Strategic Management of Woolworths: A Big Data Case Study Analysis

This case study report examines the strategic management of Woolworths, a leading Australian retail and leisure service provider, focusing on the integration of big data analytics to enhance customer retention and address market competition. The report begins by analyzing the growth of big data and the need for scalable processing networks, followed by a discussion of big data's fundamental characteristics. It then presents a case study of Woolworths, highlighting the challenges posed by competitors and the importance of strategic management. The key business initiative identified is the enhancement of customer retention through the implementation of big data analytics, which enables a deeper understanding of customer demand and personalized services. The report supports this initiative by emphasizing the benefits of customer-centered, strategic, and operational decisions powered by big data. The conclusion recommends that Woolworths adopt strategic management with big data analytics to remain competitive, retain customers, and deliver services tailored to their needs. The analysis covers market competition, online grocery market share, and the strategic importance of data-driven decision-making.

Running head: STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT OF WOOLWORTHS
Strategic Management of Woolworths
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Growth of big data in scalable processing network...............................................................2
Fundamental characteristics of big data.................................................................................3
Case Study Report about strategic management of Woolworths...........................................4
Key business initiative for the organization to enhance customer retention..........................5
Supporting the targeted business initiative............................................................................6
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................7
References..................................................................................................................................8

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Introduction
The concept of strategic management has become an integral part of every business in
recent times. Every business needs to succeed in the market and for that it is required that
strategic management is adopted to thrive in the competitive environment. Business
organisations are more focusing on their respective strategic plans for businesses irrespective
of business size or the industry. Organizations are serving the customers and trying to
enhance their services what having in enhance amount of revenue. The major priorities for
the business companies also are elevated by strategic management since the strategy happens
to push the business companies towards their goals [1]. Woolworths is a renowned
Organisation in Australia that mostly deals with retail and leisure integrated services. Over
the past several years, the organisation has been facing competition from existing
organizations as well as new organisations in the market. The critical evaluation of the
framework of strategic management would be discussed in this particular report so that a
critical evaluation of the environment in Woolworths can be analysed to discuss the best
possible way of implementing the Framework model so that the organisation can operate with
the utilisation of strategic management for meeting their goals and vision. This would include
the growth of big data hand in scalable processing networks for business, the fundamental
characteristics of big data in strategic management, the brief about strategic management of
Woolworths, the key business for the organisation for enhancing customer retention and also
supporting the talented business initiative
Growth of big data in scalable processing network
Big Data Analytics is a recent technological advancement that has taken the business
by storm with features and benefits provided to every organisation consisting of the business
data generated every day. It is also lead to collection of huge data from distinctive domains of

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business organisations belonging from both technical and non-technical sectors. Big data has
a broader impact which has transformed the society and also continues to attract attention
from both public and technological experts [2]. Utilisation of such a vast volume of data from
different sources is currently growing at fast level that it has been undetectable about the
further advancement and scope of big data.
Big data is unstructured and it has a requirement of a much more analysed form of
real time data detection which would provide unique characteristics compared to the
traditional form of collection of data. Several researchers have been conducted over the idea
of an overall picture of big data for non-technical people. This research has not just only
found out that big data provides several benefits to an organisation but it also has challenges
for both technical and nontechnical perspective [6]. A systematic Framework is required with
sequential module so that the utilisation of big data within an organisation follows a scalable
processing network. This is to say that a proper scalable Big Data Analytics implementation
within an organisation is only possible when both the benefits and the demerits of the
technology is understood [3]. With this it would be easier to understand the mitigation
strategies that should be e acquired before the implementation of big data given the risk that
could occur in non-technical business perspective after implementation. Big data and its
utilisation has growth in the market but only when a proper utilization realising both the
advantages and disadvantages of the Technology.
Fundamental characteristics of big data
Before implementing Big Data Analytics within an organisation it is required that the
characteristics of big data is realised by an organisation. This is because as there has been
success stories about the implementation of big data, there has been several information about
big data challenges in the recent times compromising the in valuable data of the organisations
and their reputation [5]. Data set for big data is not only large but they have their separate

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challenges for capturing, processing and managing the set of data. Relational data bases have
set of data are structured in nature whereas the data collected for big data analysis has a
characteristic that can be structured, semi structured or unstructured if they are collected from
different sources and if the data sets are of different sizes. The characteristics of big data
needs to be analysed because it needs to be organised as per the understanding of people from
non-technical background as well. The utilisation of Big Data Analytics within the
organisation is only done when the decision making executive body within an organisation
decides [7]. This executive body might be or might not be belonging from technical
background. This is why the following characteristics of big data needs to be justified before
it is implemented within an organisation:
Volume: The volume of big data is referring to the size of huge amount of data that
has a chance of excluding because of its size. The quantity of data includes information and
data from the entire computing world.
Velocity: The characteristic of velocity for big data refers to the speed of processing.
This characteristic features the speed of the data processing system [4].
Variety: This characteristic refers to the type of data within the Big Data Analytics
data set which raises the questions off the display data formats residing within the big data
set.
Case Study Report about strategic management of Woolworths
Woolworths is one of the leading retail and leisure service providers in Australia
which has seen a huge income of competition from other retail organisation. Digital
organisations were both existing and new organizations the market [8]. Competitiveness
within organisations coming from same industry is very common, as for it is for the
Australian retail sector. The market share of Woolworths group is one of the higher level of

