Corporate Situation Analysis: Woolworths' SWOT Analysis Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Woolworths, a major Australian supermarket chain, using the SWOT framework. It begins with an introduction outlining the company's history, operations, and market position. The SWOT analysis delves into Woolworths' strengths, such as its established brand, large market share, extensive product range, commitment to sustainability, and strong business market in Australia. Weaknesses include gaps in its product range and limitations in expanding into adjacent business segments. Opportunities include the recovering retail sector, business promotions, expansion into emerging economies, and leveraging social media for marketing. Threats include a lack of innovative products, rising raw material costs, potential lawsuits, and changing consumer behavior. The conclusion emphasizes Woolworths' strengths and the opportunities presented by the recovering market, while also recommending changes to address weaknesses and threats, such as innovating products and adapting to customer preferences. The report references several academic sources to support its analysis.

Introduction
Woolworths is considered as one of the largest Supermarket Chain in Australia. The business
began operating the fresh food stores 60 years ago with the advancement in refrigeration
technology, revolutionised transport and storage. Woolworths is diversified into the several
products and services. Woolworth is comprised of 202,000 employees and it is headquartered
at Bella Vista, Australia (https://www.woolworths.com.au/) . This study describes about the
internal and external analysis of the company in the business market. The market analysis
will involve the strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats.
SWOT analysis
Strength
Woolworths is considered as the oldest and the famous retail brands in Australia. This
company is consisting of the large number of super markets and huge market share.
Woolworths is located in one of the strong business market of Australia with 931
supermarkets and 198000 employees as per the annual report of 2014. Woolworths is
comprised of the great number of product and services. The business shows the strong
commitment to the environment and sustainability (Govender, 2017). The business mostly
focuses on the carbon footprint, water usage and the sustainable packaging decisions. The
business could adopt the sustainable practices and it aims to gain competitive edge over the
other business market and could boost the shareholder value. The business also aims to
increase the market share and could decrease the operative costs.

Weakness
The major weakness of the business is that there is the presence of gaps in the product
range sold by Woolworths and this provides an opportunity for the other competitors to enter
the business market (Bull ET AAL., 2016). The business is compatible with the present
changes thereby it shows limitation in expanding the adjacent business segments. The limited
success outside of the core business that is the organization faces challenges while moving to
other segments with the present culture (Xu, Gao & Hammond, 2017). The unique selling
propositions is also not clear in the case of Woolworths that might leads to attacks from the
competitors in this segments.
Opportunity
The food retailing business has also grown by 0.2% as from the recession period the
retail sector of the business has been showing signs of recovery in 2014. The retail sector
came back on track after the recession period. Therefore it provides great business market for
Woolworths to compete in the business market. The business also faces business promotions
to win back the customers (Brander, 2018). The business gains the opportunity to promote
through the offers, sponsorships and advertisements. The business also gains the huge retail
market in the emerging economical countries. The business also gets the opportunity of
expanding internationally and thereby making global presence in the business market. The
business also depends upon social media as it is one of the major marketing tools in the
business market. This provides Woolworth a great opportunity of connecting to the customers
of worldwide sectors (Bull et al., 2016).
Threats
The threats that Woolworths is facing now a days that there is no supply of the
innovative products in the regular manner. The supply of new products is also not regular in

this business process. The rising rate of the raw materials could pose a threat to the
Woolworths profitability and this is considered as one of the major threat to the business. The
business could face lawsuits in the various markets that is the changing laws and regulations
affects the business process (Insch, 2016). The changing consumer behaviour creates a threat
to the retail market as the entire business process is required to be altered as per the consumer
behaviour.
Conclusion
Therefore from the above discussion it can be concluded that Woolworths has various
strengths that will make the business more potential for competing in the global business
market. The business is able to develop their customer base in the local business market. The
rising rate of the retail market after the recession period has also provided great opportunity
for the business. Although the frequent changes in the policies of the country create great
affect on the business operation process. The lack of innovative product gives the platform to
the competitors for entering the business market. This is recommended for the business to
make changes in the business process that is by bringing effective changes for producing
innovative product. The products as per the preferences of the customers provides the
business a chance to acquire the customer base for the business.

References
Govender, S. (2017). How social media can be used to engage and interact with consumers
in the retail industry: an analysis on Woolworths' online strategies (Doctoral dissertation,
The IIE).
Xu, J., Gao, X., & Hammond, J. (2017). E-tailing in Australia: A preliminary analysis of
David Jones. The International Technology Management Review, 6(4), 149-157.
Brander, C. (2018). Market Analysis for New Potatoes Varieties.
Insch, A. (2016). 13 Breaking the Mould: Characteristics and Consequences of Becoming
Market Oriented in Australian. Market Orientation: Transforming Food and Agribusiness
around the Customer, 229.
Bull, J. W., Jobstvogt, N., Böhnke-Henrichs, A., Mascarenhas, A., Sitas, N., Baulcomb, C., ...
& Carter-Silk, E. (2016). Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats: A SWOT
analysis of the ecosystem services framework. Ecosystem services, 17, 99-111.
(2019). Retrieved from https://www.woolworths.com.au/