Richmond University: Waitrose Strategic Marketing Plan Analysis Report

This report provides a comprehensive strategic marketing analysis of Waitrose, a British supermarket chain. It begins with an introduction to business management and marketing, emphasizing the importance of strategic marketing plans. The main body critically assesses Waitrose's corporate and business strategic objectives, including its vision, mission, and objectives, such as maximizing profit and expanding its organic range. The report then delves into relevant marketing theory, specifically the 7 Ps of the marketing mix (Product, Promotion, Price, Place, People, Process, Physical Evidence) and the STP model (Segmentation, Targeting, and Positioning), illustrating how Waitrose applies these concepts. The analysis includes Waitrose's multi-segmentation strategy, targeting efforts, and positioning in the market. The conclusion summarizes the key findings, highlighting the role of marketing in building brand reputation and driving business success. The report is well-structured with an introduction, main body, conclusion, and references, offering a detailed overview of Waitrose's marketing strategies.

Strategic Marketing
Planning

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................2
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................2
Using an SME organisation of your choice, in agreement with your module tutor, critically
Assess the corporate and business strategic objectives of that organisation. Use relevant
marketing theory to illustrate your answer.............................................................................2
Marketing Theory...................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
Business Management consist various components and it's primary component is known as
marketing. It is the collection of all those activities which a company undertake or perform to
promote the sells of a product, service or a good. It's main purpose is to attract the customers and
make relations with them by selling product. And the written document which contain all
detailed information of action which are going to perform in marketing is known as marketing
plan and it is a part of Strategic Marketing plan. It can be said that, Strategic Marketing Plan set
a path for employees to walk for achieving desired goals and objectives. This report include the
Mission, vision and objectives with the overview of Waitrose. And at last, it explains the market
theory which include 7 P's of Marketing Mix and STP model.
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MAIN BODY
TASK 1
Using an SME organisation of your choice, in agreement with your module tutor, critically
Assess the corporate and business strategic objectives of that organisation. Use relevant
marketing theory to illustrate your answer.
Overview of Organisation
Waitrose is a British supermarket which was founded by Wallace Waite, Arthur Rose and
David Taylor in 1904. It was founded as Waite, Rose & Taylor, later on in 1908, it become
Waitrose Ltd. It's headquarter is in Bracknell, Berkshire and Victoria, London, United Kingdom.
In 1928, King George awarded Waitrose with a Royal Warrant to supply groceries and cleaning
material (Alizadeh 2019). After a couple of years, it become the first British supermarket for
selling Sushi. Currently Waitrose is working as a British Supermarket Chain with a partnership
named John-Lewis Partnership and almost 332 shops are doing operations in all over the United
Kingdom. It is offering groceries, entertaining, flower & hampers, cellar, garden and pet. For
beating the competition, they started new idea that people can do order online and get goods
deliver at their home free of cost.
Corporative objectives are those objectives of organisations which are set or decided by
the top level of management. It is important for improving the performance of strategic planning.
These objectives are decided by taking in mind “Business as a whole”. For meeting the decided
goals and targets of any business organisation, it is necessary to make various decisions and
actions are undertaken by the mangers, those decisions and actions which are undertaken for the
purpose of achieving corporate goals is known as Business strategies. And corporate strategy is a
continuous process which defines the long term vision, set by the organisation clearly. It’s main
focus is on increasing the equity by applying constant efforts for engaging investors in trusting
the company with their money. Below mentioned is the Vision, Mission and Objective of
Waitrose.
Vision of Organisation
. Vision of any organisation states that what the organisation wants to achieve. It can also
be said that vision make communicate the organisation’s values and commitments for achieving
their goals (Nguyen and et. al. 2018). Waitrose’s vision is Dominate on product, differentiate
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services from others, tacking consumer perceptions etc. They are focusing mainly on identifying
the consumer perceptions, do something new from others for making themselves as a brand.
Mission of Organisation
Mission of any organisation gives the answer to the question that why an organisation is
existing, overall goal of organisation etc. Waitrose’s mission is to maintain the interest of their
stakeholders, members, customers, etc. They are distributing profit, knowledge and power so that
they can do the same and achieve missions of organisation.
Objectives of organisation
Before making any planning and making decisions, management have to set the goals and
objectives of every organisation (Baporikar 2020). Then only all the employees will work
together to reach at the objectives. Objectives of Waitrose are given below:
Maximising profit, developing their organic range, developing the links with local communities
or customer or suppliers, motivating staff, expansion of their organisation etc.
Marketing Theory
7 P’s of Marketing Mix
It is a tool of marketing strategy which is used to determining a product or brands
offering. This model was introduced by E. Jerome McCarthy which was published in 1960.
Below mentioned are the 7 P’s of marketing mix: Product- This factor state that the product which is offered by the organisation should
fulfil the need of people. The product should be as per the requirement and expections of
customers.
Promotion- It states that the proper tools of communications are selected to communicate the
customer about the new product (Kidelo 2019). It can be advertising, personal selling, sales
promotion etc. Price- It refers to the pricing of product. Simply it states that the right product should be
provided at right price. Place- It states that the company should make available products on various place so that
customer can reach easily. People- Having the right people in the organisation is the another important aspect of
marketing mix. Company should have good staff members who can lead in the success of
organisation.
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 Process- It effects a lot to the customer. Process implies that how the service is providing
