HI5019 Strategic Analysis: Woolworths in Australian Market

This report presents a strategic analysis of Woolworths, an Australian supermarket chain, examining its business background, industry environment, and competitive landscape. The analysis covers external factors such as political, economic, social-cultural, technological, environmental, and legal aspects, as well as the competitive forces of suppliers, buyers, new entrants, substitutes, and rivalry. Internal resources, capabilities, and core competencies are identified, including brand reputation and supply chain management. The report also proposes a suitable information system solution to enhance Woolworths' competitive advantage and concludes with an evaluation and recommendation.

woolworths
Report

Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................1
PART 1............................................................................................................................................1
Business background...............................................................................................................1
What industry is it?..................................................................................................................1
General environment analysis..................................................................................................2
Industry environment...............................................................................................................4
Competitive environment........................................................................................................5
Opportunities and threats.........................................................................................................5
Part 2................................................................................................................................................6
(Internal analysis and proposal)...................................................................................................6
The firm’s resources, tangible and intangible..............................................................................6
Capabilities Identification............................................................................................................7
Core competency analysis...........................................................................................................7
Propose a suitable information system solution..............................................................................8
Evaluation of Proposed System and Recommendation...................................................................9
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................9
References......................................................................................................................................10

Introduction
The report will discuss about strategic management of Woolworths, a Sydney based Company in
Australia that is working on handling the retail market with positioning in Australian
Supermarket industry. Here, the analysis is about how the competitive structure of the company
is able to help in evaluating the external and internal factors which directly affect the
management of company. Woolworths also works with the controlled distribution network of
products with ensured quality and distribution efficiency with inventory management as well.
The competitiveness is about the resources and capabilities which needs to be mapped with
effective supply chain management techniques.
PART 1
Business background
Woolworths Holding Limited are considered to be holding the investments with 52% of the
market shares, employees are 24,650, and 640 stores all over. The market share of the company
is seen to be 9-10% with goals to work with sustainable growth and handle the changing social
and proper environmental standards. Woolworths is working on achieving the harder goal with
development and managing the poverty driving the distribution and then creating more poverty.
Hence, to handle it, they are working on expanding with driving enterprise development. The
priority is about addressing the change in climate with mainly addressing the changes focusing
on reduced carbon footprint of Woolworths (Padin et al., 2017).
What industry is it?
The industry of Woolworths is food industry which includes the organization and proper
planning of the production, with processes and the storage of the food products. There is a major

diversification of the environment with geographical locations of Australia that provides major
advantages. The food is exported to the other countries. The diversification is based on
geographical location of Australia with different advantages for the food industry. It includes the
living in Southern Hemisphere, where it allows the food to be produced at different times. The
food is then exported to the other countries with new technologies and improved machines. The
food industry is also the major employer with 1.68 million employees in 2010-2011. Here, the
agri-food chain provides the places for the consumers who can work on processing the food
items appropriately. The company focus on handling the retailers where the ability is to provide
better sales and control of the industry in an effective manner. The market leaders and major
competitors of Woolworths is Coles that is controlling 23% of the market.
General environment analysis
Political: Woolworths has been mainly for handling the retail outlets with handling the customer
needs through the different retail standards. Here, the political standards are mainly focusing on
the organizational performance and working with business entities. The shapes of business
environment is set with major growth opportunities that are mainly due to the political stability
with foreign investors working on handling trading activities and then other business-related
factors (Leong et al., 2018). The political disturbance leads to encouraging the disturbances that
leads to discouraging the business and investors from entering the market with a lower rate of
return and higher failure of business as well.
Economic: There are recession and high unemployment where the stronger impact comes with
financial performance based on the entities that leads to low sales and cause the decline of
company. The organization works with globalized financial standards that leads to issues in the
aspects of business as well. The company has been facing major loss at the time of

