Strategic Management of ALDI: Analysis and Recommendations
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This report provides an analysis of the strategic management of ALDI, including SWOT and PESTLE analysis. It also discusses the impact of strategy on organizational culture and structure. Recommendations are provided for improving business operations and achieving market growth.
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Tableof Contents EXECUTIVE SUMMARY........................................................................................................3 INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................................4 MAIN BODY.............................................................................................................................4 About the company................................................................................................................4 About the industry..................................................................................................................4 SWOT analysis.......................................................................................................................4 PESTLE analysis....................................................................................................................7 Porter generic strategy............................................................................................................9 Impact of strategy on organisational culture........................................................................10 Impact of strategy in organisational structure......................................................................10 Conclusion and recommendations...........................................................................................11 REFERENCES.........................................................................................................................12
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The report includes analysis of strategic management of ALDI, which is the fifth largest multi chain retail store in UK. The company is having headquarter in Essen, Germany. The company is having their chain in more than 20 countries and having more than 10000 retail store over there. This is a family owned business so whole the control is hold by family members only. The report includes PESTLE analysis of ALDI so as to make the company aware about those extrinsic factors which may have impact on their business operations. PESTLE analysis helps the business to formulate strategies in such a manner that these factors may provide positive impact on the business due to which higher output can be obtained with these factors. Furthermore the report includes SWOT analysis so as to get to know about strength of the company and to use those over eliminating business weaknesses and to examine market opportunities so as to avoid coming threat in the business and to tackle those with strengths and opportunities. Moreover porter generic strategies are analysed so as to decide over the best suitable strategy which is to be adopted by the company to capture huge customers and to satisfy them by their offerings. At last the relation between strategies over culture and structure of organisation is enlightened which makes the business more capable to implement the strategies in the most effective way within business. In the last part of report, recommendations are provided so as to improvise business operations and to make the business highly effective to attain business success and market growth.
INTRODUCTION Strategic management includes goal setting, analysing competitive environment so that to examine business opportunities. Strategic management is all about putting clear understanding about vision of the company so that future can be decided and accordingly strategies can be adopted. This report is thoroughly based on discussion upon the strategy which can be adopted by companies so as to attain success in marketplace. For this purpose the company which is taken to understand all these concepts is ALDI. ALDI is a German family owned supermarket chain. They are having headquarter in Essen, Germany and having almost 10000 stores in near about 20 countries. The company was founded in 1946 and they are operating their business in retail industry(Anitha, 2016). MAIN BODY About the company ALDI is a multichain retail store which was established by two brothers named Karl and Theo Albercht in 1946. It is a family owned business which is having headquarter in Essen, Germany. The company is having more than 10000 stores and covering more than 20 countries. The company was divided into two parts in 1960 by name Aldi Nord and Aldi sud. Aldi Nord is having 2500 stores in western, northern and eastern Germany and Aldi Sud is having 1600 stores in western and southern Germany. About the industry The retail industry in UK is one of the largest industry sectors which has employed near about three millions employees. Retail industry deals with selling and buying of goods in which huge diversification in seen. In 2019 UK had overall retail sales£394 Billion in which 2.9 million people were given employment. It has been seen in 2019 that this industry grew at the rate of 3.4%. In the year 2020 the monthly growth rate has declined by 0.3% which is due to COVID-19 pandemic. SWOT analysis SWOT Analysis is one of the most prominent tools for ALDI to level managers for analysing the Existing Strengths and Weakness and upcoming opportunities and threats. Below given are some points for SWOT Analysis:-
