Case Study: Marketing Strategies of Systeme U Retail Cooperative

This case study examines Systeme U, a French retail cooperative, analyzing its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats within the competitive retail landscape. The analysis delves into the company's strategic problem, which revolves around maintaining coordination, unity, and adherence to quality standards among its members. The study explores Systeme U's marketing strategies, including the use of social media and member engagement, and confronts these practices with relevant academic literature to clarify and predict the network's behavior. Recommendations are provided, focusing on SMART objectives, member satisfaction, and participative leadership to enhance the cooperative's market position and member relations. The study highlights key success factors, such as strategic focus, personnel management, and effective marketing, to ensure the continued success of Systeme U in the retail industry. This case study offers valuable insights into the challenges and strategies of a retail cooperative, providing a comprehensive overview of its marketing and operational approaches.

RUNNING HEAD: SYSTEME U
MARKETING

SYSTEME U 1
Contents
Step 1..........................................................................................................................................2
Step 2..........................................................................................................................................3
Step 3..........................................................................................................................................4
Step 4..........................................................................................................................................4
Step 5..........................................................................................................................................5
Step 6..........................................................................................................................................5
Bibliography...............................................................................................................................6

SYSTEME U 2
Step 1
Systeme U is a France based cooperative company formed in the year 1894. It forms the part
of retail industry and it has member strength of 800 independent hyper market and super
market. It has a total of 1559 stores in France. It has annual revenue of around $12 billion
(Zoominfo, 2020).
Figure 1: Systeme U
Source: (Arcadsoftware, 2020)
Strengths
1. In the year 2018, it has experienced a rise of 2.3% in turnover in its sale
(esmmagazine, 2019). It acts as strengths for the retail cooperation as it has improved
the overall profitability as well.
2. It is the sixth largest retail group in France. Thus, its strong market share of 10.7%
benefits in minimizing competition in the retail industry (Statista, 2020).
3. It is offering service for more than a century. Therefore, the cooperation has high
goodwill in the market. It has assisted the cooperation to easily attract new members.
4. It is experiencing fine growth and stability. The organic product of Systeme U is
experiencing a good growth (18.2%) (Internationalsupermarketnews, 2019).
Therefore, its business growth counted as its strength as it is improving the financial
position of the retail cooperation.

SYSTEME U 3
Figure 2: Market share
Source: (Arroyo, 2020)
Weakness
1. It has workforce strength of 63000. Its high dependence on the workforce acts as its
weakness. This is because it increases the labour cost and limits its annual financial
earnings (eurofresh, 2014).
Competitive advantage: Systeme U has high recognition in the France as it is offering
services for more than a century.
Step 2
Opportunity
1. The rising number of member acts as an opportunity for the retail cooperation. It will
enable the organization to improve its recognition in the market.

SYSTEME U 4
Threats
1. It is experiencing high competition from its rivals named ‘Carrefour’ as it also offers
similar products at attractive prices.
2. The population of France is price sensitive (Laska, 2017). It acts as a weakness as it
restricts the cooperative to increase its product price. Therefore, it limits its profit.
Key success factors
Systeme U should lay focus on specific factors to continue its business operations and
support independent cooperatives.
1. Strategic focus: It should lay high attention on planning and managing the rising
cooperative members.
2. Personnel: It should recruit highly skilled and motivated individuals as it minimizes
the cost incurred in training and development.
3. Marketing: It should offer timely response to its cooperative members. It aids in
maintaining and strengthening its relation with the members. This, in turn will raise
and improve the satisfaction level of its members and it allows in attracting new
cooperative members (Hasibuan & Dantes, 2012).
Step 3
Every organization differs in its interest, aims and objectives. Therefore, the key Strategic
problem of Systeme U is to maintain coordination, unity and to ensure that they adhere to the
quality standards and offer high quality products to the customers in a consistent manner.
Step 4
Systeme U should conduct an annual regular meeting with its members to gain detailed
information about their key interest and expectations from the Systeme U. The higher
authority of each member organization must attend the meeting to share their interest.
It should seek the help of marketers to promote its service in the competitive world. It should
opt for social media marketing as it is highly preferred for business promotion. Thus, IMC
should opt for Facebook as it is highly used social media networking site in France (Statista,

