Analyzing Internal and External Environment of Waitrose using SWOT, VRIO, PESTLE and Porter's Five Forces Framework

Strategy Enterprise and
Innovation

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION.....................................................................................................................................3
TASK..........................................................................................................................................................3
Analyze the internal resources and capabilities of an organization..........................................................3
Examine the external environment of the business..................................................................................5
Using Porter’s Five Force framework to evaluate the impact of competitive forces................................7
CONCLUSION........................................................................................................................................10
REFERENCES........................................................................................................................................11
Books and journals:...............................................................................................................................11

INTRODUCTION
Waitrose is one of the famous supermarket in British administration. In 1904, it was
founded as Waite, Rose and Taylor, later it shortened to Waitrose. In 1937, the company was
acquired by John Lewis Partnership that is an employee owned retailer, which sells merchandise
under the name of this company. It was headquartered in Bracknell, Berkshire and Victoria,
London, UK. It is recognized as the eighth largest groceries retailer in the country (Amit and
Zott, 2020). It has 332 shops, involving 65 “little Waitrose” convenience shops across the UK. It
has allocated their business in over 52 countries. It owns royal warrant to supply spirits, wine and
groceries to Queen Elizabeth II. The following report will analyze internal and external business
environment as well as porter's five forces framework will be used in order to identify the impact
of competitive forces.
TASK
Analyze the internal resources and capabilities of an organization.
Business strategies defines a sum of competitive moves or actions that a company uses to
strengthening its performance, attract customers, achieve organizational goals as well as to
complete successfully.
SWOT analysis helps to examine the strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities of
business. In context of Waitrose, it is a management tool that enables it to benchmark its
performance and competitive edge in the market. The following is the SWOT analysis to
examine the internal environment of the brand:
Strengths-
One of the biggest strengths of the brand is that it has its own brand in order to sell its
product with private label, which are mostly all of them faitrade or organic, free range, consisting
their own products which encourage their new and healthy lifestyle of their consumers. The
chosen company owns farms working with its farmers, suppliers and growers. It also ensures to
maintain its business standards in safety, quality, animal welfare and environment across its
chain of supply assisted by its own farm insurance schemes and inspections. A healthy bond with
their farmers is also essential as it can guarantee that the goods will be reliable and expected. The
chosen company shares a significant partnership with John Lewis, which advances the brand
image and reputation in the market. This partnership also helps to diversify the risks.
Diversification in product range would be helpful to achieve competitive edge in the
marketplace.
Weaknesses-
There are several customers who have the perceptions that the chosen company as a
retailer for few high earners and do not shop from the Waitrose stores. Various writers,
independent analysist and newspapers also described as having “an upmarket image”. This kind
of perception about the brand is very costly, resulting big loss of market. It is popular as one of
the largest store which has 5.1% market share, but somehow, it is far behind the Tesco which has

27% shares of market. It is also struggling to compete with Lidl and Aldi (Vătămănescu and
et.al., 2020).
Opportunities-
The chosen organization can opt for market penetration strategies to advances its sales
and secure its market share in the nation. This can be attained by facilitating consumers with
effective schemes and value for money. Additionally, further expansion of business at global
level and franchise agreement is worth exploring.
Threats-
It has huge competitors in the market such as Tesco, Aldi, Lidl, ASDA, Sainsbury's,
Morrison's, Iceland, Co-op and many more. All such companies heavily impact profits and
market shares of Waitrose.
VRIO Analysis
Waitrose uses the VRIO analysis addressing the customer happiness and satisfaction,
competitive benefits and value additions. The use of this framework has been very crucial for the
company in determining the methods in which all the business operations corporate. The
structure of VRIO have four issues that consist value, rarity, imitability and ability. For chosen
organization, it has been working vigorously to enhance its value of its goods and services
(Blank, 2019). The VRIO analysis of Waitrose company mentioned at each point whether these
resources could be enhanced to take comparative benefits:
Valuable:
 Employees are valuable human resources for the company as they are highly skilled and
trained, also their loyal to the company which aids company to be more productive.
 It delivers local food products.
 Brand reputation.
 Financial resources are valuable to the company as they are support combatting outer
threats and assists in investing in external growth opportunities.
Rarity:
 Financial resources are rare for the company as it is strong and it can be found only in
rare companies.
 Local food products are not rare as these are easily available in the market but quality
products are rare for the company (Lin, 2021).
 Employees are rare for the company as they provide special training programs to improve
their skills and knowledge which make business profitable.
 Brand reputation is rare for the Waitrose.
Imitable: