Strategic Management: A Woolworths SWOT Analysis Case Study

This case study provides a strategic analysis of Woolworths, a major supermarket chain in Australia, using the SWOT framework. It begins with an overview of the company's background, organizational structure, mission, and vision. The SWOT analysis identifies key internal strengths and weaknesses, such as its market leadership and brand image, alongside external opportunities and threats, including market competition and changing consumer preferences. The analysis is followed by recommendations for Woolworths to leverage its strengths, address weaknesses, capitalize on opportunities, and mitigate threats through cost leadership, product development, and market development strategies. The report concludes that Woolworths has significant potential for growth and increased profitability by implementing these strategic recommendations. Desklib provides students access to similar solved assignments and past papers.

Woolworths

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Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Overview of the company..........................................................................................................2
Organisation structure................................................................................................................3
SWOT Analysis.........................................................................................................................3
Recommendation........................................................................................................................7
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................8
References................................................................................................................................10

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Introduction
Strategic Management is the process of continuous planning, monitoring and analysing the
environment of the organisation. It is essential for the organisation to adopt the strategies to
attain its objective (Morden, 2016). It is required for the company to evaluate the
environment before implementing the strategies. There are large number of business tools
that are used to identify the factors which affect the growth of the organisation such as
PESTLE and SOWT Analysis. SWOT Analysis is used to determine the internal factor which
affects the growth of the company (Dodgson, 2018). The main purpose of this report is to
understand the strategic management. In this report, Woolworths has been selected to identify
the external and internal factors that affect its growth.
At the beginning of the report, the organisation structure will be analysed. After that, the
analysis has been done on the organisation with the help of SWOT Analysis. The
recommendation will be mentioned in order to overcome the issues and attain the objective at
the end of the report.
Overview of the company
Woolworth’s supermarket is a grocery store in Darwin, Australia. It was founded in the year
1924. It offers the groceries product such as vegetables, fruit, meat and packaged food but it
also delivered the services of magazines, health & beauty products, stationery items,
household products, DVDs, pet and baby supplies (Woolworths Group, 2018). The company
also operates in online market with the name of “Home Shop”. It delivers the services of
home shop. Woolworth’s stores began the business by offering the variety of goods to
consumers at the cheapest prices with the guarantee of money back. The mission statement of

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the organisation is to deliver the quality of product to consumers and the vision statement is
to be one of the world’s most responsible and loyal retailer (Woolworths, 2018a).
Organisation structure
Organisation structure is a system that outlines the activities that are directed in order to
achieve the goal of an organisation (Noe, Hollenbeck, Gerhart, and Wright, 2017). The
organisation is well organised with effective management structure.
(Source: Woolworths, 2018b)
Woolworths currently operates in 1000 stores across the Australia in which 976 are
supermarkets and other19 convenience stores. It is currently operated in Darwin, Australia. It
has the stores in different location such as South Australia, North Australia, New Zealand,
Queensland, New South Wales, and Victoria (Ramanadham, 2019)
SWOT Analysis

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Strength
 It has been seen that the two leading
companies are operating together
such as Woolworths and Coles. 80%
of market share is grabbed by the
company that is why; it is considered
as leadership of the market. The threat
of competition is reduces as the
organisation is considered as the
market leader (IBIS World, 2018).
 Woolworths was established in 1924
which reflects that the organisation
have large number of experience in
the market. The consumer prefers the
organisation product as it have high
experience in the market.
 It is observed that the organisation
continuously track their customer
with the help of business tool. The
company analyse the demand
consumers in order to attract them
towards the services of the
Weaknesses
 It has been evaluated that the
supermarket of Australia has high
competition. The companies set the
low prices as compare to the other
competitors in order to beat each
other.
 It is observed that the company
target the multi number of
segments with the existing
products. It creates the confusion
for the confusion that the
organisation really provides the
quality of and products as it
provides the large number of goods
(Grant, 2016).
 The company is presented in the
limited areas as compare to its

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organisation. The company track the
shopping bills of customer to ensure
that their cupboards are always filled
with the fast moving products.
 It has been analysed that the
organisation have high brand
image in the market. It is a strong
strength for the organisation as it
helps to gain the competitive
advantage in the market (Namada,
2018).
 It has been seen that the
organisation is considered to have
the excellent staff. It have diverse
group of people which helps to
attain the objective with the
innovative ideas (Bull, et. al, 2016).
competitors. It is a main weakness of
the company but is observed that it
has the opportunity to expand the
business but that it operates in the
limited areas.
Opportunity
 As discussed above, it has been seen
Threat
 As discusses above, the market have

