Report on Formal Strategic Planning Process for Waitrose Operations

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of strategic planning within Waitrose, evaluating the appropriateness of formal processes for its operating environment. It explores factors influencing strategic decisions, including political, economic, social, legal, and technological aspects. The report details the formal strategic planning process, its advantages, and limitations, while also recommending methods for determining departmental and functional objectives to achieve the proposed strategy. Furthermore, it addresses the impact of strategy-making in a volatile and turbulent environment, offering insights into implementation challenges and the importance of adapting to change. The analysis includes an assessment of Waitrose's mission, objectives, situation analysis, and strategy formulation, providing a practical guide to strategic management within the organization.

Wait rose

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
1. Assessing whether formal strategic planning process is appropriate for operating
environment of Waitrose or not..................................................................................................3
2. Factors affecting operating environment and strategic planning............................................6
3. Reason formal strategic planning is appropriate for Waitrose................................................7
4. Recommending the way an enterprise can determine departmental/ functional objective to
achieve the proposed strategy.....................................................................................................8
5. The impact of strategy making in an increasingly volatile and turbulent environment.......10
CONCLUSION .............................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................13

INTRODUCTION
Formal strategic planning is a process of organisations, which defines their strategy,
directions and decision-making on allocating resources to engage this formal strategic planning.
The strategic planning process, steps and advantages to understand the business objectives as
well as strategies to implement which help organisation to improve their production and
profitability. This report is going to cover the factors that affect the operating environment as
well as formal strategic planning will be discussed here with which the firm will be able to
resolve all conflicts and problems that arise during implementing formal strategies and
operations. Furthermore, will cover the process of making strategies by the multinational
organisation and its impact on the volatile and turbulent environment. With that the report is
going to cover the importance and difficulties in formulation and implementing the strategies in
the multinational organisation.
1. Assessing whether formal strategic planning process is appropriate for operating environment
of Waitrose or not
Formal strategic planning is important for the Waitrose that it help in decision-making
process and allocate resources effectively. Managers of firm believe that it will improve the
long-term performance of Waitrose. There is a link between formal strategic planning and
business performance. A systematic documentary process for deciding, what is useful in decision
making process, the firm must get right in order to thrive over next few years. The process gives
results in the production department of corporate strategic plans. Strategic planning process
includes:
 Improving long term performance and setting business objectives
 Determination of plans and strategies (Ahern, 2016)
 Assigning policies which govern the acquisition and allocation of resources effectively
 To achieve purposes of the Waitrose
The formal strategic planning process in Waitrose is generally used to manage the
operational activities and strategy of business to be competitive in the market and improving its
performance. The planning process includes:

 Getting ready: Before implementing strategic planning in the organisation, it must be
confirmed that all issues at workplace, essential commitments of leaders and managers as
well as of employees are addressed effectively. The environment of Waitrose should be
evaluated before framing a strategy. Some other elements are also there that should be
recognised before making formal strategic planning such as:
 Planning process helps to address specific issues and conflicts.
 Process clarifies the roles and responsibilities.
 It helps to make effective planning committee to develop organisations profile.
 Identify information and resources which helps to take decision.
 Setting mission and vision: The missions are generally settled by the firms and designed
to explain the purposes of Waitrose. (Davis, Jansen van Rensburg and Venter, 2016). In
the past, mission’s statements were used to inform creditors and investors about the
organisation. Modern mission statements are related with purpose of the organisations
and it also helps to promote a friendly image towards customers. Thus, it can be said that
mission statement is very useful to determine the strategic directions of Waitrose.
 Objectives: Objectives are the specific goals which a firm pursue as a part of its overall
mission statement. Objectives are established for attaining growth in revenue and
profitability of business. In case of Waitrose, the firm should aim to serve more
customers or to establish more branches. Objectives of the firm are generally set
according to the principle of SMART reflect that objectives, must be specific,
measurable, achievable, realistic and time bound (Bachmann, Engelen, and Schwens,
2016).
 Situation analysis: When the SMART objectives of business are set, firm needs to
understand the current situation from which it can attain those objectives effectively. The
external environment provides both; opportunities and obstacles to reach at set objectives
and achieve them. Internal audit of Waitrose helps to understand its own capabilities from
which it can exploit opportunities and overcome the obstacles effectively. SWOT
analysis will help the business to find its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats
from which the firm can understand the internal and external environment and make
decisions according to the objectives.

