Strategic Management and Leadership Report: Carrefour UAE Analysis

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of strategic management and leadership, focusing on Carrefour UAE as a case study. It begins with an introduction and organisational overview of Carrefour UAE, a multinational retail supermarket chain. The report then explores various approaches to strategic management and leadership, including their roles in strategic decision-making. A significant portion of the report is dedicated to strategic analysis, utilizing SWOT, PESTLE, Porter’s Five Forces, and value chain analysis to understand Carrefour UAE's external operational environment and internal capabilities. The report also addresses the formulation of strategies and strategic management options. The analysis highlights the importance of understanding the external environment, effective leadership, and the implementation of strategic approaches. The report concludes with a summary of the key findings and recommendations, emphasizing the importance of adaptability and strategic planning for long-term success in the competitive retail market. References are provided to support the analysis.

Running head: STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP
Strategic Management and Leadership
Name of student
Name of University
Author note

1STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP
Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Organisational overview............................................................................................................3
Approaches to strategic management.........................................................................................3
Leadership approaches in strategic management...................................................................4
Strategic analysis........................................................................................................................5
SWOT analysis.......................................................................................................................5
PESTLE analysis....................................................................................................................6
Porter’s five forces.................................................................................................................7
Porter’s generic strategy.........................................................................................................8
Value chain analysis...............................................................................................................8
Formulation of strategies............................................................................................................9
Strategic management options.................................................................................................10
Conclusion................................................................................................................................11
References................................................................................................................................11

2STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP
Introduction
The report is prepared to discuss about the strategic management and leadership
aspects considering the business organisation named Carrefour in United Arab Emirates. It is
a major retail supermarket chain that is specialised in the delivery of good quality food items
that are fresh and healthy for catering the needs and preferences of people and ensure higher
client satisfaction and improved brand image too. The company delivers fresh food items and
groceries that are preferred by the customers and can be beneficial for enhancing the brand
image and name, furthermore ensure successful business functioning all throughout. The
topic also highlights the importance of various approaches to strategic management and
leadership along with the differentiation of role of process and leadership in terms of strategic
management at Carrefour, UAE (Carrefouruae.com 2019). There is need to understand the
external operational environment, which can assist the company to make strategic decisions
and at the same time, implement effective strategic approaches to various practical situations
through tactical responses to strategic management decisions too.
The concept of strategic planning is related to the management of consistent planning
along with the monitoring and analysis of various aspects needed to make the business
function and at the same time, accomplish the business goals and objectives with ease and
effectiveness. It can help in achieving long term success as well as allow for benefiting the
stakeholders in business, furthermore allow the top management to undertake initiatives and
manage formulation and implementation of strategies effectively too (Rothaermel 2015). The
management of organisational resources for achieving the goals and objectives, furthermore,
combine the various strategic components required to ensure smooth business functioning
and turn the strengths into creation of new scopes and opportunities. The concept of

3STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP
leadership is related to the way the organisational functions and processes are managed and
also focus on attaining long term goals and objectives by Carrefour UAE.
Organisational overview
Carrefour UAE is a multinational organisation within the global food retailing market
and has macerated a sustainable position of itself within the marketplace of UAE. The
company assessed both the internal and external market conditions properly to deliver the
best quality food items and other services to meet the needs of clients, furthermore ensure
higher level of customer satisfaction and achieve the desired sets of goals and objectives with
convenience. The company has been operating in United Arab Emirates and at Jordan and
has marketed the food products well in the different market segments to make sure that the
business sustains competitive advantage and created a positive brand image by reaching local
as well as global market segments much easily. The company consists of over 378,923
employees and the revenue has been over AED 80.975 billion. Due to its extended reach and
effective strategic management approaches and leadership techniques, Carrefour UAE has
maintained a sustainable position within the competitive business environment.
The mission of the company is to do the job well while the vision includes becoming
the benchmark in modern food retailing in different markets by offering the goods and
services at the best price in every stores all across the country.
Approaches to strategic management
The different approaches to strategic management are to be followed by everey
businesses and the same happens for Carrefour in UAE to achieve the desired outcomes in
the future. The strategic goals are set and diversification into the new markets have helped in
managing financial aspects properly, which not only improves the flow of cash, but also has
set the company apart from the competitors. With the setting of long term strategic goals and

4STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP
objectives, there is necessity of making tactical responses to strategic management decisions,
furthermore, ensure strategic decision making and maintain consistency in terms of debt
services and costs of overhead at certain level (Goetsch and Davis 2014). If the strategic goal
or objective helps in gaining good percentage of rate of return on investments, then the
company is going well and this has been the case for Carrefour. The retail company has made
sure to deliver food products and services at reasonable prices, without making any
compromise on the quality, which has helped in managing the brand properly and thus gained
greater brand exposure to raise awareness among the clients regarding their purchasing
behaviours (Hill, Jones and Schilling 2014). The approaches to marketing also include
various marketing strategies that are aimed at sending the right messages and information
about the products to its customers, furthermore, attract the target markets through online
selling to increase the profit margin consistently (Carrefouruae.com 2019.
Leadership approaches in strategic management
The strategic leadership style to management has facilitated the management of
human resources and made sure to keep the staffs motivated and encouraged for performing
to their potential. The strategic leadership approach facilitates influencing the business
decisions and at the same time, improves the organisation’s ability to gain long term success
and even manage god financial stability. The strategic leadership at the organisation could
also be beneficial for managing flexibility and focus on changing the plans and forecast
changes too, furthermore, empower the employees to make individual decisions (Griffin
2013). A good leadership team formation is also critical to the success of businesses and thus
there are various factors that contribute to the management of strategic implementation such
as the extensive networks, collaborative relationships, focused actions, processing of
information and data along with strategic goals too. As stated by Hill, Jones and Schilling
(2014), leadership plays a major role in the strategic management, because the

5STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP
implementation of right strategies requires efforts put by the team members, who are
managed by the organisational leader. The employees of Carrefour have individual roles and
responsibilities, that are needed to be cope up with and thus proper management of leadership
can be beneficial to delegate the roles and responsibilities properly too (Hill, Jones and
Schilling 2014).
On the other hand, Donate and de Pablo (2015) argued that to manage implementation
of strategies, policies and programs, the engagement of departments of the organisation is
necessary and the leadership plays a major role in the identification of these departments and
form an implementation group. The management department holds the responsibility of
managing a proper structure to determine the most suitable leaders, who could manage team
work, communication and accountability system too for ensuring accomplishment of business
goals and objectives within the allocated time frame (Donate and de Pablo 2015). While
implementing change procedures or new strategies, a sense of interest and urgency must be
created, which is the duty of the manager or leader of the organisation to explain the staffs
about the significance of implementation. The leadership skills are necessary for making the
employees understand about the significance of implementation, furthermore know about
how the company itself can be benefited. Johnston and Marshall (2013) argued that the
leadership aspects are important as well for monitoring the performances of organisational
members and place the monitoring system in the right place to ensure proper analyse and
interpretation of data and information required to make the changes implemented successful
and noteworthy (Johnston and Marshall 2013).
Another major leadership approach to management is to check the strategic
implementation phase consistently. To facilitate the human resources management, the
leadership has played a major role, which not only helped in integrating the customer

6STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP
management program to the sales department, but also has helped in assessing the
development needs of individuals. This could though be effective for management of sales
force and ensure regular acqusitions of consumer data and information and about their needs
and preferences that are needed to be met.
Strategic analysis
The strategic analysis is done to understand the external operational environment in
details for Carrefour UAE, which can assist in understanding the strategic priorities and make
effective business decisions (Birasnav 2014). The understanding of the external environment
will be possible with the help of SWOT analysis, PESTLE, Porter’s five forces analysis and
also by analysing the value chains of the organisation in UAE.
SWOT analysis
Strengths
 Strong brand name and positive
brand image contributes to the
management of quality consistency,
furthermore meet the demands in the
market
 Smooth flow of cash enhances
acqusitions and management of
resources required to expand into
newer projects
 Streamlined operations and
prominent supply chain management
 Establishment of a positive culture
Weaknesses
 Poor financial planning and lack of
investments done for the
management of new technologies
 Big gaps in the way products and
services are marketed and presence
of competitors further created issues,
which are considered as major
weaknesses.
 The structure of organisation is
suitable only for the implementation
of current business models and thus
often the project expansions scopes

7STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP
among the dealers and distributors
and strong investments done for
training and development sessions
 Strong base of suppliers and supply
chain networks
 Great market presence and string
brand image
 Multi format strategy hypermarkets
and
are hindered
 Carrefour has failed to manage
proper demand forecasting, which
has also been one of the major
causes of poor inventory
management and supply chains
(Morden 2016).
Opportunities
 The effective flow of cash can create
scopes and new opportunities to
make investments in various product
segments, which can easily expand
the wide range of products an
services’
 The taxation and environmental
policies can also be implemented to
open up new scopes and
opportunities, furthermore, ensure
gain a greater market share and
implement new technologies as well
 The lower rate of inflation is also
Threats
 The presence of competitors can be a
major threat to the business, which
can affect the profit level of the
organisation negatively
 The lack of skilled workforce
consisting of employees and poor
skills and knowledge further
contribute to the poor performance
of the organisation, which is also a
major threat
 The demands for certain highly
profitable food items are seasonal in
nature, which can also affect the

8STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP
effective for bringing much better
stability in the market (Avolio and
Yammarino 2013)
 The development of market can
result in gaining better scopes and
opportunities to stay ahead of the
competitors, furthermore ensure
capturing a greater market share
along with better sales generation
and profit level too
organisation’s ability to attain the
goals easily
 The legislations and laws are
different for the different countries,
which is another major threat that
can let down the business
performance and thus might get
exposed to liability claims
considering the policy changes in
different market segments too
(Carrefouruae.com 2019).
PESTLE analysis
The political factors include the changing policies with the new Government,
Governmental impact on the global pressures put on the food retailing industry. The
regulatory techniques have also contributed to the management of diverse laws, rules and
regulations required to enter the various markets and how the business can operate within the
local as well as global marketplace. The income tax, service tax and sales tax are imposed by
the Government to ensure management of free business along with privatisation too.
The economy of the nation is a major contributing factor that has influenced the way
the organization enters the market and the industrial reform policies have further influenced

9STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP
the liberalisation of foreign capital. With the skilled workforce consisting of expert
employees and by making assessment of financial markets there would also be easy access to
liquidity in the equity market, furthermore raise the chances of the business to expand
internationally (David and David 2013). With the higher investments made by the
Government and regulatory bodies, the business could also improvise core infrastructures and
drive growth in the concerned sector, furthermore contribute largely to the growth in
economy of the nation too.
The demands for organic food products and awareness about the health and
wellbeing, new scopes and opportunities have opened up. The digitization of retail industry
has further improved the lives of clients and make them easily gain access to the products and
services both offline and online. The societal norms, rules, regulations and hierarchy might be
different and thus cerate complexities for the business to sustain in the home market. Thus, to
sustain globally, a new team should be formed for gaining knowledge about the societal
norms and ensure serving the clients well (Noe et al. 2017).
The technological advancements have certainly transformed the food retailing
industry and thus Carrefour has reached the maturity stage, which facilitated acquiring
greater market share and empowerment of supply chain partners too. The technological
implementations have reduced the life cycle of product and make the production process
easier and faster. It has also helped in marketing different kinds of products and services and
reduced the costs of operations to a certain extent (Eden and Ackermann 2013). The
technological factors are considered to ensure investing on research and development
activities along with meeting the demands an expectations of people in the different markets
segments.

10STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP
The legal factors include managing legal obligations and ensuring implementation of
legislations, laws and policies to maintain flexibility within the workplace. The health and
safety norms, rules and regulations could assist the company to maintain a workplace where
employees should be kept safe and provided with flexible working conditions for their good
health and wellbeing. The environmental laws are considered to become socially responsible
and contribute to the positive health of the environment while the Data Protection laws could
facilitate dealing with privacy issues and manage intellectual property rights, furthermore
prevent unauthorised access to confidential data and information related to the clients
(Carrefouruae.com 2019).
The environmental concerns include protecting the environment by reducing food
wastes and also using those to serve the purpose of managing renewable sources of energy.
Due to the industrialisation, there have been adverse effects on the environment such as
polluting the air, which gave rise to multiple health issues and thus due to pressure from the
environmental groups, Carrefour needs to maintain proper measures for reducing
environmental impact as well as ensure better management of waste control and disposal too
(Baker 2014).
Porter’s five forces
The five forces that often impact the way the business functions within the food
retailing industry are the threat of new entrants, threat of substitute products, bargaining
power of suppliers, buying behaviours of consumers and presence of rivalry in the business.
The threat of new entrants in the market is one of the major causes of sales decline as
new products with similar functionality are made available in the marketplace to draw in
more customers. The economies of scale is a daunting task to achieve within the food
retailing industry, though with the great brand image and presence in the market, the threat of

11STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP
new entrants might be weaker. The differentiation of products is also high, which enables
creation of more scopes and opportunities for Carrefour to focus on the marketing techniques
such as promotional activities, advertising, etc (E. Dobbs 2014). Though the accessibility to
the networks for distribution of products might be easier, still with the positive brand image
and name, the company would likely sustain in the competitive marketplace with ease and
efficiency. The investment in research and development for facilitating the innovation and
allow the company to gain access to distribution channels required to overcome the threats
that might be faced in business.
Porter and Heppelmann (2014) stated that the threat of substitute products and
services is low because there are very few substitute products available in the market within
the food retailing industry where Carrefour operates. Due to the presence of very few
substitute products in the marketplace, Carrefour maintains consistent selling of products and
services at lower prices, without compromising on the quality of those, which makes it less
suitable for the consumers to switch on to some other substitute products available (Porter
and Heppelmann 2014). The company could further manage diversification of products to
ensure delivering better benefits and ensure meeting the demands and expectations of
customers in the marketplace with ease and efficiency.
The bargaining power of suppliers is moderate, because they have lesser control over
the prices set for the products and services by the company. The suppliers delivered raw
materials and resources that are standard and thus there are multiple options, which Carrefour
can switch on to, for influencing the process of production. Therefore, the supplier power is
moderate considering the industry within which the business operates (Iriyama, Kishore and
Talukdar 2016).