Competitive Dynamics in Australian Supermarkets: A Case Study

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HI6006 COMPETITIVE STRATEGY
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Contents
Executive Summary.........................................................................................................................3
Introduction......................................................................................................................................4
Summary of case..............................................................................................................................5
Explanation of the strategic issue....................................................................................................5
The theoretical concept....................................................................................................................6
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................10
References......................................................................................................................................11
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Executive Summary
The competitive strategies are an important part of a business and the organizations can gain
their competitive advantages by using a different kind of competing theories and models. In the
below assignment the information about competitive strategies will be analyzed and it will also
explain the models and theories that can be used by the organizations for increasing the
competitive advantages. The assignment will explain the dynamic competitive models and
theories which can be applied to the respective organizations for gaining competitive advantages.
The below assignment will analyze these competitive strategies in a better way.
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Introduction
An organization always want to gain its competitive advantages and in the below assignment the
importance of competitive advantages will be explained. Coles Supermarket Australia PVT
LTD. is an Australian supermarket, retail and customer service chain that is having they're
headquartered in Melbourne. The organization was founded in 1914 in Collingwood. On the
other hand, Woolworth is also an Australian supermarket chain which was founded in the year of
1924. Both organizations are based in Australia and these both are the major competitor of each
other. Both are providing high-quality retail services on a great level. Both of them need to gain
their competitive advantages and the below assignment would explain about the business
strategies of Coles for getting the competitive advantages from the competitor organization.
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Summary of case
According to the provided case study, Cole’s supermarket PVT LTD is the leading retail
supermarket in Australia and on the other hand, Woolworth is also providing the same services
in many areas of Australia. The subject which was founded in the case study is the tough
competition which was founded between Coles, Woolworth, and Aldi. The idea about the
business strategy of Woolworth will be explained.
Explanation of the strategic issue
The competitive advantages are the strategic issues which were founded as per the case study. As
it can be seen that Coles Supermarket PVT LTD is in a better position in comparison to
Woolworth. There is so much equality in both the organization as they are the leading retail
organization of Australia. In some areas, Coles is performing better than Woolworth and in this
situation, there is a need for gaining the competitive advantages for Woolworth. The effective
business strategy can provide them better competitive advantages and they may make a better
level of competitive advantages for their organization. The business strategy of Woolworth will
provide an idea about how they are making an effective business strategy for gaining the
competitive advantages of them. There are many capabilities of these organizations which is
equal with each other and those are:
 Extraordinary logistic capabilities
 A wide range of customer items
 Capability to develop brand regularly
 Capability of innovation
 Capabilities to open new stores in different areas.
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The theoretical concept
The organization Woolworth is the leading supermarket chain of Australia and there is a various
competitor of this organization who is providing the same kind of quality services to the
consumers. Coles PVT LTD is in the better position of Woolworth and now Woolworth must get
the competitive advantages to buying using different competitive strategies and models. The
competitive dynamic model could be used by the respective organization for getting additional
competitive advantages for their organization (Mahdi, et. al., 2015).
What is a competitive dynamic?
The competitive dynamic is related to the reasons and consequences of inter-industry rivalry and
competition. The organization Woolworth can apply the competitive dynamic model for
understanding the effect of performances on their competitive dynamic. To identifying the effect
of performances on competitive dynamic, the competitive dynamic scholar can provide help to
know about the economic competition of Woolworth. It can also recognize the dynamic
substitute of actions of competitors like Coles and Aldi between the organization as their targets
and interest (Spillan and Ling, 2015). This differentiates with another more structural theory to
competition research. The below figure explains how the competitive dynamic makes a
comparison with another connected theoretical viewpoint:
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(Figure 1: Theoretical perspectives of inter-firm rivalry)
(Source: eventstudytools.com, 2019)
Confining organization's competitive behaviors
It is an important challenge in the competitive dynamic approach is to track the behavior of their
competitor firms. Woolworth can face some kind of challenges while understanding about the
behavior of their competitors which is Aldi and Coles PVT LTD. The organization can face a
different kind of challenges while understanding the marketing and business strategy of both or
them. As Aldi is not a tough competitor of them bust Coles is their major competitor in the
current marketplaces. The organization is creating major competition for them and providing
equal consumer products and services which is creating difficulty for the organization. On the
other side, instead of using manually mapping competitive the automated process could help to
know about competitor’s strategic business actions and competitive actions. The option which
Woolworth can use that they need to collect the different actions of their competitions (Gottardi
and Kubler, 2015). The online press releases can provide them better support in understanding
the strategies of their rivals. The below figure clarifying this approach in a detailed way:
(Figure 2: Capturing competitive Behaviour)
(Source: eventstudytools.com, 2019).