unemployment with 30000 people who have been working in the retail store. The sectors are
generally hit by the overall sales with working on business operations rather than a setback in
UK market.
Social Cultural: The customers focus on the business forms and standards with properly
working on the target market needs and the development. It focus on the fulfilment of the needs
and then handling the sustainability of profits. The recognition s through experiences with sales
and profitability working with fulfilling the customer needs. The emphasis is on the notion of
customer delight with handling contexts that are related to increased seeking retail experience for
shopping. This directly includes the wider range of products where the prices are determined for
affordability of customers (Hull, 2018). The social factor includes offering the lower pricings as
well with stores location that is considered a critical area for the stores to offer and work on
convenience.
Technological: There are different factors and forms of technologies that focus on enhancement
of the experiences in shopping and then handling the retail organization as well. RFID works on
retail stores with helping in proper management of inventory to keep the stock available for
different visitors of stores. The company needs to work with integrated service-oriented
architecture where the aim is also to handle the self-service check out arrangement that leads to
creating negative responses for larger customers. The focus is on how business needs to be
linked with the needs and preferences.
Environmental: The reflection is mainly through handling the business practices that are
including participation for different activities (Ogbeide, 2018). The aim is to reduce the problems
in environment with minimized carbon footprint and reduced wastage for the natural resources

like water. The participation is in the recycling activities with processing them through ethical
approaches to support the sustainability as well.
Legal: The policies of taxation works with handling management of employees. They are
important for basic legal framework that includes aspects related to the licensing requirements
(Morelli, 2018). The retail companies generally rely on regulations with accordance set for
country regulations.
Industry environment
Threat of Substitutes: The service orientation is set with understanding the needs of customer
rather than buying. This includes the increased cost of switching mainly for the customers as
well.
Rivalry Among Competitors: The rivalry is about the decreased overall profitability in industry
where the operations are determined with sustainable differentiation, with building scales for
better competition. The collaboration is done with the competitors to increase market size rather
than competing with the other smaller markets.
Bargaining Power of Suppliers: This includes the building of supply chain where the focus is
on product designing through use of different materials. Hence, if the price go high for one then
the company can easily shift to the other. There are developing dedicated suppliers where the
business depends on firm (Schmidt et al., 2017). The scenario is based on how third-party
manufacturers are less bargaining when compared to Walmart and Nike.
Bargaining Power of Buyers: The building of the larger customer base that leads to reducing
the bargaining power. It also provides the opportunity for the firm to streamline the sales and
then work with process of production (Schmidt et al., 2017). The innovation is about how

customers tend to seek for discounts and offerings with new products that limits the bargaining
power of buyers.
Threat of New Entrants: The innovation of new products and services includes bringing new
consumers with giving old customers to buy Woolworths Limited Product. It includes building
of economies of scale with lowering the fixed costs per unit. The building of capacities include
research and development, where new entrants are likely to enter the dynamic industry.
Competitive environment
The competitiveness is based on focusing over increased timely results of the poor consumers.
Here, the rivalry is about the American retailer Coles with middle management that is considered
to be competitive.
The capabilities are determined through retail brands where the supermarkets generally focus on
the promotions and has social media engagement tool. The capability is about how Woolworths
work on promotional brands with advertisements, and sponsorship. They tend to seek growth
with strategic patterns and the models with emerging economic forms (Christ et al., 2017).
The threats are related to increased material costs which comes from food and non-food
standards. The impact is on the profitable standards and then work on recessions determined for
economic forms which includes the food and the non-food products. The impact is on impacting
the profitable standards where there are recessions related to hindering the growing strategy with
stores that are opening at a larger pace.
Opportunities and threats
The opportunities are determined for Woolworths where the focus is on handling the
governmental standards and different technologies. The handling of free trading agreements and

then matching with the performance of system is important so that the customers are able to meet
with the online channels along with handling the needs with use of big data analytics. The new
trends include how the behavior of consumer is determined with opportunities determined for the
revenue streams and then handling the diversification of product categories. The economic
standards work with increased spending on customer with slow growing industrial rates
(MacLean et al, 2017).
The threats are about that there are no regular supplies, but certain innovation is set with higher
standards of profitability. The strength is determined about local contribution with threats related
to higher margins. There is a major shortage in the workforce related to higher margins set for
local distributors. The shortage is about handling the threats set for handling Woolworths
marketing. There are limitations for the lower product quality where the emerging markets are
determined to handle the income in the market.
Part 2
(Internal analysis and proposal)
The analysis based on the strength and weakness which includes resources that works on
competitive advantage. For Woolworth, the focus is on handling the system that could handle the
vulnerability standards as well.
The firm’s resources, tangible and intangible
The internal environment includes the different potential sources with competitive advantage.
here, the poor retail performance in 2011 led to the major problems related to their business
model to assess opportunities (Mehregany, 2018). Here, the internal analysis includes new

