Strategic Implementation of SMART Goals for Business Success

In today's competitive market, businesses must leverage effective strategies to achieve success. This assignment delves into how organizations can utilize SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) goals as a framework for strategic planning and implementation. The analysis includes understanding the significance of each component of the SMART criteria and how they contribute to successful marketing initiatives. Furthermore, it examines practical applications through case studies that demonstrate real-world examples of businesses applying these principles to enhance their operational efficiency and market competitiveness. By aligning objectives with measurable outcomes and setting achievable timelines, companies can ensure sustained growth and adaptability in dynamic environments.

Running head: BUSINESS STRATEGY
Business Strategy
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Table of Content
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Part 1:...............................................................................................................................................3
a) Extent to which Aldi’s mission, vision, objectives, goals and core competencies inform
strategic planning.........................................................................................................................3
b) Analyzing the factors considered by Aldi when formulating their strategic plans.................5
c) Evaluating the worth of the techniques used when business develop their strategic plans.....6
d) Organizational audit for ALDI and providing an analysis of their current strategic positions
.....................................................................................................................................................7
e) Environmental audit for ALDI showing both micro and macro environment........................9
f) Significance of stakeholder analysis for ALDI when formulating new strategy...................12
g). Presenting a new strategy ALDI can follow........................................................................13
Part 2:.............................................................................................................................................14
a) A new market and analyzing the appropriateness of suitable strategy for ALDI..................14
b) Justifying one of the strategies for market entry and the growth discussed above...............16
Part 3-.............................................................................................................................................17
a) Providing an assessment of the roles and responsibilities of personnel who are involved
with the implementation of the strategy....................................................................................17
b) Providing an analysis of the resource requirements for the implementation of the strategy 19

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c) Evaluating how the use of SMART targets can contribute to achieve strategic objectives. .19
References and Bibliography.........................................................................................................21

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Introduction
The following report consists of the strategies that ALDI uses and will use to achieve the
operational objectives. The purpose of the report is to derive understanding about the strategic
choices including the strategic planning, strategic terminology, planning systems and other
relevant techniques. The report starts with giving an evaluation of the degree to which Aldi’s
mission, vision, objectives and competencies aligned to the set of the strategies. The report also
sheds light on the factors considered by ALDI when developing their strategic plans. An
environmental audit for ALDI traversing micro and macro environment has been discussed using
a Porter’s five forces analysis tool. Likewise, the significance of stakeholders has been discussed
with appropriate stakeholder analysis theories.
Part 1:
a) Extent to which Aldi’s mission, vision, objectives, goals and core competencies inform
strategic planning
One significant approach of ALDI is to promote quality as well as value above
everything. Major practice of Aldi is to create efficiencies at every level from development of
store to in-store display. This practice ensures that price could be low and savings can be passed
to customers. The most significant fact is that Aldi’ strategies are aligned considering mission,
vision, objectives, goals and core competencies. How these elements are aligned to strategic
plans of Aldi has been discussed in the following.
Mission

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Mission statement is usually is treated as the commitment that a company expects to meet
the expectation of the stakeholders. It explains how organization runs its business, identify their
customers and identify the range of their products and services. For example, the mission
statement of ALDI:
The mission of the supermarket giant ALDI is to provide value and quality to all
customers. ALDI focuses on the comfort and safety of its customers. Modesty and
undemonstrative functionality characterize its conduct.
This above-mentioned mission statement conveys the message that when developing a
particular the strategic plan, the firm thinks of its customers’ value and benefits, which means the
major stakeholder –customers are satisfied, business runs profitably.
Vision
As put forward by Morgan (2012), vision statement describes vital and sophisticated outlook of
the firm in the future. It certainly implies growth, potential advantages of the organization to the
stakeholders and investors.
ALDI’s vision is to become responsible and continue in a reliable manner to set standards
in the retail food sector and persistently reinforce its market position.
Goals and objectives
The major goal of ALDI is to offer the customers the products that they make purchases
of the goods on a regular basis and make sure that those items have high qualities at the lowest
price. A simple objective that Aldi follows is to offer customers a smartest way to shop. The firm
is looking for new suppliers to make this happen.