The model of competitive dynamic is containing the following abstracts in it that can help
Woolworth to an understanding about these factors and can provide them big support for getting
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a higher level of competitive advantages. The competitive dynamic model can be used by
Woolworth for the following abstracts:
 For improving the market position: There is no doubt that Woolworth is a leading
Australian retail supermarket but the organization is facing the tough level of competition
from its competitors like Aldi and Coles PVT LTD. Coles is the biggest competitors of
them and by using the competitive dynamic model they can identify the strategy of Coles
that can help them in improving their market position.
 Enlarging the product capacity: The competitive dynamic model will provide detail
about the market products to Woolworth which is a good sign for them. The organization
will get an idea about the product capabilities of its competitor’s organization. By
knowing the features competitor’s products Woolworth can easily differentiate their
products from their rivals. It will gain the product capability of Woolworth that can
attract the consumers towards them and can generate a better level of revenue also.
 Will provide some innovative solutions: The competitive dynamic model will provide
Woolworth different kind of solution to resolve the conflicts which they are facing in
their production and other processes. This new solution can be applied by the
management of this organization for getting a higher level of competitive advantages.
The competitive dynamic model is containing the following factors in it.
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New Competitive
Actions
Threat Analysis
Motivation and
capability to respond
Types of competitive actions
Types of
competitive
advantages

(The competitive dynamic model)
(Source: Author)
The above model is contenting different factors that can be analyzed as follows:
The new competitive actions: The food group of Woolworth has outlined their three years of
strategies for winning the marketplaces. They will try to get the trust of their consumer during
their three years strategy. The future strategy of Woolworth is focusing on enlarging the core
offers to ensure that consumer will choose Woolworth first, making the innovation for meeting
the needs of consumers also they are including the efficiency for increasing the consumer value
itself and for this they have involved their " Lean retail model". They have also launched their
new value and pricing strategy which will reduce the impact of Coles and Aldi pricing strategy
on the organization. They are applying the lower pricing strategies for making people attracted
towards them. They are providing a better range of products, also including consumer loyalty
towards their organization. The organization also trying to launch their new stores across
Australia. As per the future strategies of Woolworth, they said that they will launch almost 80
stores per annum for getting a better level of sales in their future. The refurbishment of new
stores will be designed as per the local consumers. It will be located in the areas where the
management of Woolworth thinks having the potential to get a better consumer of the
organization (Anderson and Brooks, 2016).
Threat analysis: The threat analysis can provide Woolworth better support to developing the
awareness about their close competitor which is Aldi and Coles. The threat analysis can support
the strategic actions of Woolworth which they have to take for getting the competitive
advantages. It is the first step to understanding the level of competition with their competitors
and it can provide the idea about who is their indirect competitors and who are direct competitors
of Woolworth. The competitive intelligence could be collected by them through using the threat
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analysis. The threat analysis is useful in understanding the behavior of competitors of the
respective organization (Al Shishany, et. al., 2017).
Motivation and capability to respond:
The organization Woolworth needs to apply motivational approaches in their business
environment for making its employees motivated towards their targets. There should be
capabilities involved in their management which makes them able to reduce the conflicts from
their organization. The organization needs to make better strategies that can help them to make a
good answer to their competitors. Woolworth is enough capable to provide a better answer to
their competitors by using the competitive approaches. Maslow's hierarchy of needs could be
applied by the management of Woolworth to an understanding of the needs of their employees to
achieve the business objectives. The competitive dynamic can be used by them for making a
better level of competition with their competitors like Aldi and Coles LTD (Roberts and Grover,
2017).
