BM461 Global Business Environment: Sainsbury SWOT and Analysis

This report provides a comprehensive SWOT analysis of Sainsbury, a major retail brand in the UK, examining its internal and external environments. The analysis delves into Sainsbury's strengths, such as its strong brand reputation, own-branded products, large workforce, and competitive pricing strategies. Weaknesses include the impact of Brexit, challenges in retaining consumers, and the need for technological advancements. Opportunities include global market expansion, online collaborations, and diversification into financial sectors. Threats include intense competition in the retail market and the impact of Brexit on pricing. The report further analyzes the operational impact of the SWOT analysis on the marketing and human resource departments, highlighting how strengths and weaknesses affect their performance. The conclusion summarizes the key findings, emphasizing the importance of leveraging strengths, mitigating weaknesses, and capitalizing on opportunities to navigate the competitive landscape.

GLOBAL BUSINESS
ENVIRONMENT

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................3
SWOT analysis of Sainsbury.......................................................................................................3
Operational impact analysis.........................................................................................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................1

INTRODUCTION
Global business environment is described as the surrounding of different countries in which
an organization performs their activities in order to attain profits. It basically describes doing
work within the international environment which influences the decision making on resources
usage and capabilities (Komljenovic, D., Loiselle, G. and Kumral, M., 2017). In order to
conduct the study, Sainsbury has been selected as a company through which the SWOT analysis
has been done in order to give internal environmental factors that affects the firm along with
operational impact analysis according to the SWOT analysis in firm’s functional areas.
MAIN BODY
SWOT analysis of Sainsbury
Sainsbury is a retail brand working across all over the United Kingdom with dealing in
grocery retailing. From various researches it has been analysed that Sainsbury had a rollercoaster
ride in terms of business activities and its brand positioning. Sainsbury also faces high
competition from various other companies as so many brands and emerging trends always been
threat for the firm (Alteri, A., and et.al., 2019). In order to understand the internal environment
analysis of Sainsbury that affects the working of the establishment are described below with the
help of SWOT analysis:
Strengths
Sainsbury is well known for its great brand name and good reputation in the market
space. Sainsbury majorly operates in United Kingdom and other competitive firms also have
stores in many other countries as well. This strategy limit its market to the UK which allows the
Sainsbury to completely focus on UK market and thus the people also take it as their own brand
due to which the brand is very much popular among them and provides huge amount of cost
benefit rather than other firms to the Sainsbury. Company also deals in their own branded
products and services. Company also have large number of employees which means that there
are more costs it also works in the respect that more work can be done parallel and due to which
they are able to work in quick and fast manner. Due to this company managed to obtain huge
amount of market share. Company also has successful in persuading consumers rather than their
competitive firms. Company have their own strategy due to which they offered goods and
services to their consumers at competitive prices or lower prices than their competitors. This is

the reason that the firm shares strong balance sheet with consistent profits (Nguyen, L., 2021).
Company also have great working environment or culture due to which it also becomes one of
the strength of the firm as it satisfies their employees completely and thus provokes them to
continue doing work with them for long run.
Weaknesses
This is the area in which company requires improvements. Such as like many other
brands at the time of Brexit, Sainsbury also faces huge amount of losses of risks of brand
switching as they also have to raise their product prices. With the help of various promotional
programs Sainsbury find it challenging to retain consumers. With the growing competition in
retail sector along with the risk of introduction of online sellers most of the firms have lost their
revenue. Thus in order to attract their consumers, Sainsbury cut down their costs and keeps their
prices lower than their competitors. In order to make the consumers satisfied, every firm needs to
adopts some changes which eases the complete experiences of consumers becomes more
memorable, thus Sainsbury have to adopts technological changes that supports self service along
with spacious passageway, multilevel parking area, and many more that makes the purchasing
experience of consumers are more unforgettable but it enhances the costs to the firm which
affects them negatively up to an extent (Njakatiana Andriarisoa, M., 2020). At certain point of
time company faces issues due to their some of the unskilled employees who are able to adopt
technological changes.
Opportunities
Opportunities refer to those prospects within the environment that surrounds the business
on which it can capitalise to enhance its returns (Leone, S., 2020). Global market expansion
plays a vital role as an opportunity to the Sainsbury with the help of online collaborations.
Company gets advantages as well with the technological advancements along with some
limitations also. They also offer online grocery services along with various convenient stores
channels for the future growth perspective is also acts as an opportunity to the firm.
Establishment also diversified their business in other sector which is the financial sector named
as Sainsbury Banks.
Threats
These are those factors which can be detrimental to the growth of the business activities
in market space. It includes the impact of Brexit that affects the pricing strategies of the firm

creates a sense of threat among them as they are worried about their customer base along with
profit margins. Another threat is that in retail market sector, there are intense competition arises
specially in retail and grocery market segment which forces the firm to get more emphasis on
their strategies and functioning.
Operational impact analysis
Business impact analysis helps the firm to forecast the consequences of disturbances of a
business activities and progression along with collected information that are required to develop
recovery strategies for the betterment of the firm. According to the SWOT analysis of Sainsbury,
it has been evaluated in context of marketing department that the major advantages have been
taken by the firm with the help of their effective and efficient marketing people due to which the
firm is able to attain good profit margin advantages along with sustain their brand image in front
if other competitors (Norris-Jones, R., 2017). However, they are somewhere lack behind in their
technological advancement introduction strategies because those activities enhances the cost to
the firm and thus decreases their profit margin which affects drastically the brand name of
Sainsbury.
In context of Human Resource department, they provides their complete support in order to
make their business activities more approachable and sustainable for their consumers and they
feel safe and able to get unforgettable experience form Sainsbury. However, up to some extent,
HR people within the firm fails at the point of time where some of their employees are unable to
adopt technological changes within the establishment and requires high amount of trainings
which enhances extremely the cost towards the firm in drastic manner. Due to this, firm have to
face losses situations as well (Quix, F.W.J. and van der Kind, R.P., 2019). Thus, it has been
identified that although the various different departments are the whole and sole in-charge of any
firm in order to make them succeed but if they have any weaknesses it also affects drastically the
whole functioning of the business activities in the market space.
CONCLUSION
From the above report it has been concluded that along with various strengths due to which
company takes advantage of huge amount of profit margin also have some weaknesses in order
to overcome from them effectively in order to avoid their threats and gets advantage from the
opportunities that are available in the market space.

REFERENCES
Books and journals
Alteri, A., and et.al., 2019. Assessment of pre‐implantation genetic testing for embryo
aneuploidies: A SWOT analysis. Clinical genetics, 95(4). pp.479-487.
Nguyen, L., 2021. Developing sustainable marketing plan for plant-based products.
Njakatiana Andriarisoa, M., 2020. Policy Framework for the Promotion of Digital Technology in
Mini-grid Sector in Sub-Saharan Africa. The case of Blockchain Technology (Master's
thesis, PAUWES).
Leone, S., 2020. Market opportunities and entry strategies for palm oil products in the United
Kingdom.
Norris-Jones, R., 2017. Relationships Between Critical Business Performance Variables and Solo
Criminal Law Practitioners Success.
Quix, F.W.J. and van der Kind, R.P., 2019. Competitor analysis. In Retail Marketing (pp. 245-
284). Routledge.
Komljenovic, D., Loiselle, G. and Kumral, M., 2017. Organization: A new focus on mine safety
improvement in a complex operational and business environment. International Journal
of Mining Science and Technology, 27(4). pp.617-625.
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