markets with vulnerabilities for different concepts and parts of Woolworths internal
environment.
Resources: Woolworths operations of 3000 stores has been based on handling the tangible and
the intangible resources. It includes the proper management with effectively handling the human
resources. There have been wider ranges of products and the innovation skills that are well
designed with logistics management, and stronger image brands. They are aligned with
management and other stronger integrated business relationship.
The capabilities are determined for the skills of organizations that includes resources with
productive use. In 1924, Woolworths is focusing on handling the capability of right people with
positioning for right set of resources. The partnership is defined through the alliance
management with working towards the expertise and the growth of infrastructure as well.
Capabilities Identification
Brand Reputation: The highlights about customer positive experiences which includes
the proper coordination related to putting the use for different production methods.
Woolworths need to work on focusing over the business in effective manner and right
positioning as well (Abhayawansa et al., 2018).
Supply Chain Management: Here, the focus is also on determining the management of
resources that is important with proper specialization and staggering process.
Top Management: Woolworths focuses on how the products are determined for the
consumers who work with different types of competency factors. Woolworths has been
handling a better quality with improving the customer demands and differentiation of

project levels. The economic standards are then set to match the information which is
valuable at a higher level.
Core competency analysis
Significant Value: This is for handling and controlling the distribution where the effective
supply chain management will lead to focus on requirements of customer.
Allowing Increase or Dominant Marketing Share: The top management needs to determine
about the higher growth products than the other levels which are projected.
Difficulty for the imitation of competitors: for this, there is a need to properly coordinate with
the Fresh Food advertisements that includes differentiation of products from the competitors.
Providing Competitive Advantage: The higher satisfaction level with working on the
requirements and the strangle quality needs for proper assessment (Bansback et al., 2017).
Propose a suitable information system solution
SAP is the best solution for Woolworths which can help the vendors to focus on the enterprise
resource planning. It is related to handling the customers who are working on the running of
business processes. The accounting standards, sales, production with human resources and
finance. The integration ensures about the flow of information with SAP handling the
enforcement of financial and legal controls. SAP works on focusing on larger enterprise
architecture with cloud computing options with utilities and other insurance factors. The bundle
applications help in providing integration for the business processes and then focus on industrial
focused functionality. SAP ERP works on handling the system standards with product lifecycle
management with supply chain management that leads to reduce the complexity in the system as

well. The system of SAP modules tends to encompass with the next and a better technology
which includes Internet of Things, machine learning and big data that is mainly for handling the
advancement of analytics. The company needs to work on handling the acquisition strategy with
filling the technology gaps set with contingent labor and services. The SAP information forms
include not-for-profit groups with designing to help the education members to create
involvement of customer with providing better opportunities of network. SAP has been able to
work on the applications with focusing on customer requirements with two tier applications.
Evaluation of Proposed System and Recommendation
SAP works with handling different measures based on the ability to grant complete access for the
system. It includes handling the security measures where the problems are related to the duty
defined for segregation and then preventing the performances of the auditing functions. The
reviews are determined for the user accounts with cross checking on the accessed matrix with
ensuring about the working on payment requests as well. The data integrity issues can easily be
mapped through integration and proper interaction set for user customization and creating
programs for auditing standards as well.
Conclusion
Woolworths has been growing with proper testing and production and attracting more customers
as well, through their business model. The company has been able to bring value and
convenience for the customers at a greater level with planning about the end-to-end products
with system excellence which is determined through how the people and the employees are able
to work with enhanced experience of shopping. It also includes description of standard with