Type of competitive advantages
Various kinds of competitive advantages can be achieved by Woolworth by using the
competitive dynamic model. Here are the three kinds of competitive advantages that can be
achieved by Woolworth:
 Cost: The Woolworth can differentiate itself competitively by developing a higher level
of volume at a lower price. They can do so by producing innovative products and services
which allows them to develop more innovative products and services.
 Differentiation: It is also a kind of important competitive advantage for Woolworth. The
organization can differentiate their product and services from their competitors by using
competitive strategies and dynamics. Woolworth can choose some kind of product
dimension, expected the cost which is important for the consumers and capitalizing on
that (Henderson, 2015).
 People: Woolworth can differentiate itself for their employees by managing the better
environment in their organization which can motivate their employees for making better
efforts for their organizational targets. It can create a better level of efficiency in their
work and also provide them a better level of productivity (Foster, et. al., 2015).
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Types of competitive actions
These are the kind of strategic actions which Woolworth can take to develop for defeating their
competitors and enlarging competitive advantages and market position of their organization.
These competitive actions can be taken by Woolworth for getting the advantages for their
organization. Here is the type of competitive actions that could be taken by Woolworth:
 Understanding the consumer deeper: For their future competitive advantages, the
organization has decided to know more about their consumer's interest and needs. It will
provide them higher support to produce the products and services which are capable to
attract the consumers towards them (Loulos, 2016).
 Quality of products: The organization is focusing on the quality of their products and
services. As Coles is providing the better quality of products to their consumer it will so
much challenge for Woolworth to manage the quality of the product as per the
requirements of their employees. The quality is an important factor and in order, to use
the competitive dynamic model the organization is focusing on making the quality
products for their consumers.
 Delivering great value: The organization has decided to provide the complete value of
consumer's amount which they spent on purchasing their products and services.
Woolworth is trying to provide high-quality products on a lower range which can provide
their consumer's better value against the amount which they had spent for purchasing the
products of Woolworth (Giniuniene and Jurksiene, 2015).
Conclusion
By the above report, it could be concluded that each organization tries to get a better level of
competitive advantages and the above report has demonstrated the importance of competitive
advantages for Woolworth. The above report explained the competitive dynamic model use for
the respective organization. The strategic of Woolworth was analyzed in the above report and
some kind of strategic actions that could be taken by the management of Woolworth was also
explained in the above-described report.
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References
Al Shishany, A., Kharabsheh, R., Elnsour, W. and Adams, J., 2017. The Future of Group
Decision Support System Supported Meetings: Perceiving the Value and the Need for
Competitive Strategies. International Review of Management and Marketing, 7(2), pp.263-271.
Anderson, D.D. and Brooks, P.E., 2016 HISTORY DAY COMPETITION.
Foster, J.E., Root, T.L. and Lee, S., 2015. Teaching Young Children about the Civil Rights
Movement: Applying Effective & Developmentally Appropriate Strategies. Multicultural
Education, 22, pp.43-53.
Giniuniene, J. and Jurksiene, L., 2015. Dynamic capabilities, innovation, and organizational
learning: Interrelations and impact on firm performance. Procedia-Social and Behavioral
Sciences, 213, pp.985-991.
Gottardi, P. and Kubler, F., 2015. Dynamic competitive economies with complete markets and
collateral constraints. The Review of Economic Studies, 82(3), pp.1119-1153.
Henderson, M., 2015. The (mis) use of community of practice: delusion, confusion, and
instrumentalism in educational technology research. In Critical perspectives on technology and
education (pp. 127-140). Palgrave Macmillan, New York.
Loulos, V., 2016. Strategic initiatives for sustainability performance.
Mahdi, H.A.A., Abbas, M., Mazar, T.I. and George, S., 2015. A Comparative Analysis of
Strategies and Business Models of Nike, Inc. and Adidas Group with special reference to
Competitive Advantage in the context of a Dynamic and Competitive
Environment. International Journal of Business Management and Economic Research, 6(3),
pp.167-177.
Roberts, N. and Grover, V., 2012. Investigating firm's customer agility and firm performance:
The importance of aligning sense and respond capabilities. Journal of Business Research, 65(5),
pp.579-585.
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