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Strengths: -ALDI is one of the leading organizations in its industry, which is the result of its Strengths. Below given are some of strengths of ALDI:- 1)Strong Distribution Network-ALDI carries on its operations in 20 different countries with over 10000 stores smoothly, which is only possible with strong procurement and distribution network(Sarsby, 2016). 2)Strong Brand Value-ALDI is a known brand having strong brand value, which makes it preference priority for customers as compared to its competitors and makes its existence long stable(Bagheri, 2016)(Boyer and et. al., 2018)(Channon and Jalland, 2016). 3)Process Automation-ALDI has invested large share of resources in making the day-to-day business processes automated and decreasing manual intervention this makes it capable of meeting any demands and timelines. 4)Strong Diversification Performance-ALDI has always continued to diversify its business to new streams and have been successful in reaching the desired goals. Therefore, this strength makes it capable of entering new lines of business. Weakness: -Strengths always comes up with some weaknesses being part of it, there are some areas where ALDI needs to improve in order to achieve the desired goals more smoothly and mitigating itself from exploitation of those vulnerabilities:- 1)High Attrition Rate-Compare to other organizations ALDI has higher attrition rate of employees, which increased the training costs and decreases the output efficiency. 2)Higher Inventory Days-Inventory days of ALDI is somewhat higher as compared to other competitors so which needs to improve from long term perspective. 3)Lack of New technologies-Although ALDI has automated its various processes but still it needs to increases its investments in new technologies to increase its market foothold. 4)Lack of Financial Planning-Various ratios as if current ratio and liquid ratio suggests that more efficient usage of cash is possible then how it is being used now. Opportunities:-Opportunitiesare thepositiveeventsor signs, which enables organization to either, improve their existing line of business or achieve growth through new
line of business. Below given are the upcoming opportunities noticed in favor of ALDI (Chatterjee, 2017). 1)Organization’s Core competencies-ALDI can increase its success in similar products other than its core competencies. For ex. GE healthcare research, assisted ALDI in developing better Oil drilling machines so to decrease cost and increase margins this is an investment option and opportunity. 2)Lower Inflation rate-Inflation rate has marginally went down and estimations are being made to be further decreased which provides better market stability to the organization and enables to raise funds at lower rate of interest so that new investments can be made with lower cost of capital. 3)Opening of new markets based on Government agreement-New technology standards and government free trade agreement has provided ALDI an opportunity to enter into new emerging markets to expand its business. 4)New Environmental policies-these new policies will create level playing field for all the organizations in the industry. It will create a new opportunity for ALDI to increase its advantages from new technologies and increase the market share in the new stream(David and David, 2016). Threats: -Every opportunity comes along with a hidden or visible threat. To make most out of all the opportunities existing ALDI should mitigate every threat such that its harms could be either removed or diminished to minimum extent possible. 1)Intense Competition-Due to stable profitability nature of ALDI’s industry line the number of players are increasing rapidly and which is leading the threat of intensecompletionfortheorganization.Theycanmitigatethisthreatby diversifying line of business regularly. 2)New Technologies by Competitors-It might be a possibility that competitor might explore and invest in better technologies earlier as compared to ALDI, so it may cause a threat to lose market advantage to them. Therefore, ALDI have to mitigate this threat by regularly updated and investing in upcoming technologies in market. 3)Different laws of different countries-As ALDI operates in multiple number of countries it is being exposed to various laws. Therefore, any major change in laws
in any country might create liability claims. Therefore, they should take proper legal consistency to mitigate this exposure threats(Jackson and Mushtaq, 2018). 4)SeasonalNatureofhighProfitabilityproducts-Thedemandofhighly profitable goods is seasonal in nature and any unexpected event during that seasonal phase peak may lead to threat of losing that profit opportunity. PESTLE analysis PESTLE analysis which involves examination of key external factors which may affect the business of an organisation. This analysis provides various scenarios to the company so that company may deals with outer environment in order to attain business growth. PESTLE analysis for ALDI is explained as under: Political factors:These factors include those political interventions which may have huge impact on the business. In the context of ALDI, the company is having high impact of this factor as due to Brexit uncertainty value of pound sterling has decreased due to which inflation rate is on its peak. As population of UK has stopped to invest their money on non- essential items which is providing lesser market expansion opportunities to retail sector such as ALDI. On the other hand ALDI is having opportunity to grow in the market by lowering their product prices so that to capture huge customers(Perera, 2017). The country is connected to various organisations such as G20 and Commonwealth of Nations which encourages the business environment in the Australia and helps to make stable political conditions so as to provide low cost location to the businesses in Australia. Further ALDI has made foreign direct investment in UK which is creating difficulties as in operations of their business. Economic factors:These factors includes GDP rate of the country, inflation rate, currency transition, tax rates and tax policies, rules of FDI and employment rate in the country etc. In context of ALDI due to Brexit the value of pound has decreased due to which unemployment rate has been increased by which company is having lesser skilled employees in their business. On the other side the fluctuating exchange rates are the major factor which is affecting the growth of company. Furthermore ALDI imports most of their goods from abroad which may increase their overall costs. Due to increased discounts in products it is difficult for ALDI to deal with Australian reserve bank as the bank is continuously putting efforts to deal with inflation (Jajja and et. al., 2017).
