Strategic Management of Aldi: Approaches, Issues, and Recommendations

Strategic Management

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Balance of deliberate and emergent approaches that has been adopted by Aldi.........................3
Extent to which balance has been appropriate.............................................................................4
Recommendation.........................................................................................................................5
Major macro-environmental and industry issues that Aldi has faced in past..............................5
Impact of major macro and competitive environmental issues currently facing Aldi.................7
Porter’s Value Chain Framework ...............................................................................................7
VRIO Framework .....................................................................................................................10
Previous strategies of Aldi on the basis of Porter’s generic strategies framework and Ansoff
Matrix and extent to which strategies are appropriate in future ...............................................10
Approach to internationalisation that Aldi has adopted and extent to which approach has been
appropriate ................................................................................................................................13
CONCLUSION .............................................................................................................................13
REFERENCES .............................................................................................................................15

INTRODUCTION
Strategic management can be defined as ongoing business activity in which businesses
develop strategies to achieve their predefined goals and objectives. In order to ensure
effectiveness of goals and objectives, businesses ensure they identify and strategies response for
different factors affecting business organisation and its success. This report will discuss about
Aldi, German discount supermarket chains founded in 1946 by Karl and Theo Albrecht and is
headquartered at Essen, Germany and Mulheim, Germany. Company operates at around 11235
locations in around 20 countries. This report will discuss about deliberate and emergent
approaches of strategy formulation that has been adopted by Aldi in past and extent to which
they are appropriate. Followed by this report will discuss about macro-environmental and
industry issues that company have faced in past and responses of Aldi for these strategies.
Theoretical models like Porters’ Value chain, VRIO model, Porter’s generic strategies and
Ansoff Matrix will also be applied in report for Aldi. Application of different theoretical model
is aimed at identifying strategic success of Aldi in context of different strategies that companies
have applied and adopted.
MAIN BODY
Balance of deliberate and emergent approaches that has been adopted by Aldi
Deliberate strategy formulation approach is one in which strategy works as vision
towards strategy formulation. In this strategy formal planning in strategic management within
organisation emphasise the benefit of acting intentionally. Deliberate strategy formulation
approach considers that Plan and Think before business act (Vătămănescu and et.al., 2020). This
means that in deliberate approach to strategy formulation every action that a company or
business takes has been previously planned by businesses rather than taking action at the very
moment when need arises to take actions.

Emergent approach to strategy formulation is one in which strategy is developed from unplanned
actions and initiatives within organisation. Emergent approach to strategy development is
considered as response of organisation to a situation that is spontaneous. This is also known as
result of daily prioritization and investment decisions that are made by individual Deliberate
strategy formulation approach is one in which strategy works as vision towards strategy
formulation. In this strategy formal planning in strategic management within organisation
emphasise the benefit of acting intentionally. Deliberate strategy formulation approach considers
that Plan are important within organisation (Krishna, Connaughton and Linabary, 2020).
Emergent approach to strategy formulation is one in which actions are taken for responding
situations that arise without any warning and was not previously considered in planning of
business.
Balance of both these approaches for strategy formulation is very important because
everything cannot be planned in advanced and this is why emergent approach is very
appropriate. However, in order to ensure that business take right actions on time for future
growth and success of business, it is very important that deliberate approach for strategy
formulation is considered by Aldi.
Aldi has adopted both approaches for strategy formulation and in this strategy for
business model of Aldi and its targeting strategy as well as its marketing strategy are examples of
Illustration 1: Deliberate and Emergent approaches