MANG 4401: Strategic Analysis and Recommendations for Carrefour

This report provides a strategic analysis of Carrefour Oman, a supermarket in Oman, focusing on its vision, mission, and strategies. It applies Porter's Five Forces analysis to identify key challenges and opportunities, particularly concerning the bargaining power of buyers. The report examines the company's existing customer strategy, highlighting its generic nature and the need for improvement. Recommendations are made to adopt a more customer-centric approach, including redefining company culture, developing loyalty programs, conducting regular surveys, and leveraging customer relationship management technology. The analysis emphasizes the importance of gaining a competitive advantage by understanding and shaping market forces, ultimately leading to enhanced profitability and customer satisfaction. The report also suggests that Carrefour can learn from global competitors and customize its offerings to better serve Oman's diverse population, such as stocking Indian-origin products.

Running head: STRATEGIC ANALYSIS
STRATEGIC ANALYSIS
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Executive Summary
The given report throws light on the strategies used by a company. The chosen company for
this assignment is the supermarket firm; Carrefour. The report has analysed the different
strategies that can be used by Carrefour Supermarkets in order to understand their vision. The
vision and mission of the company has been discussed along with five forces analysis that has
created huge opportunities for Carrefour to adopt different strategies to gain competitive
advantage. It was observed that the supermarket had been facing problems with respect to the
emerging power of the buyers. The customer strategy of the firm has been analysed and
recommendations have been provided on the same.

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Mission, Vision and overview of Carrefour...............................................................................3
Porter’s Five Forces Analysis of Carrefour...............................................................................3
Strategy adopted by the company..............................................................................................5
Analysis of the strategy..............................................................................................................5
Conclusion and Recommendations............................................................................................6
References..................................................................................................................................7

3STRATEGIC ANALYSIS
Introduction
The report helps in analysis of the crucial aspects of the supermarket Carrefour
Supermarket which is based in Oman. The different problem aspects of the supermarket have
to be described in an effectual manner that will help them in solving the different issues
appropriately. The Porter’s five forces analysis will help the company in solving the issues
and gain competitive advantage in comparison to the other competitors in the market.
The main aim and purpose of the report is to identify the external environment
analysis that will help in analysis of the strategies and solve them effectively as well. The
adoption of the different kind of strategies has to be analysed effectively as this will help in
solving the different ethical and other issues appropriately. Proper ascertainment is required
in order to understand the issues and solve them effectually as this will assist them in
analysing the game changing trends and strategies of other competitors in the market
appropriately as well.
Mission, Vision and overview of Carrefour
Carrefour is one of the supermarkets that is based in United Arab Emirates and it has
wide range of selections of different kind of products and services for their
customers(Carrefouroman.com, 2018). The main vision of the company is to be an
independent, honest along with innovative along with sustainable cooperative wherein the
different customers are being able to choose from wide range of the different goods and
services at the prices that is reasonable in nature. The vision of the company has to
incorporate different kind of changes effectually as this will help them in managing the
changes appropriately. The primary objective of the company is to serve the customers with
good quality products and build sales and profits for the organization.
Porter’s Five Forces Analysis of Carrefour
The five forces analysis is essential in nature to be performed for Carrefour
Supermarket as this helps in understanding the issues along with threats and rivalry from
other firms in the market. The five forces analysis helps in understanding the different unique
strategy that can be applied by them for the suppliers or customers in the entire market.
Bargaining power of the suppliers of Carrefour is low due to several kinds of
reasons wherein there is a lot that can be offered by them to the different suppliers (Yunna
&Yisheng, 2014). The bargaining power of the different suppliers has weak kind of intensity

4STRATEGIC ANALYSIS
and this can easily affect the suppliers as well and Carrefour needs to address the factors
wherein there is strong force in the large population of the different suppliers along with
weak force in the high kind of availability of the supply. The large kind of population of
suppliers in Carrefour has the potential to affect the firm in an ineffective manner and this can
cause huge issues as well (Mathooko&Ogutu, 0214).
Bargaining power of the buyers of Carrefour wherein it is seen that the buyers
demand a lot from the company and they want the best kind of offerings from the company as
well (E. Dobbs, 2014). This creates huge pressure on Carrefour Supermarket in the long run
and there is affect in the profitability of the firm as well. However, Carrefour has to tackle
such situation with the help of building large base of the customers and this will be helpful in
nature as well as this will create rapid innovation of the new products (Zhao et al., 2016).
Threat of substitute products or services is the other force wherein it is seen that
when the new kind of product or service meets the customer needs in different ways, the
profitability of the company suffers and this cause huge issues in providing high value to
customers as well. Proper ways are required to be adopted by Carrefour in order to handle the
situation wherein they have to concentrate more on being more service oriented in nature
along with increasing the cost of switching for the different customers as well (Rothaermel,
2014).
Rivalry among the existing competitors of Carrefour is that there is existence of the
rivalry in the market and it drives down the different prices of the products and the overall
profitability of the company suffers as well. Carrefour needs to tackle the situation by
building sustainable kind of differentiation and this helps in building scale that helps them in
competing in a batter manner (Sutherland, 2014).
Threat of new entrants is the other element of the five forces analysis wherein it is
seen that Carrefour has to address different kind of high intensity threat from different
entrants (Aithal, 2016). There is strong force of the moderate kind of cost of the capital along
with moderate cost of the development of the brand as well. Carrefour has to tackle such
situation by innovating their products and services by building different capacities and spend
money on the research and development in an effectual manner.
With the help of the Porter’s Five Forces Analysis of the Carrefour Supermarket, it
can be seen that the company needs to implement different kind of innovative kind of
strategies in such a manner that will help them in gaining competitive advantage. The

5STRATEGIC ANALYSIS
strategists of the Carrefour can help them in gaining a complete picture that will influence the
profitability of the organization effectually and this will help them in competing better with
other competitors in the market as well.
Strategy adopted by the company
The primary strategy that used by Carrefour with respect to its customers is a basic
customer satisfaction strategy. The different supermarkets are stocked well and all the
customer demands are adhered to with respect to quality and price (Johnson, 2016). The
supermarket also conducts regular sales at the given market in order to ensure that the
customer visits the supermarket often. However, according to the analysis using the five
forces model, it can be figured that there is intense competition in the given segment and that
the company needs to further strengthen its customer satisfaction strategy in order to gain a
competitive advantage.
The company has various resources at its disposal. The company has a sound
management with respect to the presence of different departments like Marketing, Human
Resource, Customer Satisfaction, Finance and Technology (Kalkan & Bozkurt, 2013). With
various resources and a sound experience, the company can easily become a leader in the
market by adopting a customer centric strategy. If the company is successful in doing so then
it will easily be able to overcome the Bargaining power of the buyers and ensure success.
Analysis of the strategy
The company needs to gain the game changing strategies as this helps them in solving
the issues and this will help them in exploiting the different opportunities of the other firms in
the market as well. With the understanding of the Porter’s Five Forces Model Analysis, it will
help the company in shaping those forces and solve them effectually with proper
implementation of strategies effectually as well. As stated previously the company needs to
see to it that the customer aspect of its strategy is improved (Lasserre, 2017). The strategy
which is currently adopted by the company is very generic and there exists no specialisation
with respect to it.
This cannot be the case; the company needs to learn from the global competitors in
order to ensure that it performs well. It can take example of its global counterparts like
Woolworths, Tesco and ALDI and plan to adopt the customer centric and specialised
strategies that are adopted by these firms (Martinsuo, 2013). Adopting a customer specific
strategy will ensure that the company performs well and captures the attention of the market

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in Oman. The company can change the game by stocking the desired kind of products. As
Oman has a large Indian population, the company can stock Indian origin products to grab
their attention. Offering free home delivery and a hassle free customer grievance service will
also help.
Conclusion and Recommendations
Therefore from the given analysis it can be stated that Carrefour has established itself
as a leading supermarket in Oman. The company has huge resources and manpower at its
disposal, which it strategically utilises to add value to their offerings. However, as analysed
from the Porter`s five forces model, it could be stated that the company does not have an
effective customer/buyer strategy in place and that it is very generic. After the analysis of the
strategy it could be stated that the company needs to adopt a customer centric strategy for its
success. In the next section certain recommendations have been made to assist Carrefour in
adopting a specialised customer oriented strategy
The following can be adopted:
 Redefining company culture- In order to adopt a customer centric strategy, Carrefour
needs to redefine company culture and ensure that customer satisfaction is the core
objective of all its departments. Only when such a strategy will be adopted, the
company will be able to gain success.
 Developing customer loyalty programs- The customers can be adopted with loyalty
programs, cards and club offers in order to increase retention in the organization.
 Conducting surveys regularly- The Company needs to conduct customer surveys
regularly in order to ensure that they are meeting up with the demands of the
consumers (Merat & Bo, 2013).
 Customer Relationship management technology- With the advent of technology,
adopting customer relationship management technology is the key to success.

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References
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strategies, operating concepts & business systems. Browser Download This Paper.
Carrefouroman.com. (2018). Home | Carrefour Oman. [online] Available at:
https://www.carrefouroman.com/ [Accessed 14 Apr. 2018].
E. Dobbs, M. (2014). Guidelines for applying Porter's five forces framework: a set of
industry analysis templates. Competitiveness Review, 24(1), 32-45.
Johnson, G. (2016). Exploring strategy: text and cases. Pearson Education.
Kalkan, A. & Bozkurt, Ö.Ç. (2013). The choice and use of strategic planning tools and
techniques in Turkish SMEs according to attitudes of executives. Procedia-Social and
Behavioral Sciences, 99, pp.1016-1025.
Lasserre, P. (2017). Global strategic management. Palgrave.
Martinsuo, M.. (2013). Project portfolio management in practice and in context. International
Journal of Project Management, 31(6), pp.794-803.
Mathooko, F. M., &Ogutu, M. (2015). Porter’s five competitive forces framework and other
factors that influence the choice of response strategies adopted by public universities
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Merat, A. & Bo, D. (2013). Strategic analysis of knowledge firms: The links between
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pp.3-15.
Rothaermel, F. T. (2015). Strategic management. McGraw-Hill Education.
Sutherland, E. (2014). Lobbying and litigation in telecommunications markets–reapplying
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Yunna, W., &Yisheng, Y. (2014). The competition situation analysis of shale gas industry in
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Zhao, Z. Y., Zuo, J., Wu, P. H., Yan, H., &Zillante, G. (2016). Competitiveness assessment
of the biomass power generation industry in China: A five forces model
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