 Strategy formulation: Waitrose built a clear picture of its capabilities, resources and
environment and considered with that it is able to formulate a specific strategic plan
towards its goals and objectives effectively. Michael Porter defines the importance of
cost leadership which makes difference between product and market segmentation. The
business finally analyses all the situations and key areas to implement the final strategy
which will help them to achieve their objectives and goals effectively and efficiently.
 Implementation: The formal strategies will remain effective, if it will be considering
with communications and policies. Thus, it is useful to direct workers within the firm.
Strategy implementation only succeed if it has the support of employees who deal with
suppliers, customers and business resources. Strategy implementation at lower level also
helps to address practical issue. The strategy should be implement in marketing,
production, Human resource and IT departments to acquire successful results. This will
help organisation’s operating environment to achieve their set goals and objectives easily
and effectively (Bititci, Cocca, and Ates, 2016).
Advantages of formal strategic planning:
 Essential for decision making process and also beneficial for groups to formulate
strategies within the firm.
 Formal strategic planning process ensures that top managers are aware of their
objectives and also challenge complacent acceptance of the status.
 It helps to make effective balance of structure of the firm.
 It moderates the use of power in a planning or strategic group.
 It will help managers and groups to deal with conflicts and issues effectively.
 It also helps to give a sense of direction towards meetings.
 Formal strategic planning process enables the evaluation of progress.
Limitation of Formal strategic planning
Costly to execute for small and medium organisation- The enterprise may have to bear additional
cost or expenses in facilitating strategic planning procedure. The manager and leaders have to
recruit more employees for conducting market or internal as well as external audit in order to
formulate effective strategy.

Strategic management process is very complex-Strategic planning procedure involves lengthy
procedure. In this process each and every activity is dependent on each other. Delay in any task
may create barriers in the strategic management process. Some uncertain factors may appear
which may change the whole strategy and as a result, strategic planning process.
Low rate of Successful implementation-As it is a complex process, there is less chance of
success of strategy. The important reason for failure is poor or ineffective strategic management
plan. Ineffective strategic management procedure may have adverse effect on business activities.
It is a time consuming procedure-Manager in an organisation has to spend their crucial time in
preparing, conducting research and communicating with employees to develop suitable strategy.
2. Factors affecting operating environment and strategic planning
 Political: These factors include the influence of government upon economy or on an
industry. The political factors also affect the operating system and strategic planning of
Waitrose. For an example: government can change or impose new duties and taxes which
affect the entire revenue and structure of the firm. These factors are like tax policies,
trade tariffs and fiscal policy. Thus, business should prepare for political changes so that
these will not affect the strategic planning of firm. This will help business to manage the
environment and strategy implementation as well (Dalkir, and Beaulieu, 2017).
 Economic: These factors are the determinants of an economy’s performance which affect
business and have long terms effects. The economic factors include interest rates, foreign
rates, economic growth patterns and inflation rate, etc. For an example: rise in the
inflation rate of any economy will affect products and services offered by the Waitrose
organisation. Thus, it also changes the strategic planning process respectively. This will
affect the purchasing power of customers and change demand and supply models for
economy. The business should be aware of economic changes that it would not affect the
organisation’s products and services.
 Social: These factors define the social environment of market. Factors such as
demographics, population analysis and cultural trends come under the same. There is
high demand during the holidays at UK that business should try to manage their strategies
and operating environment, in order to increase sells and profitability effectively.