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Social factors:These factors include taste and preferences of consumer and impact of society on the business and the belief and attitude of the population over the business. These factors influence the marketing structure of the business of ALDI. In the current scenario preference of customer is towards healthy foods and healthy habits which are providing opportunity to ALDI so as to deal with attitudes of customers. Furthermore customers want to have one roof solution to their needs and wants for which it is required by ALDI to satisfy their needs so as to give them high value benefits. For this ALDI may start to deliver their products online so as to enhance their customer base and tomeet their expectations. Technological factors:These factors include the advancements in technology which may have a significant impact on the business. For businesses it is required to introduce new innovations so as to stay updated to the technology and to adapt new technology feature so as to boost their market image and customer base as well. For ALDI, the innovations can be in their billings system or product keeping system by which customer may enhance their experience so that to enhance customer footfall. Furthermore ALDI may adapt AI so that to enhance ease of their customers as they can initiate some display TV so that to mention place of the products in the store so it will be easier to locate products for the customer that will helps them to enhance customer satisfaction(Lafore, 2016). Legal factors:These factors include all the legislative laws and governmental interventions within the business which may have high impact on the business. Legal laws are required to be followed by all the businesses so that to avoid any law suits. In the context of ALDI Australia is the country which is having rigid laws when it comes to their employees and citizens. ALDI is the company where they are having huge employees who are working in their business so as to deal with needs of their customers. On the other hand ALDI is required to follow all the employment laws and food and safety act so as to safeguard rights and interest of their employees and other stakeholders including customers and government. Furthermore the company highly believes in providing equal opportunities to their employees irrespective of their gender or religion so that to boost morale of their employees and to enhance employee engagements. Environmentalfactors:Thesefactorsincludetheimpactofbusinessover ecosystems and various environmental laws which are enforced by government of a nation. In case of ALDI, Australia is the country which is highly proactive for their nature and environment so for this ALDI is working to reduce their carbon wastages so as to minimise
their cruel impact on the nature. On the other hand they are having stores which are high ventilations so that to provide sufficient air inside the stores which may influence the customer footfall. Furthermore ALDI is the company who is promoting ban of plastic carry bags and plastic packaging material for this they are providing numerous options such as paper bags and recyclable packing materials. Porter generic strategy Porter has propounded five generic strategies which are focused on enhancing market competitive edge with the help of three major strategies which are cost leadership, cost differentiation and focus. These strategies are explained as under: Cost leadership: 1)Low cost strategy:This strategy offers wide range of products to the customer even in lowest prices in the marketplace. So this helps the business to grow in the market and to enhance their customer base which may lead them to earn high profits. This strategy is based on targeting huge market so as to attract huge customer by offering low prices and huge variety in products. In the background of ALDI, the company may adopt this strategy for a segment of their offering as all type of products cannot be sold at cheaper prices so this strategy can be adopted for a small segment of products(Manyaeva, Piskunov and Fomin, 2016). 2)Best value strategy:Under this strategy the products are offered in the best prices to large customer base which is the lowest price in the marketplace. This strategy may help ALDI in dealing with their rivals in a considerable way. Differentiation Under this strategy company is focused to offer unique product to their customer that is not offered by any other rivals. The main target of this strategy for ALDI is to capture those customers who are not price sensitive and are prone to buy innovative products. Focus 1)Low cost focus:Under this strategy the products are offered in niche market and with the lowest price. With the help of this strategy ALDI is able to target small market segment so as to establish monopoly over the market (Panwar and et. al., 2016).