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that the organisation have the
opportunity to expand the business at
the large scale.
 The company have high brand
image in the market that is why; it
has the opportunity to expand the
business by selling the product in
the online market. The demand of
online market is increases day by
day which help the organisation to
achieve the success in the market
(David, and David, 2016).
 The company also has the
opportunity to merge with the
other company in order to grab the
high market share in the market.
Each and every organisation is
interested to enter the market as it
has the high brand image in the
market. It is beneficial for the
company to merge with the popular
company so that it can easily grab
the large amount of market share
high competition. It is a biggest threat
for the company because there are
large number of competitor who
provides the similar nature of
products in the market such as Tesco,
Walmart, Kroger, Amazon, Aldi,
Safeway and Metro (Owler, 2018).
 It has been seen that the consumer are
getting conscious towards their
health. It is required for the company
to provide the organic and chemical
free products in order to attract the
consumers. The demand of the
consumers is change towards the
healthy product that is why, the
organisation have the high threat of
unhealthy products (Schaltegger, and
Wagner, 2017).

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(Phadermrod, Crowder, and Wills,
2019).
 The organisation can easily grab
the market share by promoting
their products in the market
through the Social Media, and
Mobile application. It has been
evaluated that the company has an
opportunity to expand the business
by attracting the large number of
consumers (Madsen, and Walker,
2015).
Recommendation
From the above analysis, it has been recommended that the organisation have the threat and
weakness that can be reduces by adopting the different strategies. The strategies are as
follows:
Cost leadership strategy
As discussed above, the company face the issue of price war. It is required for the
organisation to set the appropriate price so that it can easily gain the competitive advantage.

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Cost leadership strategy is a right decision for the organisation in the terms of cost and profit.
The company has to reduce the cost of production in order to set the low prices of the product
(Ansoff, Kipley, Lewis, Helm-Stevens, and Ansoff, 2019).
Product Development strategy
Woolworths operates in the multi number of segments with the existing products in order to
attract the customers. It has been seen that the demand of the consumers is getting change
with the passage of time. It is necessary for the organisation to offers the different product as
compare to the competitors in the market in order to attract the large number of consumers.
Differentiation of product satisfies the demand of the consumers and also helps to gain the
competitive advantage (Schawel and Billing, 2018).
Market Development strategy
As per the analysis, the company has the opportunity to expand the business at the
international level (West, Ford, and Ibrahim, 2015). It is necessary to adopt this strategy in
order to expand the business. This strategy defines the entrance of the organisation in new
market with the new product. The company is operating in the limited area that is why; it is
recommended that it has an opportunity to adopt the market development strategy for the
expansion of the business at the international level (Wensley, 2016).
Conclusion
At the end of the report, it has been concluded that the organisation has high scope to expand
the business at the international level. The quality of services provided by the company to
consumers reflects that it is successful work as per its mission and vision statement. As per
the analysis, it has been evaluated that the company has high brand image in the market but it
is observed that it face the issue of high competition in the market. The company is operated

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in the limited area that is why it has the face the issues. It is recommended that the company
has the opportunity to grab the high market share by expanding the business. The company
has to adopt the cost leadership strategy, product development and market development
strategy in order to gain the objective. Woolworths has high scope to achieve the success and
earns the profit in the market.

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References
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Implanting strategic management. Springer.
Bull, J.W., Jobstvogt, N., Böhnke-Henrichs, A., Mascarenhas, A., Sitas, N., Baulcomb,
C., Lambini, C.K., Rawlins, M., Baral, H., Zähringer, J. and Carter-Silk, E. (2016)
Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats: A SWOT analysis of the ecosystem
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Grant, R.M. (2016) Contemporary strategy analysis: Text and cases edition. John Wiley
& Sons.
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Namada, J.M. (2018) Organizational learning and competitive advantage. In Handbook of
Research on Knowledge Management for Contemporary Business Environments (pp. 86-
104). IGI Global.

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Noe, R.A., Hollenbeck, J.R., Gerhart, B. and Wright, P.M. (2017) Human resource
management: Gaining a competitive advantage. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill
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Owler. (2018) Woolworths's Competitors, Revenue, Number of Employees, Funding and
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Woolworths Group. (2018) About us. [online] Available from:
https://www.woolworthsgroup.com.au/page/about-us [Accessed 25/3/12].
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[Accessed 25/3/12].

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