Cultural trends of different countries as well as population and demographics also affect
the strategic planning that business should make changes according to that country
environment. This will help organisation to increase their sales and achieve set objectives
and goals effectively (Bromiley, and Rau, 2016).
 Legal: Legal factors have both sides; internal and external. There are certain laws which
affect the operating environment of business such as legislations for consumer laws,
health and safety standards and labour laws, etc. Business needs to make policies to
maintain their environment and operations according to different legislations of the
countries.
 Technological and environmental: Technological innovations may affect the business
operations of Waitrose. This will include, research and development, amount of
technological awareness and automation. Environmental factors include farming, tourism
and agriculture. These two may affect the business in both favourable and unfavourable
way. This can also change formal strategic planning for the firm which affect operations.
Thus, formal strategic planning is appropriate for the Waitrose organisation in operating
environment because it helps managers to define their goals and objectives as well as strategies
for the implementation. Sometimes, it is not appropriate for those organisations that cannot
afford these planning dues to the high cost reasons. Organisations like Waitrose can implement
the formal strategic planning for their operating environment which helps them to increase their
production and profitability effectively and efficiently. This will also help business to achieve
their goals and objectives with the help of strategies and plans. Organisation should have formal
strategic planning for gaining better results in sales as well as in production with managing
different departments of the firm effectually.
3. Reason formal strategic planning is appropriate for Waitrose
The objective of formal strategic planning is to communicate that an enterprise strategic
planning procedure include systematic process that assist business entity in ensuring the
engagement of important stakeholders in strategic management. It also helps manager in
identifying those people who has been affected by the implementation of specific plan. Formal
strategic planning process helps manager in making appropriate decisions. It also supports
organisation in identifying and capturing business opportunities in the market. Formal strategic
planning is more concerned with the focus of top level management on significant matters that

may have impact on success and growth of firm. It also aids enterprise in developing attractive
and balanced business structure (Elhamma and Zhang, 2013) The process of formal strategic
planning can lead to average utilisation of power in making plans or strategies for team or group
of people. Formal strategic planning has the potential to support firm in providing response to
changing situations. It also aids organisation in identifying the suitable ways to deal with
complex as well as difficult situations (Bucolo and Matthews, 2011)
4. Recommending the way an enterprise can determine departmental/ functional objective to
achieve the proposed strategy
The manager in cited venture need to develop strategies at different levels for identifying
the objective of functional units. These strategies are corporate level, business and functional
level strategy (Ferreira and et. al., 2011.)
Corporate level- The strategy developed at this level will assist manager in recognizing the
objective of entire business. For instance: The cited venture intends to achieve an operating
profit of over 9 million dollar on sales of 99 million dollars. The objective of Wait worse is to
increase its revenue per share by 5 percent each year.
Functional level- The strategies are originated from the tactical plans. Each functional unit is
allotted with the particular target and objectives, it must achieve to support the higher-level
strategies and planning. For instance the objective of marketing department is to support
organization in accomplishing its market goals such as in increasing market share, gaining
customer loyalty, enhancing brand image etc. (Butler,2012)
Example of different culture law segmentation religion
Behavioral segmentation-This type of strategy is concerned with identifying the benefit that
will be gained by consumer and the way customer utilities the product or services.
Demographic segmentation-This type of strategy emphasizes on analyzing the way various
elements such as cultural background, religion, impact the customer choice and influence their
buying behavior.
Geographic segmentation-This type of strategy focus on the recognizing the demand of
particular product in specific geographic area. It also emphasizes on identifying the way to reach
customers for delivering product or services.

Psycho graphic segmentation-This strategy in more concerned with determining the perception
of consumer about the organization. It also emphasizes on developing effective business plans in
order to change consumer perception and developing good brand image in mind of customers
(Dandira, 2011)
Differences in the functional and departmental objectives in multinational organisation.
It is very significant for the multinational organisation to follow the different steps in
order to make the strategies effective. This will help them to gain the several advantages such as
competitive advantage, high profitability, productivity. Customer's attraction and retention etc.
firm which are operating at global level, need to face high competitive, this is the reason they
need to make innovative strategies (Henry and Lundberg, 2017). So that they can fight with the
competitors and gain competitive advantage. The process of making the strategies are as follows:
Evaluate and Assess the Environment: The first stage of making the strategies by international
organisation is to analyse the environment. Firm need to analyse internally as well as externally.
Different models need to be implemented by the organisation. Such as to analyse internal
organisation SWOT model can be used and to analyse external PESTLE and Porter's 5 force
model can be used (Wolf and Floyd, 2017).
Determine the important issues: As the internal and external environment of the organisation is
being analysed by the Waitrose, then they need to find the different issues which is being faced
by the venture such as culture, law, labour, competition, customer's segmentation etc. The issues
are related to the strategic level of the venture.
Define or review the values, social vision, and mission: As the issues have been founded by
the Waitrose, they need to plan their values, mission, vision. This will help them to have proper
guidance to reach at the desired goal and solve the problem faced by the organisation (Dhief and
Hamdi, 2017).
Make a shared vision for the organization: Further, Waitrose need to plan its vision, so that
they can attain their aim and objectives. The vision can be linked with the mix of programs,
Internal and external image of the venture, their Resources, relationships with stakeholders, and
government, Program areas, offices and locations etc.
Concede the major strategies to attain goals: As the vision have been planned, it should be
divided into small goals. Such as “where you are?”, “where you want to be?” and “how to reach

