Business Strategic Plan for Coles Supermarket: A Comprehensive Report

This report presents a strategic business plan for Coles Supermarket, one of Australia's largest supermarket chains. It begins with an executive summary, followed by an introduction outlining the report's objectives. The report delves into Coles' values, stakeholders, and the importance of stakeholder consultation. It includes a thorough market analysis, assessing Coles' strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) in relation to its competitors, including Woolworths, ALDI, and Metcash. The report identifies key strategic goals, prioritizes strategies like backward integration and improved stakeholder relations, and outlines an action plan with timelines and responsible parties. Strategic monitoring and control mechanisms are also discussed, alongside a risk mitigation plan, cost-benefit analysis, and an examination of legislative impacts. The report concludes with a business overview, analysis of vision and mission, a stakeholder relationship review, and references.

Running head: BUSINESS STRATEGIC PLAN
Business Strategic Plan
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author note

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Executive Summary
This report had portrayed the strategic business plan of the organization named Coles which is
one of the second largest supermarket chain in Australia. The report had included the vision,
mission and stakeholders. The report had analyzed the market of the organization to identify its
strengths and weakness along with the analysis of the competitors in the market. Relevant
strategic goals had been developed based on the market analysis. It had been concluded from the
report that effective strategic management is essential for gaining competitive advantage in the
market. The internal analysis shows that the organization is the market follower and has the
capability of being the market leader.

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Values of Coles................................................................................................................................3
Stakeholders in Coles......................................................................................................................5
Importance of consulting stakeholders............................................................................................6
Strategic plans..................................................................................................................................6
Market Analysis of Coles................................................................................................................7
Competitors in the market...............................................................................................................8
Key strategic goals.........................................................................................................................10
Prioritize Strategies........................................................................................................................11
Action Plan....................................................................................................................................12
Strategic Monitoring and Control..................................................................................................13
SWOT analysis for first two strategies..........................................................................................13
Strength and Weakness of Wesfarmers.........................................................................................14
Risk mitigation plan.......................................................................................................................15
Cost benefit analysis......................................................................................................................16
Legislation impact.........................................................................................................................17
Task 2.............................................................................................................................................19
Business overview.....................................................................................................................19
Analysis of vision and mission..................................................................................................19

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Stakeholder relationship review................................................................................................19
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................20
References......................................................................................................................................21

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Introduction
This is a report which will portray the strategic business plan of the organization named
Coles which is one of the second largest supermarket chain in Australia. The report will include
the vision, mission and stakeholders. The report will analyze the market of the organization to
identify its strengths and weakness along with the analysis of the competitors in the market.
Relevant strategic goals will be developed based on the market analysis. It will also develop the
action plan; risk mitigation plan and cost benefit analysis of the strategies. Therefore, the report
will provide an overview of the organizational capabilities along with the competencies and the
position of the competitors and ally’s in the market.
Values of Coles
Coles has emphasized on providing the co summers with fresher products. The
organization has been delivering value to the consumers by reducing the overall price of the
weekly basket (Coles.com.au. 2018). Therefore, this has enabled them to increase the quality of
shopping for the consumers. The organization wants to provide value each day to the shopping
experience of the consumers. Coles value their suppliers the same way as their consumers so that
they are able to develop a long lasting relationship with their suppliers. The organization has
been able to develop passionate and caring work culture where the employees will work their
fullest to ensure that consumers get an outstanding shopping experience.

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Stakeholders in Coles
The stakeholders in Coles are as follows:
 Shareholders
 Customers
 Employees
 Suppliers
 Government
 Non government organizations
 Community
 Media
The different stakeholders are impacted differently due to a particular business decisions.
The shareholders are impacted by any business decision as there is frequent fluctuation in the
market value of the company shares. The implementation of a policy will have a direct impact on
the employees and the consumers as the employees will have to take measures for policy
implementation and the consumers will experience a difference in terms of quality of service and
products (sustainability.wesfarmers.com.au, 2018). Suppliers are affected by the changes in the
procurement policies and the policies implemented by Coles will have to be within the
government rules and regulation. This will consist of forms such as competition regulation
forms, retail trading hours, carbon regulations, liquor licensing, GST and tax reforms. Therefore,
not abiding by any of these regulations set by the government will definitely have a negative
impact on the government. Coles has been involved in social activities and formed collaboration
with various reputable NGO’s so failure of the organization in some extent will have a direct

