Competitive Strategy Analysis of Woolworths Supermarkets Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the competitive strategy employed by Woolworths Supermarkets. It begins with an introduction to competitive strategy and its importance in gaining a market edge. The main body of the report focuses on three key strategy development tools: Porter's Five Forces, Ansoff Matrix, and the Input-Output Model. Each tool is explained, and its application to Woolworths is illustrated with practical examples. Porter's Five Forces is used to analyze the competitive landscape within the retail sector, considering factors like the threat of new entrants, substitute products, and the bargaining power of suppliers and buyers. The Ansoff Matrix is applied to explore Woolworths' strategic options for market penetration, market development, product development, and diversification. Finally, the Input-Output Model is used to address challenges in the hiring process. The report concludes by summarizing the insights gained from each tool and emphasizing their collective contribution to Woolworths' strategic decision-making. References to relevant academic sources are also provided.

Competitive Strategy

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
1. Porter Five Force Analysis.................................................................................................2
2. ANSOFF Matrix.................................................................................................................3
3. Input-Output Model............................................................................................................4
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5
REFRENCES ..................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
Competitive strategy can be referred to as the strategic course of action that is undertaken
by an entity with a view to gain an edge over competitors persisting in market place. Hereby, the
major purpose of an enterprise is to stay ahead of rival firms in order to attain growth and
enhance the global market positioning (Salunke, Weerawardena and McColl-Kennedy, 2019).
Gaining comprehensibility of the competitive strategy adopted and applied by rivals helps an
organisation in making decisions regarding business activities and practices. In other words, it
can be said that competitive strategy is the future oriented plan of action that is applied by a
company to create defensive position amidst the confines of particular business sector. It also
aids a business entity in generation of relatively higher ROI than the rival firms prevailing within
the confines of market place.
This essay is based upon the practical example of Woolworths Supermarkets which is a
chain of supermarket, having its headquarter within Australia. It consists of 3 strategy
development tools along with their utility in businesses. The tools that have been selected are
Porter Five Force, Ansoff Matrix and PESTLE as these tools provide knowledge of 3 main
aspects for an organisation: business sector, strategy, macro environment.
MAIN BODY
In today's modern world, business entities make use of a number of strategy development
tools in order to craft strategies for long term. A number of alternatives are available to
businesses in this regard. Some of the most useful examples of these are acknowledged to be
PESTEL, Generic Strategies, Five Forces, Input/Output, SWOT Analysis, Ansoff, Resource-
Based View, Ghemawat framework. Almost every company within the confines of corporate
world today makes use of these models in order to gain an edge over rivals and succeed at
market place. In this regard, a discussion of 3 strategical tools, namely, PESTLE, ANSOFF and
Five Forces along with their practical examples is given below.
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1. Porter Five Force Analysis
This is a strategical and analytical tool that is taken into use by companies across the
globe to gain comprehensibility of the industrial scenario to which the respective entity pertains.
This strategy development tool consists of a total of 5 forces. Out of these 5 forces, 3 pertain to
horizontal rivalry, namely, threat of new entrants, threat of substitutes and threat of competition
within the business sector. On the other hand, 2 of the forces pertain to vertical rivalry, namely,
bargaining power of suppliers and bargaining power of consumers (Mahat, 2019). By gaining
knowledge of the magnitude of these 5 forces in relation to a particular business sector, any
company can easily make decisions regarding new product launch, growth, expansion etc. With
the help of cognition of these elements of an industry, a company can feasibly ascertain whether
it is an attractive or an unattractive business sector. Constantly undertaking initiatives to gain
knowledge of these forces becomes essential when a change takes place within any of these 5
industrial forces as it affects the overall profitability of the respective company.
Example: Taking the example of Woolworths, it can be said that the management of this
company carries out Porter 5 force analysis before taking key decisions such as enhancing the
product portfolio or using diversification. The competitive rivalry within retail sector is high
which helps the management of Woolworths to come up with effective strategies that have the
ability to gain the attention of population of Australia. Furthermore, threat of new entrants
within the sector is low which provides the management of this chain supermarket with the idea
that it can launch new and innovative products in market place at reasonable prices to enhance its
profitability and sales. The threat of substitutes in retail sector is immensely high which helps
the entity to realize that there is a need to constantly update the product features and segments to
cater to demands of people desirably. The bargaining power of buyers within retail sector is
high assisting Woolworths to make use of an effective pricing strategy that can persuade all
economic groups to purchase the commodities offered by the supermarket (Hine and et. al.,
2019). Lastly, bargaining power of suppliers is low for Woolworths as being a large company,
entity has the option to shift to other vendors for acquisition of necessary materials. Thus, it can
be said that with the help of this analysis, an entity can suitably apply its core competencies,
strategies and business model to inflate its revenues as well as profits, above the industrial
averages.
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2. ANSOFF Matrix
It is a key strategy development tool which assists an enterprise in carrying out strategic
planning associated with marketing. This is applied by the business entities to explore the
opportunities that are available in market place and provide them scope to inflate their revenues
and profits. This strategic model suggests that a corporation seeks to attain growth by gaining
knowledge of the various alternatives that are available as strategies for the company. The
outcome of this framework assists an entity to set direction for the corporate strategy (Kaar and
Stary, 2019). With the help of this analysis, a business is able to analyse whether or not it will be
feasible for the company to gain access into new markets. Thus, an organisation can easily attain
growth with the application of 1 or more strategies of this matrix. The matrix consists of 4
alternative strategies, namely, product development, diversification, market development and
market penetration. These strategies are made up of combination on the basis of new/old
geographies and new/old product segments.
Example: Taking the example of Woolworths, it can be said that this strategy
development model is used by the management of this corporation to decide the strategic course
of action in long term. Market penetration helps an entity to gain knowledge that it can adopt the
strategy to gain more popularity within domestic market (Australia). Market development aids
the management of this supermarket to make decisions regarding the markets in which it can
offer its existing products in order to inflate the global market positioning. Product development
serves as an effective strategy which aids the respective retailer to gain comprehensibility of the
benefits it can gain by launching new products within existing markets. Lastly, diversification
provides the company with information regarding the markets which will be strategic and
competitive locations for the corporation to facilitate international expansion (Galpin, 2019).
Thus, it indicates that with the help of ANSOFF, an entity can choose one of the four alternative
strategies in accordance with the resources possessed by it, to attain growth.
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3. Input-Output Model
This strategy development tool is acknowledged to be a functional graph which ascertains
the inputs, outputs and necessary processing needed for transformation of input into output. This
model is used by a business entity to gain comprehensibility of the inputs together with the
transformation that are essential to attain the required output (Tan and et. al., 2019). With the
help of this analysis, an entity can ensure that the business practices and activities flow smoothly
before, during and after the process of transformation.
Example: Woolworths make use of this strategy development model to address the
problems being faced during the process of hiring. Many of the technical people hired within the
company during last one year left the organisation. This becomes a complex procedure for the
company as recruitment and training of new candidates is a time consuming as well as costly
process (Tan and et. al., 2019). The HR team decides to put together a group of people with
extensive experience of hiring new candidates, who together develop an input-output model for
hiring procedure. The model developed by them is as follows:-
(Source: Input Output Model For Hiring Process In WOOLWORTHS, 2019)
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I
llustration 1: Input Output Model For Hiring Process In WOOLWORTHS