there?” for the organization. The firm need to plan according to these questions, this will help
them to reach at the goal of the organisation (Morán‐Ordóñez and Wintle, 2017).
Design an action plan: As all the process have been completed, further organisation need to
make a plan. Plan consist of different activities and time taken to complete the different
activities. With that different task are also considered to completed the different activities and
operations.
Build in processes for monitoring and modifying strategies: Implementation have been taken
place in this stage. All the activities, task and operations have been start executing. Further,
standard performance and actual performance have been compared and deviation have been
founded by the Waitrose. And at the last organisation modify strategies according to the
evaluation (Job and Lane, 2017).
5. The impact of strategy making in an increasingly volatile and turbulent environment.
It is being known that environment is volatile, and it can be change anytime. This is the
environment which is not in the hand of organisation. Waitrose need to analyse this type of
environment and then make the different strategies which helps them to be stable in the changing
environment. Other than that environment is turbulent, which can create the conflicting situation
between the competitive organisation. As Waitrose is multinational organisation, they have to
face high competition which can create conflict as well. In order to avoid these situations,
organisation need to play very smartly and need to plan some innovation strategies.
When the organisation is able to plan effective and efficient strategies they can fight with
the uncertain, volatile and turbulent environment (Henry and Lundberg, 2017). Such as currency
rate of the host country increases, this will lead to decrease in the profit margin of the
organisation. In order to cope up with this situation, organisation need to reduce the cost of
manufacturing. This strategy helps them to reduce the manufacturing price and again they can
make the same profit at the increasing currency rate. Or if new organisation enters into the
market, which is grasping the market share of the venture. This is conflicting situation of the
organisation. So, the firm can take over the new firm by which they can again have their market
share. Thus, it can be said that strategic planning helps the venture to be stable in the volatile and
turbulent environment (Wolf and Floyd, 2017).
The significance of and the difficulties in formulating and implementing strategy.

Strategic planning plays very significant role in the organisation, more than for the
multinational venture. If the firm is able to plan effective strategies, they can gain several
advantages, that are as follows:
 Perform effectively within the professional environment: Multinational organisation
need to behave in the professional way so that they can create good corporate image in
the mind of their different stakeholders such as customers, competitors, suppliers etc. it is
very significant for the multinational organisation to behave in professional way, making
and implementing effective strategies helps them to do the same (Dhief and Hamdi,
2017).
 Work within a team: In order to fight with the competitors, gaining competitive
advantage, implementing the change, effective working of employees, satisfying needs
and wants of the customer, every member need to work in the group. Team work helps
the organisation to accomplish their aim and objectives. With the help of effective
strategic planning, venture can able to attain the same (Job and Lane, 2017).
 Be flexible and adaptable to changes within the professional environment: when the
organisation is dealing in the different countries, they need to handle the changing
environment. It is known that there are several factors which are not in the hands of the
organisation. Thus, they need to implement the different strategies so that they can
manage the different uncertain factors and cope up with them (Morán‐Ordóñez and
Wintle, 2017).
CONCLUSION
It can be concluded from the above report that formal strategic planning is a very
important in business operating environment. Formal strategic planning is important for the firms
for their operating environment and business activities. It will also help Waitrose firm to make
effective decision-making by the management, which leads towards profitability and
productivity effectively. Factors, which affect the business environment is also helpful for the
firm to understand their strengths and weaknesses. This will help management to remove barriers
from operating environment efficiently. Thus, it can be said that formal strategic planning
process is important for the businesses to improve their performances and working conditions
effectively. Furthermore, strategic planning is internal and very significant part of the

organisation specially for the multinational ventures. Firm who are dealing in the different
countries need to handle high competition. In order to gain competitive advantage, organisation
need to implement the innovation strategies.