Birmingham MBA Marketing Audit: Analysis of FairPrice Singapore

This report presents a comprehensive marketing audit of FairPrice, Singapore's largest supermarket chain. It begins with an executive summary, followed by an introduction outlining the audit's objectives and rationale. The main body includes an overview of FairPrice's company and market situations, strategic analyses using Porter's value chain and product life cycle models, and a financial summary. Business analyses incorporate SWOT, PEST, and Porter's Five Forces analyses. The marketing mix (product, price, place, promotion) and branding are also examined. The report concludes with recommendations for FairPrice. The report utilizes various management tools and models to assess the company and its business environment. The findings of the audit identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, providing insights for strategic improvements. The report highlights the importance of adapting to market demands and leveraging opportunities for growth, such as expanding private-label offerings and enhancing e-commerce capabilities.

Running head: A MARKETING AUDIT
A Marketing Audit of "FairPrice"
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

1A MARKETING AUDIT
Executive summary
A marketing audit is a good way to measure the organisational assets and its internal capabilities
as well as investigate the external business environment. Such investigation helps to know the
threats and opportunities rising for a business concerned. By being able to know such facts a
business can bring necessary changes to its already existing marketing strategy. Indeed, changes
need to be brought to the marketing strategy to keep it flexible with the current market demand.
The findings of the study indicate that FairPrice occupies a larger space in the supermarket
industry of Singapore. It effectively positions its brand image of a retailer that sells variety of
products under its variety of store formats at competitive prices. Private-label products are the
essential part of its product portfolio. The paper also recommends it to sell private-label foods to
increase its profit margin and satisfy the healthy needs of millennials.

2A MARKETING AUDIT
Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................4
Rationale..........................................................................................................................................4
Main Body:......................................................................................................................................4
1. Introduction to the organisation ("FairPrice").........................................................................5
1.1 Company situation.............................................................................................................5
1.2 market situation.................................................................................................................5
2. Strategic analysis.....................................................................................................................6
2.1 Porter's value chain............................................................................................................6
2.2 Product life cycle...............................................................................................................9
3. Financial summary.................................................................................................................10
3.1 Summary of profit and loss..............................................................................................11
3.2 Summary of balance sheet...............................................................................................11
4. Business analysis...................................................................................................................12
4.1 SWOT analysis................................................................................................................12
4.2 PEST analysis..................................................................................................................13
4.3 Porter's five force analysis...............................................................................................15
5. Marketing mix.......................................................................................................................17
5.1 Product.............................................................................................................................17
5.2 Price.................................................................................................................................17

3A MARKETING AUDIT
5.3 Place.................................................................................................................................18
5.4 Promotion........................................................................................................................18
6. "FairPrice" branding..............................................................................................................19
7. Conclusion and Recommendations............................................................................................19
Recommendation.......................................................................................................................19
References......................................................................................................................................20

4A MARKETING AUDIT
Introduction
Marketing audit is a good strategic process to recollect the marketing objectives of the
business, assess its current business performance and identify the areas of improvement to be
benefitted in numerous ways. The benefits can include incrementing shares of the target market,
increasing customer repeat rate, growing customer base, increasing revenues and widening profit
margin (Mahdavi and Daryaei 2017). The purpose of these marketing basics and more to come in
the later part of this report is to conduct a marketing audit of "FairPrice". The audit is expected to
bring a few areas of improvement to the company’s notice.
Rationale
The marketing audit of "FairPrice" will use several management tools and models to
assess the company and its business environment from diverse perspectives of a business. The
findings of the audit would not just tell about the strengths and weaknesses in the company; but
also its rising opportunities and threats. Moreover, the findings will organize many essential
things into a document making this easier for the management and the concerned team to design
and plan their actions accordingly.
Main Body:
In this section, a marketing audit of "FairPrice" will be conducted using various
management tools and models as structured below.

5A MARKETING AUDIT
1. Introduction to the organisation ("FairPrice")
1.1 Company situation
"FairPrice" is a co-operative of NTUC (National Trades Union Congress). It is a chain of
supermarket, the largest in Singapore. The product portfolio includes general grocery, general
merchandise, frozen foods, etc. (Fairprice.com.sg 2020). Studies indicate that the company is
doing many things to make shopping easier and convenient for customers. The company runs its
official e-commerce platform named ‘FairPrice On’ where customers can purchase a variety of
goods in easy shopping steps. "FairPrice" has launched a dedicated mobile app for those who
prefer shopping on the phone and find it the most convenient shopping platform
(Fairprice.com.sg 2020).To fill the stocks at faster pace "FairPrice" uses robots in its store
facilities. The company uses data analytics to send targeted promotion offers to customers based
on their shopping profile, consumption habits and interests (CNA 2020).
1.2 market situation
Singapore retail market is highly competitive as many supermarket brands are finding it
difficult to survive. Common reasons of difficulty faced by many retailers include low footfalls
in a few country areas such as “Junction 10”, “Jalan Tenteram”. “ViVoCity”, etc., rising rental
rates and too many minimarts or supermarkets in the neighborhood (Singapore Business Review
2020). However, there are some like FairPrice, which really do well even in such competitive
environment. The ability to cater to the needs of the target people in the given area, having
attractive shop fronts, good product displays and competitive prices seem to have paid off for
FairPrice (Singapore Business Review 2020).