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impact on the NGO (Wesfarmers.com.au, 2018). If the organization goes through financial crisis
it will affect the finances of the non government organizations. This shows that all the decision
making policies will affect both the internal and the external stakeholders of the organization.
Importance of consulting stakeholders
As stated by Barrett, Oborn and Orlikowski, (2016), engaging stakeholders is essential
for developing an effective strategy for the organization. There are both external and internal
stakeholders to an organization and they have a valid role to play in developing an effective
strategy. The organization should develop good communication between the organization and its
stakeholders so that the stakeholders are aware of the organization goals and the organization is
aware of the needs of the stakeholders. Therefore, the organization will be able to mitigate the
potential risk factors within the organization by communicating with the stakeholders.
Strategic plans
According to Barrett, Oborn and Orlikowski, (2016), strategies comprise of group
activities and plans that a company wants to carry out to improve the sustainability and
competitive advantage in the market.
Coles should implement strategic plans because provides a clear direction and facilitates
in developing action plan for the organization. Strategic planning will assist in prioritizing the
goals, making choices, coordinating and allocating resources to reach the desired goal. The
accountability and the timeframe of the task can be defined by using strategic plans which can be
used to increase the level of commitment and communication with the organization. Moreover, it

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will facilitate in developing an framework that will facilitate in maintaining on decision making
process.
Market Analysis of Coles
Coles is the second largest retail grocery supermarket in Australia and the market leader
Woolworths has been able to pull a huge difference between the two companies. The
organizations have always positioned their products as fresh where they have focused on
providing the consumers with fresher products every day of the week (Robertson, 2018).
However, in the past couple of years, the organization position their product based on their price
and offered the consumers with products at lower prices. However, even though these
positioning has been effective, the organization was unable to hold on to their market lead as the
other competitors matched them on the same thing.
SWOT
SWOT ANALYSIS OF COLES
Strength  Large share in the domestic market
 Strong brand awareness and marketing policy
 Attractive promotional and pricing strategies
 Effective online presence and delivery service
Weaknesses  Operates at lower margins when compared to the other major players in the
market
 The organization was involved in hard-line negotiations with the suppliers

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which has caused a negative feedback on the organization.
Opportunities  To increase their market share in the local
 To penetrate further into the global market
 To develop innovative ways to gain competitive advantage in the market
Threats  There is intense level of competition in the retail market in Australia and the
market is slowly reaching its saturation point.
 Large number of consumers have switched to the heavy discounters in the
market
 Constant change in the nature and demands of the consumers in the food and
liquor industry
(Table 1: Homewood, 2016)
Competitors in the market
The major companies in the retail industry in Australia are Woolworths, Coles, ALDI and
Metcash. Woolworths is the market leader in this segment for a long time where Coles, ALDI
and Metcash are the market followers. All these organizations offer similar products to their
consumers and have the same target segment. ALDI has gained a large amount of share in the
market in the past decade due to their discounting strategy. Metcash is following similar strategy
which has forced the industry giants like Woolworths to provide products at discounted rates.
The retail industry in Australia is growing at a rapid rate and these major players are acting as
competitors. They serve to the same consumers and each of them has the ability to make the
consumers form other companies to switch to their products.

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(Graph 1: Morgan, 2018)
Strength and Weakness of competitors
Strength and Weakness of Competitors
Woolworths
Strength  First movers into the Australian retail industry
 Strong brand awareness
 Largest consumer base
Weaknesses  Presence in the global market is minimal
 Unable to maintain their competitive advantage
 Late entry to the online retail market

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ALDI Strength  high quality products at affordable prices
 Low operating cost
 Exponential growth
Weaknesses  Relatively smaller when compared to the market leaders
 Criticized for low quality products
Metcash Strength  Delivers products to more than 3000 IGA independent stores in
Australia
 The economies of scale is large in the organization due to multi
store format and large distribution network
Weaknesses  Business model can be copied easily and presence in the global
market is limited
 Issues between the labor and management
(Table 2: Pash 2017)
Key strategic goals
The key strategic goals of the organization are as follows:
 Improving the existing business by strengthening the operations and providing
consumers with exceptional customer service. The organization will have to make sure
that they are able to sustain by keeping their current operations at top form.
 Using the value added transaction to renew the existing portfolio. The organization will
continuously improve on providing value to the consumers by using innovative methods.

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 Using long term management to improve organizational sustainability. The organization
will have to make sure that the management of human resource is efficient along with
more emphasis on diversity management. Gender equality, and employee health and
safety are also crucial areas for improving the organizational sustainability.
 Implementation of backward integration to reduce the operating margin. The organization
will have to implement backward integration so that they can reduce the cost of
production which has been used by other rival companies.
 To maintain healthy relationship with the suppliers and the labors. The organization had
problems in the past to maintain a proper relationship with the suppliers and the labors.
Prioritize Strategies
The two strategies that are a priority for the organization are implementation of backward
integration into the organization and develop health relationship with the labors and suppliers.
These strategies will have to be implemented at first as the organization will have to deal with
these problems at first as they have been faces in this for a long time. The issues with the labor
and the supplier cause disruption in the supply chain of the organization. Therefore, if the
organization has to increase their market share they will have to resolve this issue immediately.
Similarly, backward integration will increase their operational efficiency, as the company’s
operating margin is low it would be beneficial for the organization.