Coles Supermarket Practices: Benchmarking and Performance Analysis

This report provides an evaluation of the practices of Coles, a major Australian supermarket chain, against best practice benchmarks. The analysis focuses on benchmarking Coles' performance in terms of profitability and sustainability. The report utilizes data from Coles' annual reports, highlighting a positive financial performance with increasing profit after tax. It also emphasizes the importance of market positioning and comparator groups to strengthen Coles' competitive advantage. The report compares Coles' financial performance with that of Woolworths, another major player in the Australian market, and uses the comparison to assess the effectiveness of Coles' strategies. The report references several academic sources and online resources to support its claims. The primary focus is on the strategic and financial aspects of the supermarket's operations, providing insights into its market position and areas for potential improvement.

Report
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1. Contents
ESSAY.............................................................................................................................................4
Evaluation of the practices of the major Australian supermarket chain against a best practice
bench mark.............................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6
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ESSAY
Evaluation of the practices of the major Australian supermarket chain against a best practice
bench mark
Benchmarking is referred to as the effective procedure through which business
performance of the company can be measured in rightful manner. This can be effectively done
by comparing it with the best practices or standards set by the same industry (Coles, Dinan and
Warren, 2016). In order to check their actual positions businesses are required to make effective
comparison with the benchmark standards so that actual positioning of the same company can be
identified in rightful manner.
Here, it has been analysed that Australian supermarket industry is one of the fastest
growing industries which is influencing growth of the nation in positive manner. Coles is
acknowledged as the one of the best retailer of Australia which is having remarkable positioning
among the customers (Habib, Coles, Fallows and Goodchild, 2019). In order to check out the
performance of the same company leaders of Coles emphasises on evaluating their own
positioning with the help of the benchmarking. With the reference to the current company, it has
been seen that evaluation of benchmarking of this company has been done on the basis of
profitability and sustainability practices with the motive of determining its actual positioning in
the rightful manner.
On the basis of the information depicted in the annual reports of Coles, it has been seen
that the company it has been analysed that the financial performance of the company is effective
and above the benchmarking as they are leading the Australian market and having good
positioning among the customers (Peterson and et. al., 2017). As per the data obtained from
annual report of Coles, profit after tax in the year 2019 has been increased with almost 5.4 per
cent which is seen as the effective growth. Apart from this, it has been later analysed that the
benchmarking is also performed on the basis of market positioning that is comparator group. As
per the analysis performed towards the same it has been analysed that Coles is required to
emphasise on the comparator group in order to strengthen its positioning against the competitors.
This would definitely help the company in improvising its market positioning among the
customers and helps them in gaining competitive advantage with the increased sales performance
(Bogomolova, Szabo and Kennedy, 2017).
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On the basis of the financial report outlook of 2018-19 of Woolworths Group presented
above, it can be seen that the respective company earned a Profit before Interest and Tax of
$2353 million. This tends to depict the strong hand of the respective retail entity over the market
place and its ability to capture the attention of large base of customers as a result of which it has
yielded such large numbers of profits. In comparison to Coles, it can be said that Woolworths has
an edge in capturing large share of market and thereby setting itself as an example of benchmark
for financial performance for the other companies operating within the confines of Australian
market place (Woolies maintains edge on Coles as foreign raiders loom, 2020).
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Coles, T., Dinan, C. and Warren, N., 2016. Energy practices among small-and medium-sized
tourism enterprises: a case of misdirected effort?. Journal of Cleaner
Production, 111, pp.399-408.
Habib, I., Coles, J., Fallows, M. and Goodchild, S., 2019. A baseline quantitative survey of
campylobacter spp. on retail chicken portions and carcasses in metropolitan Perth,
Western Australia. Foodborne pathogens and disease, 16(3), pp.180-186.
Peterson, E.E., Cunningham, S.A., Thomas, M., Collings, S., Bonnett, G.D. and Harch, B., 2017.
An assessment framework for measuring agroecosystem health. Ecological
Indicators, 79, pp.265-275.
Bogomolova, S., Szabo, M. and Kennedy, R., 2017. Retailers' and manufacturers' price-
promotion decisions: Intuitive or evidence-based?. Journal of Business Research, 76,
pp.189-200.
Online
Woolies maintains edge on Coles as foreign raiders loom. 2020. [Online]. Available Through:
<https://www.morningstar.com.au/stocks/article/woolies-maintains-edge-on-coles-as-foreign-
ra/195354>.
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