Woolworths Business Plan Case Study: Detailed SWOT Analysis

This case study provides a SWOT analysis of Woolworths' business plan, examining its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Woolworths, as the oldest company in its field with over 900 stores, possesses strengths such as market leadership and a large employee base. However, it faces weaknesses including vulnerability to price wars, biased targeting of wealthier customers, and a late entry into the retail market. Opportunities lie in focusing on every retail chain, leveraging social media for promotion, launching new products, and expanding geographically. Threats include rising costs, technological innovations by competitors, demand for organic products, and the risk of unaddressed weaknesses hindering international expansion. The analysis references various studies to support its findings, highlighting the need for Woolworths to adapt to evolving market conditions and competitive pressures.

Woolworths Business Plan

Part I
Strengths
1. Woolworths is the oldest company
and the pioneer in its field. It has
more than 900 stores. The great
number of products and the services.
The market leader holds almost
80%.
2. The unique capabilities of the
Woolworths can be reflected by
targeting the wealthy class for
ensuring the larger volume of sales.
Currently the company along with
Coles covers almost 72.5% of the
grocery sector, where the 39% share
is alone of the Woolworths (Bailey,
Price, Pyman & Parker, 2015).
3. The other companies that consider
the Woolworths to be a strong
element in the business market is
due to targeting the upper household
class, and owing some private label
brands among the customers.
4. The team of Woolworth consists of
more than 100000 employees. Thus,
it is a huge asset for the company.
Weaknesses
1. Woolworths is always prone to the
price wars and thereby the company
had to suffer huge losses as it cannot
cope up with the immediate
fluctuations in the prices.
2. The major weakness of the
company, which is strength for the
other competitors are, biased
behavior towards the market and
targeting different segments using
the same products.
3. The areas that need to improve are
majorly the international presence to
gain more market share. The
domestic presence will not cater the
future goals of the organization
(Brander, 2018).
4. In terms of the other companies the
weakness is the late entry in the
retail market and the use of the basic
strategies will lead to the
monotonous supply among the
customers and hence the weakness
needs to be focused with immediate
action.
Opportunities
1. Focus on every retail chain to value
the segment.
2. The usage of the platform of the
social media as the tool to promote
Threats
1. The rise in the costs of the both
material and the non-material
products can affect the performance

the brands and attract the customers
from different parts of the world.
Social media will give the direction
to the company to reach to the
customers door-to-door.
3. The launch of the new product with
different segment can be a boon to
the company due to its trust factor
among the customers and the brand
name since 1924.
4. Expansion of the stores in the new
geographical boundaries can be a
major hit in the business of the
Woolworths. Also the company will
get the new direction and the
targeted segment will be different
from the existing ones (Brander,
2018).
of the business.
2. The new technological innovation
and the innovative strategies of the
competitors are creating a puzzling
situation for the Woolworths to
survive in the competitive market.
3. Organic and chemical free products
are in demand that require huge,
manufacturing costs and the
availability of the raw material to
produce the same, is the biggest
issue and the threat faced by the
Woolworths as it requires huge
amount of funds (Parker, Carey &
Scrinis, 2018).
4. The weakness listed above is not
focused carefully will turn into the
threats and one such weaknesses the
lack of the international presence till
today.

References
Bailey, J., Price, R., Pyman, A., & Parker, J. (2015). Union power in retail: Contrasting cases
in Australia and New Zealand. New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 40(1),
1.
Brander, C. (2018). Case Study of Marketing for SMANGO West Midlands Group (WMG).
Parker, C., Carey, R., & Scrinis, G. (2018). Higher welfare labelling for pig meat: A
summary of findings from the project Regulating Food Labels: The case of free range
food products in Australia.