6A MARKETING AUDIT
2. Strategic analysis
This section will assess how FairPrice maintains its daily operations to deliver value to its
end users.
2.1 Porter's value chain
PRIMARY ACTIVITIES
Fig 1: Centralised Distribution
The above is a diagrammatic representation of how FairPrice distributes goods to its end
users. The company has a centrally located distribution facility where it receives the supplies
from different brands such as Nestle, Pampers, etc. Once stocked, these supplies are then shipped
to its different retail stores in Singapore on a demand basis (Dujak 2019).
Such a distribution structure enables FairPrice to execute its daily operations smoothly.
However, FairPrice should also have other distribution arrangements to support any urgency

7A MARKETING AUDIT
caused from a hike in the product demand. Masks for example is now growing into demands
due to ‘Coronavirus’ spread to many countries in the world. People need masks to be safe from
‘Coronavirus’, which gets transferred from one person to another if there was no protection to
avoid it (Lai et al. 2020). With regards to this scenario, FairPrice can be benefitted from selling
masks in bulk.
FairPrice, indeed, has arrangements to support such sudden hike in a product demand.
This is being shown below in the form of a diagram:
Fig 2: Distribution without Centralization
With this distribution facility in place, FairPrice can arrange quick and direct supplies of
‘masks’ for example to its different retail stores like FairPrice Xtra, FairPrice Finest, etc.
SUPPORT ACTIVITIES
Support Activities Description

8A MARKETING AUDIT
Human resource management With the heartiest efforts from the company’s
HR, FairPrice now facilitates ‘One FairPrice
Family Program’. This program enables its
corporate employees and management to
engage in operational activities on selected
days of a year. Their operational duties
include attending to customers, retrieving
trolleys, replenishment and even selling
mandarin oranges during festive seasons such
as ‘Lunar New Year’ (Fairprice.com.sg
2020). In this way, the HR of FairPrice drives
its people to learn new skills and create
resource assets for the company.
Firm infrastructure FairPrice operates under various retail formats
such as Cheers by FairPrice, FairPrice Shop,
FairPrice Xpress, FairPrice Finest, FairPrice
Xtra, Unity Pharmacy and Warehouse Club
(Fairprice.com.sg 2020).
Technology FairPrice has its growing focus on
technological advancement to facilitate faster
deliveries and give its customers a better
shopping experience. Hence, FairPrice now

9A MARKETING AUDIT
has its own e-commerce platform. FairPrice
customers can also shop from its dedicated
mobile app. The use of robots in store facility
is to facilitate fast filling of stocks. The
company uses data analytics to understand
and offer its customers exciting promotion
offers (CNA 2020).
Procurement FairPrice uses both the centralised and
decentralised structure to distribute its product
to customers spread across the country.
Table 1: Support Activities
2.2 Product life cycle

10A MARKETING AUDIT
Introductory
Huge discounts for new offers
Growth
Competitive pricing
Maturity
Stable pricing
Decline
Reduced pricing
Fig 3: Product Life Cycle
FairPrice has distinguished pricing strategy for different products it sells. As shown in the
diagram above, the company tends to give discounts on new products to attract consumers in
bulk. Products in-demand or in its growth stage are offered at competitive pricing to gain the
most of the customer attention. This strategy has really worked for the company for its daily
footfall as there are too many supermarkets and minimarts in the vicinity (Erdin and Akbaş
2019). Products those have reached its maturity stage are sold at stable pricing to retain
customers. Reduced pricing is used to clear stocks with products those have reached its decline
stage.
3. Financial summary

11A MARKETING AUDIT
This section will summarise profit and loss and balance sheet for FairPrice. The findings
of this summarization will indicate whether there is any need to boost up its profit.
3.1 Summary of profit and loss
As per the Group Financial Highlights of 2017, profit from operations stood at 94.1
($’m). This is way much lower from the one in FY2016 (146.6) (Responsiblebusiness.com
2020).
3.2 Summary of balance sheet
Fig 4: Balance Sheet for FairPrice ‘FY2017’
(Source: The Online Citizen 2020)