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concentration. However this situation where Woolworths is at right now is ensuring a lot of
competition from the market. The competing organisations are already implementing several
different features within the operational system of the organisation. The new established
organizations already technologically advanced and the other competitive organisations are
also thinking about implementing technological advancements to the operations to remain
ahead in the market.
Figure 1: Market Competition Analysis
(Source: Govender 2017)
Key business initiative for the organization to enhance customer retention
The market competition is so vast and tough situation for Woolworths that they have
impending threats from both types of organisations in the Retail Industry. It is found that its
major competitors like Coles, are an already established organisation that is providing service

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to their customers with the help of online services. The Other technological advance new
organisations in the Retail Industry are already equipped with all sorts of technological
advanced systems [9]. To maintain the customer retention Woolworths also needs to develop
a strategic management system.
This is why Woolworths is also looking forward to develop a strategic management
system which would align the core business and the varied range of operations. Woolworths
has been only providing service through physical store and online facilities but with the
implementation of Big Data Analytics to the existing business structure has the potential of
much more customer retention and even gathering more customers.
Figure 2: Online Grocery Market share competition analysis

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(Source: Jie and Gengatharen 2019)
Supporting the targeted business initiative
Strategic management implemented within an organisation helps to co-ordinate and
integrate the different activities within the operations and functional areas within the
business. Through these activities, the business can actually achieve long-term organizational
objectives. For this it is required that the decision making system and Data Analytics are
conducted to the most appropriate level. Customer centred decisions, strategic decisions and
operational decisions are all improved powered by big data. The big data retail analytics
ensure that application software is changing the way that retailers used to manage the
business in the traditional times [10]. Harnessing the power of Big Data Analytics into to the
operations of Woolworths for a strategic management would analyse the use volume of
diverse data for the company and make them have a deeper understanding of the customer
demand. The retention of customers can be guarded with this procedure as the organisation
would always have to offer the best understanding of services according to the customer
demand.
Conclusion
Therefore it can be said that Woolworths is a huge Organisation in Australia
specialising in retail services having a huge customer base. However in the latest time the
organisation has been offered with competition some other organisations, both existing and
new. These organisations have been operating in different ways compared to Woolworths,
most significantly the new organizations are utilising technological advancements for the
business operations. Therefore, Woolworths must retain its traditional form of
competitiveness within the market against all the competing organisations with the changes
implemented within the traditional systems. It is recommended that other than the online

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services that Woolworths has already taken up, it is time for the organisation to implement
strategic management of the operations with the utilisation of Big Data Analytics to
understand what exactly the customer needs. This can be realised with several examples of
successful business enhancement in the long run by different organisations and this is why
the same recommendation is made for Woolworths so that the highly competitive retail sector
would also have a strong competitor with Woolworths. Not just that, Woolworths would also
retain their customers by analysing the daily business data to deliver exactly according to the
needs of the customer.

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References
[1] H.A., Mahesar, N.I., Chaudhry, and U., Tariq, INTEGRATING CUSTOMER
RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT WITH BIG DATA ANALYTICS IN RETAIL
STORES: A CASE OF HYPER-STAR AND METRO. Journal of Business
Strategies, 11(2), 2017, pp.141-158.
[2] G., Santoro, F., Fiano, B., Bertoldi, and F., Ciampi, Big data for business management in
the retail industry. Management Decision, 2018.
[3] M.J., Mazzei, and D., Noble, Big data dreams: A framework for corporate
strategy. Business Horizons, 60(3), 2017, pp.405-414.
[4] N., Côrte-Real, T., Oliveira, and P., Ruivo, Assessing business value of Big Data
Analytics in European firms. Journal of Business Research, 70, 2017, pp.379-390.
[5] S.K., Singh, and M., Del Giudice, Big data analytics, dynamic capabilities and firm
performance. Management Decision, 2019.
[6] M., Naidoo, and A., Gasparatos, Corporate Environmental Sustainability in the retail
sector: Drivers, strategies and performance measurement. Journal of Cleaner
Production, 203, 2018, pp.125-142.
[7] S., Govender, How social media can be used to engage and interact with consumers in
the retail industry: an analysis on Woolworths' online strategies (Doctoral dissertation,
The IIE), 2017.
[8] A., Singh, N., Shukla, and N., Mishra, Social media data analytics to improve supply
chain management in food industries. Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and
Transportation Review, 114, 2018, pp.398-415.
[9] F., Jie, and D., Gengatharen, Australian food retail supply chain analysis. Business
Process Management Journal, 2019.

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[10] M., Naidoo, and A., Gasparatos, Corporate Environmental Sustainability in the retail
sector: Drivers, strategies and performance measurement. Journal of Cleaner
Production, 203, 2018, pp.125-142.