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The mission, vision, goals, and objectives of ALDI are aligned with its stakeholders value
and benefits. Customers’ value and benefits are highly considered in strategic goals and mission.
Likewise, ALDI’s partners are also benefitted from the strategic plans, because even in the tough
economic climate firm’s business continue to develop and when firm’s operation grows, so its
partners can.
Core competency of ALDI
The core competency of ALDI is its stiff focus on price but following are some of effective
criteria to ensure the same
Cost leadership: ALDI stocks a limited amount of goods, which are of high quality and provide
them on competitive pricing. Most importantly, the organization tends to attain their leadership
status on the basis of the price they provide to third buyers.
Focus on the brands: The official website of the organization indicates that they focus pay
attention to their brands to remain independent, which enables them to ignore high marketing
costs associated with the national and to prepare their own product, policies and price.
How these strategies informed ALDI’s strategic planning:
Cost leadership and focus on the brands help ALDI to decide on the cost of operation, which
means the organization wanted to minimize the cost of operation to gain the competitive
advantage. ALDI designed small stores, which are easy to find, as they are founded nearby to
each other and saves the logistic cost. On the other side, it is certain that ADLI does not hire
casual staff; the organization has less staff but salaries of the employees are comparable. They
contribute a large amount on the supermarket design.

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b) Analyzing the factors considered by Aldi when formulating their strategic plans
At the time of forming a new and effective strategy for a business, ALDI needs to
consider some factors and issues that can influence the strategic planning of the firm.
Strength
 ALDI has the strength to serve high
quality of products but they offer the
products at very affordable price
 Having more than 10,000 stores around
the world contributing to brand image
development (aldi.co.uk 2018)
 The reputation of Aldi enables the
brand to provide a comparable quality
to the leading brands notably at the low
price
 Wide market acquisition helps ALDI
to apply situation-based strategic plan
Weaknesses
 The firm is yet not able to impact
globally because there are few other
chain stores
 Allegedly regarded as a store for cheap
and low quality items by some media
channels
 Even though, ALDI experienced a high
growth in 2017, it is still far behind the
large four British supermarkets with
respect to market share. (with Tesco
having 28% share, Sainsbury a 16%
share, ASDA a 15.1% and Morrison a
10.6% share) (Lehmann and Zetzsche
2016).
Opportunities
 As the firm has a strong brand image, it
has the opportunity for investing more
in advertising to beat the competition.
 ALDI has the opportunity to expand
Threats
 The organization cannot cater to
customers looking for a complete
shopping experience
 When Amazon took over American

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into the economically growing nations
like Africa and Asia.
grocers Whole Food, the supermarket
sector of UK is anxious that a takeover
of market share by Amazon could take
place. While Whole Food have only 9
UK subsidiaries and supermarkets are
worried because the objectives of
Amazon is to create a global
domination of market, which indicates
that ALDI could potentially lose some
of its market share (Morel et al. 2016).
Table 1: SWOT analysis
(Source: Anitsal, Anitsal and Girard 2012)
Market position- At the time of formulating a new strategic plan, the organization needs
to focus on its current market positions. The analysis of current market positions will help ALDI
to identify areas that need to e developed through the new strategic plan. As put forward by
Grünig, and Kühnm (2011), existing organizations in the retail such as TESCO has a strong
market position in the market. Thus, to remain active in the competition, ALDI needs to pay
attention to its weak business segments. For example, the new strategic plan should be designed
in way that it positively reflects on the market share.
Customer Demand- Customer demand is another significant aspect that ALDI must
consider when formulating a strategic plan. For example, if the demands of ALDI’s grocery
products are less compared to its competitors, selling existing products to the same market place

