Woolworths Supermarket: Structure, Objectives, and Recommendations

This report provides an analysis of Woolworths Supermarket Limited, focusing on its organizational structure, mission, vision, and core values. It identifies the formal organizational structure employed by Woolworths and how this structure facilitates the implementation of strategies to achieve organizational objectives. The report highlights the company's objectives, including building profit and sales, increasing customer loyalty, and improving departmental ratings. It discusses various strategic alternatives, such as market penetration, market development, retail format development, and diversification, referencing Ansoff's Matrix. The report also addresses issues within the organizational structure and leadership style, recommending a more flexible and transformational approach. Recommendations include offering better quality products and services, improving customer service, achieving market expansion objectives, understanding competitor strategies, and creating win-win pricing. The report concludes that while Woolworths' organizational structure has contributed to its competitive advantage, implementing suggested changes, particularly in leadership and flexibility, can further enhance its effectiveness.

Running head: MANAGEMENT PRINCIPLES
Management Principles
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

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Executive Summary
The report has helped in understanding the structure of the organization along with mission,
vision and core values of the respective organization named Woolworths Supermarket
Limited. The report has identified the organizational structure of Woolworths as this has
helped in providing proper implementation of strategies to achieve the purpose and objectives
of the organization in an effectual manner. The main aim and purpose of the report was to
identify the recommendations that has helped them in gaining competitive advantage and
attract customers.

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Overview of Woolworths...........................................................................................................3
Mission, Vision and Core Values of Woolworths.....................................................................4
Structure of organization to achieve purpose and objectives.....................................................4
Recommendations......................................................................................................................7
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................8
References................................................................................................................................10

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Introduction
The report will help in analysing the brief description of the respective company
named Woolworths that is based in New South Wales, Australia. Proper analysis is required
to be done in the entire report that will help in understanding the objectives and the purpose
of the organization as well.
The main aim and purpose of the report helps in understanding the description of the
respective organization along with analysis and identification of the techniques through
which the organization is structured as to achieve the different objectives and purpose
effectually.
The structure of the report includes the overview along with mission, vision and core
values of the organization. The techniques have to be discussed as this will help in achieving
the objectives along with the purpose. Proper recommendations are required to be provided as
to analyse the different steps that can be taken by Woolworths as to make it more effective in
nature.
Overview of Woolworths
Woolworths is one the largest supermarket chains in the entire Australia that is
located in New South Wales, Australia. Woolworths Supermarket is the Australian grocery
store chain that is owned by Woolworths Limited (Woolworths.com.au, 2018). It was
founded in the year 1924 in the month of September and within few years, the supermarket
has gained more than 80% of the Australian market. Woolworths mainly specializes in selling
different kind of grocery items and they sell magazines along with household and stationery
items.
Woolworths Supermarket is located in more than 995 locations wherein there are
more than 202,000 employees who are working in the Woolworths Limited Supermarket.

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Brad Banducci is Chief Executive Officer of the respective company wherein he has tried to
include different kind of strategies that has helped them in gaining more competitive
advantage in the entire market. Woolworths Supermarket is the major Australian
Organization that has created extensive retail interest throughout New Zealand and Australia.
The revenue that has been earned by the company is more than A$59 billion and the
operating income of the company is A$1.6 billion till the year 2016. Woolworths Limited has
different divisions that includes supermarkets, liquor, petrol along with hotels and stationery
items (Woolworths.com.au, 2018).
Mission, Vision and Core Values of Woolworths
The mission of the respective supermarket is to make the shopping experience of the
customers pleasant and to satisfy the partners and customers with unique experience of
shopping as well. The main mission of company is to offer quality, variety and service that is
based on the commitment and attention of the employees (Bustinza et al. 2015).
The vision of the respective supermarket is to be independent, honest and sustainable
cooperative in nature wherein the customers can able to choose from different range of goods
at reasonable price effectively.
The core values of the Woolworths Company are to listen to the different customers
along with employees and suppliers as this will help the company in providing products,
information and training to employees for the sustainability and development of the
company. The main core value of Woolworths Supermarket is to be responsible in nature
through honesty, respect and commitment (Muerza, Larrodé and Moreno-Jiménez 2017).
Structure of organization to achieve purpose and objectives
Woolworths Supermarket is one of the leading supermarket chain that is based in
New South Wales, Australia. The respective supermarket focuses more on providing different