2)Best value focus:Under this strategy the products are offered to the customer of small market segment and with the best price value. This strategy is helpful for LADI as all type of product may be included in this strategy and customer base can be enhanced. From the above analysis it can be concluded that the appropriate strategy for ALDI is best value focus as with the help of this strategy the company will be able to put their attention on all range of products and for each product they will be providing the best price to their customer. This will assist customers to get attracted towards the company and lead them to earn profits. Impact of strategy on organisational culture The strategy of best value focus may have high impact on their organisational culture as the by adopting new strategy this will influence corporate culture, beliefs and working style so this will impact employee relations due to which operational activities may have significantimpactofthis.Themajorfactorswhichmayhavesignificantimpacton organisational culture are communication and strategies. So the strategy guides the company in implementing plan of actions and guidelines to attain business growth whereas culture helps the business to attain those targets with shared values and beliefs. The driving path of strategy is through business culture which involves practices and values of the business. So the strategy is having major role in the execution of organisational culture. As in context of ALDI the company is changing their strategy and to properly implement that, it is suggested to convey and prepare action plan in appropriate manner so that no confusion may arise and employee will be able to execute the entire given task in most effective manner. Furthermore appropriate reward policy should be introduced in the business which will boost morale of employees and this will help the business to touch new heights in short time(Shepherd, Mcmullen and Ocasio, 2017). Impact of strategy in organisational structure Organisationsarerequiredtomakestrategiessoascompeteindomesticand international level. On the other hand organisational structure is the set of beliefs and organisational culture. Organisational structure is focused on establishing relations with all the strategies and working people in the organisation so that to communicate in an effective manner and to establish strong relationship in between. Organisational structure helps the business to align with strategic decision and goals of the business. So it can be said that
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organisational structure is having implied relation with strategies so as to deal with strategy the structure of the organisation is required to be efficient (Teller, Alexander and Floh, 2016). Every organisation prefers to change their strategies so as to maintain familiarity with organisational structure. Organisations are focused on three major dimensions which are innovative strategy, cost minimisation and imitation. Every organisational structure is having their own goal. As in context of ALDI the company is having matrix structure as they are having target to minimise their cost and to work efficiently in the marketplace. In order to implement strategy in an effective manner the company is required to focus on their structure so that all the strategies can be conveyed to each and every person working in the organisation. Conclusion and recommendations From the above discussion it can be concluded that strategy management is the key factor in growth of the business. The report includes PESTLE analysis which is essential to analyse external environment and to find out impact of those factors on business operations. SWOT analysis is important to find out prevailing strengths of the business so that to use theirstrengthtocoverupweaknessesandtousemarketopportunities.Itistobe recommended that ALDI is supposed to provide training to their employees so as to enhance their skills. Furthermore ALDI is required to analyse all their resources so as to make appropriate use of that. At last ALDI is required to set their prices so as to attract more customers and to become market leader (Viltard, 2017).
REFERENCES Books and journals Anitha, J., 2016. Role of Organisational Culture and Employee Commitment in Employee Retention.ASBM Journal of Management.9(1). Bagheri, J., 2016. Overlaps between human resources’ strategic planning and strategic managementtoolsinpublicorganizations.Procedia-SocialandBehavioral Sciences,230, pp.430-438. Boyer, S., Carr, J., Loomis, S., Prothero, M., Street, Q. and Chen, J., 2018. Could Aldi Succeed in Canada?. Channon, D.F. and Jalland, M., 2016.Multinational strategic planning. Springer. Chatterjee,S.,2017.Twoefficiency-drivennetworksonacollisioncourse:ALDI’s innovative grocery business model vs Walmart.Strategy & Leadership. David, F. and David, F.R., 2016.Strategic management: A competitive advantage approach, concepts and cases. Pearson–Prentice Hall. Jackson, E. and Mushtaq, S., 2018. Leading brand products and their supermarket economy line equivalents, is there a difference in nutritional content?.Proceedings of the Nutrition Society.77(OCE4). Jajja, M.S.S., Kannan, V.R., Brah, S.A. and Hassan, S.Z., 2017. Linkages between firm innovationstrategy,suppliers,productinnovation,andbusiness performance.International Journal of Operations & Production Management. Laforet, S., 2016. Effects of organisational culture on organisational innovation performance in family firms.Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development. Manyaeva, V.A., Piskunov, V.A. and Fomin, V.P., 2016. Strategic management accounting of company costs.International Review of Management and Marketing.6(5S). pp.255-264. Panwar, R., Nybakk, E., Hansen, E. and Pinkse, J., 2016. The effect of small firms' competitive strategies on their community and environmental engagement.Journal of Cleaner Production,129, pp.578-585. Perera, R., 2017.The PESTLE analysis. Nerdynaut. Sarsby, A., 2016.SWOT analysis. Lulu. com. Shepherd, D.A., Mcmullen, J.S. and Ocasio, W., 2017. Is that an opportunity? An attention modeloftopmanagers'opportunitybeliefsforstrategicaction.Strategic Management Journal.38(3). pp.626-644. Teller, C., Alexander, A. and Floh, A., 2016. The impact of competition and cooperation on the performanceof a retail agglomerationand its stores.Industrial Marketing Management,52, pp.6-17.
Viltard, L.A., 2017. Strategic mistakes (AVOIDABLE): the topicality of Michel Porter’s generic strategies.Independent Journal of Management & Production.8(2). pp.474- 497