SYSTEME U 5
2020). It can also opt for YouTube as it also the second top used network and its usage has
also increased from the previous year (Statista, 2020).
Step 5
According to Ashforth and Reingen (2014) predicting the behavior of each retail members is
not an easy task. The retail Cooperative should lay attention to maintain the interest of its
members to offer them support. The Systeme U should avail the use of questionnaire to gain
quality response from its members. Additionally, it should lay high emphasis on developing
positive interpersonal relation with the members. It gave rise to informal communication and
assists in easily predicting their behavior (Ashforth & Reingen, 2014).
Step 6
1. Systeme U should set SMART objectives for its cooperative members as it will help
in timely fulfillment of the set objectives (Bjerke & Renger, 2017).
2. It should lay emphasis in maintaining the satisfaction level of its cooperative
members. It aids in raising positive word of mouth in the competitive world. It will
aid the Systeme U in maintaining its reputation and recognition in the market and
increasing its number of members.
3. It should rely on participative leader style as it involves the collaboration of members.
It will assists in seeking innovative and creative ideas from its cooperative member
(Lam et al., 2015).

SYSTEME U 6
Bibliography
Arcadsoftware, 2020. System U cuts application deployment costs by 40%. [Online]
Available at: https://arcadsoftware.com/resource-items/case-study-system-u-drops-software/
[Accessed 2020].
Arroyo, A., 2020. Grocery market share in France 2019. [Online] Available at:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/535415/grocery-market-share-france/ [Accessed 2020].
Ashforth, B.E. & Reingen, P.H., 2014. Functions of dysfunction: Managing the dynamics of
an organizational duality in a natural food cooperative. Administrative Science Quarterly,
59(3).
Bjerke, M.B. & Renger, R., 2017. Being smart about writing SMART objectives. Evaluation
and program planning, 61.
esmmagazine, 2019. esmmagazine. [Online] Available at:
https://www.esmmagazine.com/retail/frances-systeme-u-sees-turnover-2-3-full-year-2018-
70281 [Accessed 2020].
eurofresh, 2014. Système U attracts customers through proximity and freshness. [Online]
Available at: https://www.eurofresh-distribution.com/news/syst%C3%A8me-u-attracts-
customers-through-proximity-and-freshness [Accessed 2020].
Hasibuan, Z.A. & Dantes, G.R., 2012. Priority of key success factors (KSFS) on enterprise
resource planning (ERP) system implementation life cycle. Journal of Enterprise Resource
Planning Studies.
Internationalsupermarketnews, 2019. System U revenues and market share progress. [Online]
Available at: https://www.internationalsupermarketnews.com/system-u-revenues-and-market-
share-progress/ [Accessed 2020].
Lam, C.K., Huang, X. & Chan, S.C., 2015. The threshold effect of participative leadership
and the role of leader information sharing. Academy of Management Journal, 58(3).
Laska, A., 2017. Stressed economy means high price sensitivity among UK shoppers,
increasing pressure on retailers. [Online] Available at: https://www.revionics.com/stressed-

SYSTEME U 7
economy-means-high-price-sensitivity-among-uk-shoppers-increasing-pressure-retailers/
[Accessed 2020].
Statista, 2020. Most daily viewed social networks in France 2018-2019. [Online] Available
at: https://www.statista.com/statistics/866863/penetration-rate-social-networks-france-
platform/ [Accessed 21 August 2019].
Zoominfo, 2020. Système U. [Online] Available at:
https://www.zoominfo.com/c/systeme-u/350830632 [Accessed 2020].