MBA501 Assessment: Detailed Stakeholder Analysis of Woolworths

This report provides a comprehensive stakeholder analysis of Woolworths Group Australia, a leading supermarket chain. It begins with an introduction to Woolworths, outlining its vision, mission, recent developments, and industry trends. The report then presents a stakeholder view model, identifying key stakeholder groups and specific stakeholders within each group. The core of the report focuses on a detailed analysis of four selected stakeholder groups, examining their behavior, motives, and the stakeholders they influence. The analysis includes strategic options and recommendations for managing each stakeholder group, including swing, defensive, offensive, and hold stakeholders. The report also incorporates portfolio analysis using BCG and GE-McKinsey matrices, and a synergy matrix to categorize the different business units. The report concludes with recommendations for strategy implementation, emphasizing the importance of protecting the interests of all stakeholder groups to ensure the long-term success of Woolworths.

Running head: MARKETING
Marketing
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author Note:

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Table of Contents
Part 1. Introduction:.....................................................................................................................1
Stakeholder analysis:.......................................................................................................................1
Stakeholder analysis (Summary):....................................................................................................1
Swing stakeholders: strategic options:.............................................................................................2
Swing Stakeholder: recommendations:...........................................................................................2
Defensive stakeholders: strategic options:.......................................................................................3
Defensive stakeholders: Recommendations:...................................................................................3
Offensive stakeholders: Strategic options:......................................................................................3
Offensive stakeholders: Recommendations:....................................................................................4
Hold stakeholder: strategic options:................................................................................................4
Hold stakeholders: Recommendations:...........................................................................................4
Strategy implementation:.................................................................................................................5
Swing stakeholder: strategy implementation:..................................................................................5
Offensive stakeholders: strategy implementation:...........................................................................5
Defensive stakeholder: strategy implementation:............................................................................5
Hold stakeholder: strategy implementation:....................................................................................5
Conclusion:......................................................................................................................................6
Part 2. Portfolio analysis:.................................................................................................................6
Introduction:....................................................................................................................................6

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BCG matrix:.....................................................................................................................................6
GE-McKinsey Matrix:.....................................................................................................................6
Synergy matrix:...............................................................................................................................7
Business categorization:..................................................................................................................7
Looks:..............................................................................................................................................7
Analysis:..........................................................................................................................................7
Recommendations:..........................................................................................................................7
Neutrino:..........................................................................................................................................8
Analysis:..........................................................................................................................................8
Recommendations:..........................................................................................................................8
Dermatech:.......................................................................................................................................8
Analysis:..........................................................................................................................................8
Recommendations:..........................................................................................................................8
Energino:..........................................................................................................................................9
Analysis:..........................................................................................................................................9
Recommendations:..........................................................................................................................9
Conclusion:......................................................................................................................................9
References:....................................................................................................................................10

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Part 1. Introduction:
Woolworths Supermarket is a supermarket chain based in Australia and dominates the
supermarket sector in the country. It is owned by Woolworths Group, also based in Australia.
The product umbrella of the Australian supermarket consists of fruit& veg, meat, seafood & deli,
bakery, dairy, fridge & eggs, pantry, freezer, drinks, liquor, front of store, pet, baby, health &
beauty, household and lunch box (Woolworths.com.au. 2020). Thus, it is evident that
supermarket chain serves several groups of stakeholders including customer segments
consuming its products, suppliers which supply it with these finished goods and banks which
provide online platforms to process financial transactions like sale of goods and purchase of
goods. An analysis of the stakeholders of Woolworths would be conducted in order to identify
their needs and interests (Riboldazzi 2016).
Stakeholder analysis:
Stakeholder analysis (Summary):
The stakeholders of Woolworths consist of internal and external stakeholders.
Apanasevic, Markendahl and Arvidsson (2016) mentions that stakeholders have interests in the
operations of the retail company and are capable of impacting its operations by their actions. For
example, customers lead to generation of revenue when they purchase goods from the retail
chain. If they are dissatisfied with the goods and facilities provided by Woolworths, they may
shift to other retail chains which would lead to fall in the revenue generation at the former. This
means that the retail chain namely, should protect the interests of the stakeholders in order to
enjoy their continuous support.