to them because the customers are paying only for the services. Physical Evidence- Stores are the biggest physical evidence of the retail companies.
Generally people trust on the physical evidence that’s why it plays an important role.
STP marketing: Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning model
STP marketing is a composition of Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning. It is a
model of three step which helps the organisation to know about the market which is suitable for a
certain product, target audience and creating marketing mix (David and et. al., 2017).
Waitrose is following this tool of marketing strategy by providing good products at good
prices on various stores as well as making available of products online to reach at maximum
number of customers.
 Segmentation:
It means to create various groups and divisions of customers or audience on various
bases, it can be age, gender, region, habits, attitude, income etc. There are four important type of
audience segmentation which are as given below:
1. Geographic Segmentation- It states the division of audience on the basis of country,
region, state, province etc.
2. Demographic Segmentation- This type of segmentation states the division of audience on
the basis of their age, gender, educational level, occupation etc.
3. Behavioural Segmentation- It is the process of dividing the complete audience on the
basis of interaction between the business and customer i.e. what the customer is buying,
how often they are buying, loyalty of customer etc.
4. Psycho graphic Segmentation- It state the division of customers or audience on the basis
of their potential i.e. hobbies, activities, opinions, lifestyle of customer etc.
Through a report, it was found that Waitrose is a huge brand, it is not an easy task for them to
follow any single segmentation strategy (Fernandes 2019). That’s why they are following multi-
segmentation strategy to attract and win almost all the customers. Waitrose is providing winter
food or beverages in UK as compared to UAE because UK hits by extreme winters and UAE
faces less winters as compared to UK. Along with this company is dividing there customers on
the basis of education. It means, new generation is using various social sites, so company is
using Facebook, twitter, Linkedin etc for communicating with them. Waitrose is continuously
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analysing the purchasing pattern of customers for doing new innovation according to their need.
In this way, it is cleared that Waitrose is using multi-segmentation strategy for dividing their
customers.
 Targeting:
Second step in STP analysis is targeting. It is totally depend on the customers not on the
product. At this level, company have to identify or select the segments made in previous step to
determining their targeted customers, company have to identify the people or public who are
really interested in buying their product (Forbes 2019). Every organisation make focus on active
growth, making organisation more profitable and creating plan of low cost of acquisition. While
determining about their potential customers, they have to analyse the size of all segment (larger
segment will provide future growth), people of which segment have willingness to buy their
product and to analysing about the difficulties which are coming while reaching the customers
with the organisation’s market effort.
Waitrose made a tagline to differentiate themselves from others i.e. “quality product,
honestly priced”. They also invested a lots of amount in increasing the knowledge of customer
experience. They adopt the policy of adding some values to their customers so that the customer
attract towards them and don’t go anywhere else. Also they grow their services and hospitality
by setting concierge style dry cleaning and flower wrapping in their stores, so that they can add
value benefit to their customers. They are also providing some extra facilities like minicab
phones, free delivery etc for making shopping easier and interesting for customers.
 Positioning:
After setting or identifying the target market or customers, company have to give position
to their product in the market. At this step, every organisation have to make under stable to
customer that how the certain product is different from others product of competitors (Keller
2019). There are lots of substitutes are available in the market for a single product, explain the
difference between those substitutes product and explaining the point’s how their product is
different from others product. Right positioning of product result in maximising customers,
organisation’s profit, brand loyalty power etc.
Waitrose is differentiating itself from others by providing various services like dry
cleaning, gift wrapping, free delivery etc. They are also offering best quality product with honest
prices as there is a huge war in the same industry.
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CONCLUSION
From the above report it is concluded that, in every organisation, marketing plays an
important role in building brand and to make reputation in the market. It’s main objectives is to
attract the customers by using various methods and to close the sale, which helps in expanding
business and making more profitable organisation. Furthermore, it is analysed that Waitrose a
supermarket is following all marketing theories to dominating on product, making organisation
more profitable. This company is not only focusing on profit maximisation, it also maintain the
interest and relations with various parties like customers, suppliers, stakeholders etc.
REFERENCES
Books and journal
Alizadeh, P. and Mohammadi, H., 2019. Impact of Strategic Planning on Profitability of
Mashhad Food Industry Companies. Journal of Development & Evolution
Mnagement, 1397(special issue), pp.23-31.
Baporikar, N., 2020. IT strategic planning through CSF approach in modern organizations.
In Start-Ups and SMEs: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications (pp. 1329-
1348). IGI Global.
David and et. al.,2017. The Integration of Marketing Concepts in Strategic-Management
Courses: An Empirical Analysis. SAM Advanced Management Journal
(07497075), 82(1).
Fernandes, A.M.V., 2019. Megaevents and Tourism in Rio de Janeiro: a look at a Strategic
Planning and the promotion of the image of the city. Caderno Virtual de Turismo, 19(1),
pp.40-56.
Forbes, A., 2019. Strategic planning for parasite control on livestock farms. Livestock, 24(2),
pp.82-87.
Keller, K.L. and Brexendorf, T.O., 2019. Strategic Brand Management Process. In Handbuch
Markenführung (pp. 155-175). Springer Gabler, Wiesbaden.
Kidelo, P., 2019. Strategic planning as a tool for business survival. International Journal of
Advanced Research in Management and Social Sciences, 8(3), pp.11-26.
Nguyen and et. al., 2018. Young consumers’ green purchase behaviour in an emerging
market. Journal of Strategic Marketing, 26(7), pp.583-600.
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