are recommended to Woolworth is product and service innovation and
development. It has been identified that one of the threats for the company is lack of research and
development due to which the company has not been able to innovate to larger extent while
offering products to the customers.

Business Management and strategic management 2
Contents
Executive summary.........................................................................................................................1
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
VRIO analysis..................................................................................................................................4
Financial resource........................................................................................................................5
Human resource...........................................................................................................................5
Food products..............................................................................................................................5
Patents..........................................................................................................................................6
Cost structure...............................................................................................................................6
Distribution network....................................................................................................................6
Research and development..........................................................................................................7
Swot analysis...................................................................................................................................7
Generic business strategy................................................................................................................8
Proposal strategic initiative............................................................................................................11
Product innovation and development........................................................................................11
Service innovation and development.........................................................................................12
Suitability of your strategic initiative............................................................................................13
Strategy implementation plan........................................................................................................14
Balanced scorecard........................................................................................................................16
Strategy map..................................................................................................................................20
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................22
References......................................................................................................................................24

Business Management and strategic management 3
Introduction
The external and internal environments are most relevant aspect for an organization to consider
while assessing the strategy of a company. The report will consider the strategic capability
analysis for which the resources of the organization will be assessed through VRIO strategic
framework to assess which of the resources of the organization can lead to competitive
advantage for the firm. From the report the key strength, weakness, opportunities, and threats
from the resources identified for the Woolworth will be conducted in the report further. After
analysing the resources and external environment of Woolworths the current business strategy
will be analysed on the basis of porters generic business strategy (woolworths, 2019). From
analysing the internal environment of Woolworth a strategic initiative will be proposed which
will be suitable for the organisation and the environment, for which the strategy implementation
plan will be prepared while scheduling the activities that need to be a team to implement that
plan through Gantt chart. Another strategic framework is like a balanced scorecard and strategy
map will be prepared for Woolworth in order to analyse the strategy proposed and to be
implemented for the company (woolworthsgroup, 2018).
Woolworth is one of the popular Australian retail chain companies which initiated while
providing affordable groceries to the residents of Australia, which has expanded the business
internationally in various regions. From the previous assignment analysis it can be found that the
technological environment and environmental factors could provide an opportunity to the
company. Moreover the opportunities identified were significant growth, implementation of
carbon taxation, strategic acquisitions (woolworths.co.za, 2018). However the threats identified
were increasing raw material, rivalry among major retailers and very buyer purchasing
behaviour. Moreover the industry was analysed with the help of porters five forces model which
reflected that the threat of new entrants and rivalry among the competitors are the key threat for
Woolworth in near future which must be considered while preparing strategy implementation
plan in the report further (woolworthsgroup, 2016).

Business Management and strategic management 4
VRIO analysis
The resources of an organisation can be competencies for that company as it can turn into a
sustainable competitive advantage for an organisation. In order to assist the strategic capabilities
of Woolworths VRIO analysis will be considered (Chatzoglou & Chatzoudes, 2018). The four
major criteria on which the resources will be analysed into new valuable that reflect the value of
the resourceful an organisation, imitable which reflects the degree to which competitor can
imitate that resources, rare which reflect the rareness of the resource for an organisation. Fourth
criteria include organisational capability that will reflect the capability of an organisation to turn
raw material into an asset or optimum utilization of the resources available (Choi & Park, 2016).
The resources of Woolworth to be analysed include
Resources Valuable Rare Non Imitable Organizational
capability
Competitive
advantage
Financial
resource
Y Y Y Y Sustainable
competitive
advantage
Human
resource
Y N N Y Temporary
competitive
advantage
Food
products
Y N N N Temporary
competitive
advantage
Patents Y Y Y Y Sustainable
competitive
advantage
Cost
structure
N N N N Competitive
disadvantage
Distribution
network
Y Y Y Y Sustainable
competitive

Business Management and strategic management 5
advantage
Research
and
development
N N N N Competitive
disadvantage
Financial resource
A financial resource is a first and foremost resource that is highly valuable and has been able to
support investment into external opportunities identified by the company in order to combat
external threats. Since these resources are available with the competitors as well these resources
are not rare as per the VRIO analysis however different sources are not available with all the
companies and are only possessed by small number of companies in retail industry (Huggins &
Thompson, 2015). Similarly the financial resources could be costly to imitate by the competitors
as raising finance through prolonged profits are difficult for new entering companies and
competitors in the industry however this resource is not a major imitable resource (Muller &
Nagle, 2017). In addition, financial resources are optimally organised by Woolworths which
reflect organisation capability criteria is also considered and this resource is found to be
sustained competitive advantage for the company (woolworths, 2019).
Human resource
As per the statistics in 2016 human resource of Woolworths were found to be 1,15,000 people
only in operational department of Woolworth in Australia which reflect that the human resource
teams in the company are very large and strong and create value to the company as highly
trained employees can be a major cause for productive output in an organisation. Moreover the
retention level of the employees in Woolworths is high which a valuable resource is also for the
company. In addition to this human resource are found to be a rare resource for the organisation
as availability of skilled and trained employees or not acknowledged with all the new entering
and competitive companies. However, the human resource is not costly to imitate, which reflect
these criteria to provide temporary competitive advantage for Woolworth (Javed, 2015).
Food products
Food products are procured by the company through local suppliers which reflect it as a valuable
resource, the reason being the company has been invested into grocery and the procurement