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Swing stakeholders: strategic options:
The supermarket chain should protect interests of stakeholders. Mabuma (2018) mention
that stakeholders if dissatisfied due to their interests not being protected, would change their
preferences and support to other firms or in other words swing. For example, if Woolworths fails
to satisfy the members of its board of management who are internal stakeholders, it would lead
to board members resigning and joining other companies. This would lead to forming of faulty
decisions which would ultimately lead to deterioration of the levels of activities of the retail
chains (Silvius et al. 2017). Similarly, suppliers of Woolworths, important external stakeholders,
if dissatisfied owing to issues like default or delay of payments, they would cancel supply orders
of goods meant for the retail chain. The outcome of this loss of supplier support would be that
the retail chain would not be able to sell goods to customers, thus losing customers and
consequent revenue generation (Yazdani et al. 2017). Thus, it is evident that protection of
interests of stakeholders would prevent them from switching to other retail chains.
Swing Stakeholder: recommendations:
Woolworths should take strategies to ensure that it is able to retain its stakeholders to the
possible extent.
Gaining in the operations of the retail chains would encourage them to support it for
extended terms.
The retail chain can also prevent stakeholders from swinging by keeping them informed
about its strategies (Nederhand and Klijn 2019). For example, if the retail chain keeps the
customers about its future product strategies, it would create a transparent image about it among

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the customers. This would encourage the customers retain their relationship with the retail and
prevent them from swing.
Defensive stakeholders: strategic options:
The supermarket chain should take the following strategies to manage defensive
stakeholders like suppliers:
1. Involving them in the core products strategies.
2. Restructuring its supply chains in order to ensure that all the suppliers abide by its suppliers’
codes of conduct and provide it with superior quality products in right amounts and at
appropriate time.
3. Entering into procurement contracts with suppliers which expressly mention the product to be
supplied along with the specifications like brands, the amount in which the products have to
supplied, rates, package sizes and required time within which the same have to delivered.
Defensive stakeholders: Recommendations:
1. Woolworths should acquire of key supplier firms which would enable it to support these firms
financially directly.
2. The retail chain should provide reward and recognitions to suppliers. This would encourage
suppliers provide finished goods at lower rates and more favourable business conditions.
Offensive stakeholders: Strategic options:
1. The retail chain should provide superior quality products to offensive stakeholders like
customers.

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2. Woolworths should adopt legitimate pricing strategies like discounts and product purchasing
financing which would enable the customers purchase goods in bulk.
Offensive stakeholders: Recommendations:
1. Offering more innovative products to customers enhance their levels of satisfaction and
largely prevent them from swinging to other retail chains.
2. Gaining continuous feedback of customers on the social media platforms
3. Incorporating feedbacks obtained from customers in business strategies.
Hold stakeholder: strategic options:
1. Hold stakeholders like the management board members and employees should be given
appropriate compensations.
2. Providing them with professional development opportunities like appraisals and promotions to
higher levels would enhance the job satisfaction levels among the members of the management
board as well as employees of Woolworths (Robertson and Kee 2017).
Hold stakeholders: Recommendations:
1. The management of Woolworths should provide non-financial benefits like work-life-balance
and work from home to hold stakeholders.
2. Gaining their participation in operations like making of business strategies.
3. The management of Woolworths should bring about improvements in the working
environment within the premises owned by the retail chain. For example, more fire extinguishers
should be installed in the office areas. Employees who are responsible for lifting of goods,
especially heavy goods should be provided with ramps. These measures would create a sense of

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security and wellness among the employees and the managers (Ledikwe et al. 2018). This would
largely be responsible for enabling the retail chain retain them and swing to other companies.
Strategy implementation:
Woolworths Supermarkets should implement strategies to ensure continuous support of
the stakeholders. For example, the supermarket chain should identify the interests of specific
groups of stakeholders like customers. It should form strategies to protect the interests of the
different stakeholder groups to the feasible extent.
Swing stakeholder: strategy implementation:
1. Gaining their support to the feasible extent.
2. Ensuring that their interests are protected to the feasible extent.
Offensive stakeholders: strategy implementation:
1. Arrange for training of offensive stakeholder groups like customers.
2. Training marketing teams to deal with them more professionally.
Defensive stakeholder: strategy implementation:
1. Giving them higher rates of returns.
2. Paying them with timely credits and dividends.
Hold stakeholder: strategy implementation:
1. Giving them rewards and recognitions.
2. Providing them with professional development opportunities.

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Conclusion:
Woolworths should protect the interests of stakeholders. The management of Woolworths
should take strategies to protect the interests of different groups of stakeholders. The retail chain
should manage situations when the interests of two or groups of stakeholders may clash
strategically in order to retention of all its stakeholder groups.
Part 2. Portfolio analysis:
Introduction:
BCG matrix:
1. The BCG matrix of Woolworths shows that as far as its product umbrella is concerned,
healthy eating is enjoying growth in the market with relatively lower market share while branded
consumer goods is enjoying growth in both the aspects.
2. The retail should promote the importance the consuming food among the Australian
consumers. The retail chain would be generate higher revenue growth by strengthening this
product line since it is experiencing growth in the country (Cain 2018).
GE-McKinsey Matrix:
1. The retail chain should strengthen its harvest product line and generate higher revenue. This is
because, the segment of healthy eating is gaining increasing consumer support owing to increase
in health consciousness among the consumers. Same is applicable for the meat and egg products.
2. Woolworths should aim to introduce new products under its consumer goods. This is because,
most of the products sold under this segment are owned by multinational companies and

