MBA501 Assessment: Stakeholder Strategy Development for Woolworths

This report provides a comprehensive stakeholder analysis of Woolworths Supermarket, a leading Australian retail chain. The analysis identifies both internal and external stakeholders, assessing their interests and potential impact on the company's operations. The report categorizes stakeholders into swing, defensive, offensive, and hold groups, offering tailored strategic options and recommendations for each. It emphasizes the importance of protecting stakeholder interests to prevent negative outcomes such as customer or supplier churn. The report also includes a business portfolio analysis using BCG and GE-McKinsey matrices, along with a synergy matrix, to evaluate and recommend strategies for the company's various product lines (Neutrino, Dermatech, LOOKS, and Energino) within the context of Millennium Health Sciences (MHS), the parent company. Finally, it emphasizes innovation and customer-centricity for sustainable business growth, and provides a detailed strategy implementation plan.

Stakeholder Strategy Development and Implementation
Woolworths
[Student Name] – [Student Number]

Introduction
 Woolworths Supermarket is a supermarket chain based in Australia and
dominates the supermarket sector in the country.
 It is owned by Woolworths Group, also based in Australia.
 The product umbrella of the Australian supermarket consists of fruit&
veg, meat, seafood & deli, bakery, dairy, fridge & eggs, pantry, freezer,
drinks, liquor, front of store, pet, baby, health & beauty, household and
lunch box (Woolworths.com.au. 2020). Thus, it is evident that
supermarket chain serves several groups of stakeholders including
customer segments consuming its products, suppliers which supply it
with these finished goods and banks which provide online platforms to
process financial transactions like sale of goods and purchase of goods.
An analysis of the stakeholders of Woolworths would be conducted in
order to identify their needs and interests (Riboldazzi 2016).

Stakeholder Analysis (summary)
 The stakeholders of Woolworths consist of
internal and external stakeholders.
 Apanasevic, Markendahl and Arvidsson (2016)
mentions that stakeholders have interests in
the operations of the retail company and are
capable of impacting its operations by their
actions. For example, customers lead to
generation of revenue when they purchase
goods from the retail chain. If they are
dissatisfied with the goods and facilities
provided by Woolworths, they may shift to
other retail chains which would lead to fall in
the revenue generation at the former.
 This means that the retail chain namely, should
protect the interests of the stakeholders in
order to enjoy their continuous support.

Swing Stakeholder: strategic options
 The supermarket chain should protect interests of stakeholders.
 Mabuma (2018) mention that stakeholders if dissatisfied due to their
interests not being protected, would change their preferences and support
to other firms or in other words swing. For example, if Woolworths fails to
satisfy the members of its board of management who are internal
stakeholders, it would lead to board members resigning and joining other
companies. This would lead to forming of faulty decisions which would
ultimately lead to deterioration of the levels of activities of the retail chains
(Silvius et al. 2017).
 Similarly, suppliers of Woolworths, important external stakeholders, if
dissatisfied owing to issues like default or delay of payments, they would
cancel supply orders of goods meant for the retail chain. The outcome of
this loss of supplier support would be that the retail chain would not be able
to sell goods to customers, thus losing customers and consequent revenue
generation (Yazdani et al. 2017).
 Thus, it is evident that protection of interests of stakeholders would prevent
them from switching to other retail chains.

Swing Stakeholder:
recommendations
 Woolworths should take strategies to ensure that it is able to retain
its stakeholders to the possible extent.
 Gaining in the operations of the retail chains would encourage them
to support it for extended terms.
 The retail chain can also prevent stakeholders from swinging by
keeping them informed about its strategies (Nederhand and Klijn
2019). For example, if the retail chain keeps the customers about its
future product strategies, it would create a transparent image about
it among the customers. This would encourage the customers retain
their relationship with the retail and prevent them from swing.

Defensive Stakeholder: strategic
options
 The supermarket chain should take the following strategies to
manage defensive stakeholders like suppliers:
 1. Involving them in the core products strategies.
 2. Restructuring its supply chains in order to ensure that all the
suppliers abide by its suppliers’ codes of conduct and provide it with
superior quality products in right amounts and at appropriate time.
 3. Entering into procurement contracts with suppliers which expressly
mention the product to be supplied along with the specifications like
brands, the amount in which the products have to supplied, rates,
package sizes and required time within which the same have to
delivered.

Defensive Stakeholder:
recommendations
 Woolworths should acquire of key supplier firms which would enable it
to support these firms financially directly.
 The retail chain should provide reward and recognitions to suppliers.
This would encourage suppliers provide finished goods at lower rates
and more favourable business conditions.

Offensive Stakeholder: strategic
options
 The retail chain should provide superior quality products to offensive
stakeholders like customers.
 Woolworths should adopt legitimate pricing strategies like discounts
and product purchasing financing which would enable the customers
purchase goods in bulk.

Offensive Stakeholder:
recommendations
 1. Offering more innovative products to customers enhance their
levels of satisfaction and largely prevent them from swinging to other
retail chains.
 2. Gaining continuous feedback of customers on the social media
platforms
 3. Incorporating feedbacks obtained from customers in business
strategies.

Hold Stakeholder: strategic options
 Hold stakeholders like the management board members and
employees should be given appropriate compensations.
 Providing them with professional development opportunities like
appraisals and promotions to higher levels would enhance the job
satisfaction levels among the members of the management board as
well as employees of Woolworths (Robertson and Kee 2017).

Hold Stakeholder: recommendations
 The management of Woolworths should provide non-financial benefits
like work-life-balance and work from home to hold stakeholders.
 Gaining their participation in operations like making of business
strategies.
 The management of Woolworths should bring about improvements in
the working environment within the premises owned by the retail
chain. For example, more fire extinguishers should be installed in the
office areas. Employees who are responsible for lifting of goods,
especially heavy goods should be provided with ramps. These
measures would create a sense of security and wellness among the
employees and the managers (Ledikwe et al. 2018). This would largely
be responsible for enabling the retail chain retain them and swing to
other companies.

Strategy implementation
 Woolworths Supermarkets should implement strategies to ensure
continuous support of the stakeholders.
 For example, the supermarket chain should identify the interests of
specific groups of stakeholders like customers.
 It should form strategies to protect the interests of the different
stakeholder groups to the feasible extent.