CONCLUSION
From the above discussion, it has been analysed that there are a number of strategy
development models that are taken into use by companies across the globe to gain a competitive
edge in market place. In this regard, Five Forces assist an entity to gain knowledge about
industrial attractiveness and the extent of competition prevailing within the business sector.
Besides this, Input Output model aids an enterprise to gain knowledge of the prerequisites
required for carrying out the process of transformation of inputs into outputs. Lastly, ANSOFF
matrix helps a business organisation to gain comprehensibility of the various strategies that can
be adopted by them to attain growth in market place.
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REFRENCES
Books and journals
Salunke, S., Weerawardena, J. and McColl-Kennedy, J. R., 2019. The central role of knowledge
integration capability in service innovation-based competitive strategy. Industrial
Marketing Management. 76. pp.144-156.
Mahat, M., 2019. The competitive forces that shape Australian medical education: An industry
analysis using Porter’s Five Forces Framework. International Journal of Educational
Management. 33(5). pp.1082-1093.
Hine, K. A. and et. al., 2019. What were they thinking? Factors influencing police recruits’
decisions about force. Policing and society. 29(6). pp.673-691.
Kaar, C. and Stary, C., 2019. Intelligent business transformation through market‐specific value
network analysis: Structured interventions and process bootstrapping in
geomarketing. Knowledge and Process Management, 26(2), pp.163-181.
Galpin, T., 2019. Strategy beyond the business unit level: corporate parenting in focus. Journal
of Business Strategy. 40(3). pp.43-51.
Tan, R. R. and et. al., 2019. Introduction to Input–Output Models. In Input-Output Models for
Sustainable Industrial Systems (pp. 1-8). Springer, Singapore.
Tan, R. R. and et. al., 2019. Input–Output Optimization Models for Supply Chains. In Input-
Output Models for Sustainable Industrial Systems (pp. 75-89). Springer, Singapore.
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