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consumers are already aware about them. Thus, in order to gain increase in revenue generation in
this segment, the retail should introduce new and innovative products.
Synergy matrix:
1. The retail chain should introduce environment friendly goods. This would not only generate
higher revenue but also establish itself as a socially corporate citizen more strongly.
2. The retail chain should recall products which instead of generating more revenue, create
customer resentments or in other words are parasites. For example, the company should recall
products high amount of chemicals and introduce organic variants of the same.
Business categorization:
Looks:
Analysis:
1. Woolworths should enhance the looks of its products.
2. The retail chain should make the packaging more customer oriented.
Recommendations:
1. The firm should provide more innovative products which would be more aligned to the needs
of customers. This would result in higher levels of customer satisfaction and lead to higher
revenue generation.
2. The firm should enter into more innovations with its business partners like suppliers. This
would enable it to offer more innovative products to consumers and generate higher revenue.

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Neutrino:
Analysis:
Profitable
Recommendations:
1. The firm should conduct more innovations in the areas of data safety. This would be enable it
to make its ICT comparatively more protected from threats like data safety risks (Neutrinos.co.
2020).
2. The firm should create awareness among the customers about the necessities of following data
safety while working on digital platforms. This would enable the firm create more value to them
by protecting them against data hacking to a great extent.
Dermatech:
Analysis:
More R&D to improve product
Recommendations:
1. The firm should offer more innovative skincare products like products made from organic raw
materials to consumers (Dermatech.co.nz. 2020).
2. The company should procure more products from the local suppliers of raw materials like
palm oil and tea tree oil. This would enable the firm bring about economic development among
the local suppliers.

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Energino:
Analysis:
More R&D in energy consumption solutions.
Recommendations:
1. More innovations in energy consumption solutions like solar energy. This would enable the
firm to promote sustainability in the energy market.
2. Acquisitions of smaller firms within energy sector or within any other sector. This would
strengthen its resource base.
Conclusion:
One can conclude that the firms should conduct innovations to satisfy consumers. This
would enable them to generate more revenue.

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References:
Apanasevic, T., Markendahl, J. and Arvidsson, N., 2016. Stakeholders' expectations of mobile
payment in retail: lessons from Sweden. International Journal of Bank Marketing, 34(1), pp.37-
61.
Cain, J. 2018. Ausfoodnews.com.au. [online] Ausfoodnews.com.au. Available at:
https://www.ausfoodnews.com.au/2018/05/14/australian-organic-market-report-2018-excites-
new-investment.html [Accessed 20 Jan. 2020].
Dermatech.co.nz. 2020. Dermatech.co.nz. [online] Available at: https://www.dermatech.co.nz/
[Accessed 20 Jan. 2020].
Ledikwe, J.H., Kleinman, N.J., Mpho, M., Mothibedi, H., Mawandia, S., Semo, B.W. and
O’Malley, G., 2018. Associations between healthcare worker participation in workplace wellness
activities and job satisfaction, occupational stress and burnout: a cross-sectional study in
Botswana. BMJ open, 8(3), p.e018492.
Mabuma, J., 2018. Platform Thinking is the Future of Aftersales Business in the Automotive
Industry.
Nederhand, J. and Klijn, E.H., 2019. Stakeholder involvement in public–private partnerships: Its
influence on the innovative character of projects and on project performance. Administration &
Society, 51(8), pp.1200-1226.
Neutrinos.co. 2020. Neutrinos.co. [online] Available at: https://www.neutrinos.co/ [Accessed 20
Jan. 2020].

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Riboldazzi, S., 2016. Corporate governance and sustainability in Italian large-scale retail
companies. European Scientific Journal, 12(16).
Robertson, B.W. and Kee, K.F., 2017. Social media at work: The roles of job satisfaction,
employment status, and Facebook use with co-workers. Computers in Human Behavior, 70,
pp.191-196.
Silvius, A.G., Kampinga, M., Paniagua, S. and Mooi, H., 2017. Considering sustainability in
project management decision making; An investigation using Q-methodology. International
Journal of Project Management, 35(6), pp.1133-1150.
Woolworths.com.au. 2020. Woolworths.com.au. [online] Available at:
https://www.woolworths.com.au/shop/discover/our-brands [Accessed 20 Jan. 2020].
Yazdani, M., Zarate, P., Coulibaly, A. and Zavadskas, E.K., 2017. A group decision making
support system in logistics and supply chain management. Expert Systems with Applications, 88,
pp.376-392.