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will not provide any positive outcome. Thereby, by identifying the customer demands of the
products, ALDI can develop a new product or modify the existing one, which would further
strengthen the strategic place.
c) Evaluating the worth of the techniques used when business develop their strategic plans
A strategic plan requires or includes a set of techniques and their implementation to
accomplish the objectives of the plan. As put forward by Burns (2014), BCG growth-share
matrix remains as the simplest way to portray ALDI’s portfolio of investment. It is identified that
growth share matrix known for its cow and dog metaphor is widely used for resource allocation
in a diversified firm.
Cash cow- The cash cow section of ALDI is the fresh meat section because the demand
of these products remain high across different ALDI stores. However, one incident has been
found regarding the regarding horsemeat has damaged the brand of image of ALDI (Morrisette
and Hatfield 2013). Nonetheless, the management of the firm has taken the decision. The fresh
meat section is certainly running in a developed or mature sector due to the presence f large retail
firms offering fresh meat products, which indicates that the market environment is at the mature
phase.
Stars- Besides the cash cow, ALDI also receives growth opportunities from some other
business units and thereby, the market is usually identified by the opportunities for growth. Some
products of ALDI such as the ALDI bank generate adequate amount of earning and generate the
opportunity to increase. One such example derived from ALDI is ALDI bank, which has
expanded its market presence by providing consumers with the current account facility service.

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d) Organizational audit for ALDI and providing an analysis of their current strategic
positions
As the organization ALDI is running the operation in the global environment, it must
consider the external environment to identify its strategic position in the market. The following
factors determine the impact of the external environment on ALDI’s operation.
PESTLE analysis
Political-After the occurrence of Brexit, uncertainty remains in the future of Europe and
UK. However, ALDI has been able to make an FDI in UK; thereby, it might have to go through
the consequence just like the organizations involved in joint venture(Wright et al. 2016). The
political relationship between UK and Germany has not been affective but these two nations are
influential in Eurozone and this would probably present a set of difficulties to ALDI’s operation.
Economical –As an impact of Brexit, the prices have increased in UK and the value of
pound has decreased but this goes on ALDI’s favor because the customers turn to discounts,
which further leads to discounts. This happens because the outcome of price hike in other
supermarket due to Brexit and the cost being pushed up (Seaton and Waterson 2013). In
addition to this, inflation in the grocery market increased to 2.9% in May 2017, an increase from
2.6%, which means the shoppers have to spend £27 extra for the same product over the period
(Chakraborty et al. 2014). Here, as ALDI is a discount supermarket; this remains favorable
because customers could seek cheaper price.
Social-ALDI gave a pay hike to 3000 staff in UK and has become the highest paying
supermarket to lead over “German Discounter” Lidi with respect to wages paid (Clarke, Kirkup
and Oppewal 2012). Certainly, ALDI contributes to the employment of the nations to a larger

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scale. It has also been identified that by 2020, ALDI aims to contribute to education of 1.2
million children in UK (aldi.co.uk 2018).
Technological-It has been identified that retail brands are increasingly turning to
technology to reinforce their current market positions with the increasing number of customers
demanding the effective self-service.
Figure: 1 PESTLE analysis
(Source: Hultén 2011)
Legal- As put forward by Yamoah and Yawson (2014), the retail industry of UK is
affected on a frequent basis by several scandals about ingredients of food products but the most
notorious of these is the horsemeat scandal, which has widely affected the supermarket giant
Tesco.
PoliticalEconomicalSocio-culturalTechnologicalLegalEnvironmental

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Environmental-ALDI increasingly stocks its goods from the local British producers and
farmers, and due to this reasons the local producers find the sustainability in business
(Macdonald 2011).
e) Environmental audit for ALDI showing both micro and macro environment
Apart from the political, environmental and legal environment, it is also essential to
identify the market environment of ALDI, which also helps to determine the current market
positions of ALDI. Therefore, the micro and macro environments have been analyzed with the
strategic tool Porter’s five forces.
Bargaining power of the customers –High
The supermarket sector in which ALDI runs its operation is about selling goods at the
least cost, where each brand trying to minimize the price of the goods (Dunne et al. 2011). It
certainly increases the bargaining power of the customers. Most of the shops are situated close
enough to each other; thereby, the buyers can easily switch to another brand with the least effort.
Some of the stores have been observed to be providing additional discounts to retain the
customers but ALDI do follow this policy. Thus, the firm is not supposed to increase the price or
attempt to influence the market price of the goods.
Bargaining power of the suppliers- Low
As put forward by Shankar et al. (2011), the retail industry consists of many suppliers
who are always available to supply the same products at the same time at least cost compared to
present market price to the supermarket retailers like ALDI. Thus, these supermarkets then