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kind of food products along with stationery items that includes different sort of services.
Woolworths along with Sainsbury has similar kind of working attitudes in their organization
wherein Woolworths provides importance to the avoidance of tax plans of strategy that helps
in bringing out different allegations towards the entire organization. The company is more
focused towards gaining financial benefits along with providing proper quality of the product
in an effectual manner. The organization is structured as the formal kind of organization that
is helpful in nature for them to implement fixed rules and regulations that are strictly
followed by the organization and the employees in the organization.
Woolworths Supermarket tries to follow well attributed rules and regulations along
with policies and objectives to help the employees to showcase their issues in front of the
superiors in the organization. The formal kind of organization structure that is followed by
the respective supermarket named Woolworths wherein the entire company has been able to
achieve the purpose and objectives as the viewpoints of the employees are provided with
importance and they are valued as well.
With the help of the organizational structure, Woolworths has been able to achieve the
following purpose and objectives that are as follows:
It has helped the company in building profit and sales in the entire competitive market
in comparison to the other competitors in the entire market (Yin 2016)
Secondly, it helped in building loyalty among the customers as this will help them in
increasing the customer base and gain competitive advantage in the future as well
Improving the ratings of the department is the third purpose and objectives that has to
be attained by Woolworths wherein the quality and service provided by them can be
improved with the inclusion of different kind of surveys (Simmonds 2015)

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With the help of the situation analysis, the organization can understand their strengths
and weaknesses and this will help in determining their position in an effectual manner
with identification of various alternatives.
There are different kind of alternatives available to the Woolworths Supermarket
wherein it includes the following:
Market Penetration will help in increasing customers along with the frequency of the
purchase as well. The market penetration has been done by the company wherein
Woolworths has been able to encourage the purchase frequency of the customers with
available resources and capabilities (Fil, Prabhu and Bocken 2016)
Market Development along with expansion of Woolworths is done with tapping the
geographical markets along with introducing new products. With such a flexible
organization structure, it has been easy for Woolworths to expand their market with
the retail market in comparison of the competitors (Grünig and Morschett 2017)
Retail format development is wherein the company has introduced in analysing
threats from competitors and this has helped the company in developing new products
at an affordable price and the target market is the existing customers in an effectual
manner. With the implementation of retail strategy, it is required in order to develop
strategic plan effectively that improves the policy of pricing and the services offered
to customers helps the company in changing the minds of the customers (Dawes
2018)
Diversification is the other strategy wherein the company has implemented
diversification strategy that has helped the company in improving their supply chain
with the help of support functions and system as well (El-Sayed, Dickson and El-
Naggar 2015).

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Figure 1: Ansoff’s Matrix
(Source: Gereffi and Fernandez-Stark, 2016)
However, there are few issues in the structure of the organization that has been made
them ineffective in nature. The organization structure is rigid for the different employees who
are working in the Woolworths Supermarket, Australia and New Zealand. The organization
has implemented different kind of theories or models such as Ansoff’s Matrix wherein this
has helped the company in gaining competitive advantage (Savino, Manzini and Mazza
2015).
However, there are different issues in the organization that has to be sorted with
making the system a bit more flexible in nature. Furthermore, the leadership style has to be
more transformational in nature wherein this will help the company in understanding the
employee’s viewpoints as well (Redpath, O'Connell and Warnock-Smith 2017).
Recommendations
Therefore, it can be recommended that Woolworths need to implement restructuring
the organization structure in an effectual manner. Woolworths need to understand the
viewpoints of the different level employees who are working in the organization as this will

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assist them in making the communication between the employees in an effectual manner. The
mixture of formal and informal structure of the organization is helpful for sorting the
difficulties and gain competitive advantage. There are few recommendations that has to be
ascertained as follows:
Woolworths need to offer better quality products and services to the customers with
the implementation of different kind of discounts or offers for the customers
Secondly, the customer service has to be improved effectually as this will help in
adding value to the purchase of the customers wherein the leadership style has to be
transformational in nature
Woolworths need to achieve the objectives of market expansion with developing
products with the implementation of identifying the tastes and preferences of the
customers and solve them effectively
Woolworths need to understand the game of the competitors in the market as this will
assist them in focusing on the investments on the valuable customers who are the
target customers of their company
Proper creation of win-win price as this will help the company in adding value to the
business and the customers as well and the marketing techniques is required to be
improved as well.
Conclusion
Therefore, it can be concluded that Woolworths is one of the largest supermarkets
wherein the organizational structure followed by them has helped them in gaining
competitive advantage. Woolworths has tried using the Ansoff’s matrix that has helped the
company in analysing the entire situation in the market and tried to implement mixture of
informal and formal organizational structure that has helped them in attracting customers in

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comparison to the other competitors in the market. The leadership principles have to be
changed to transformational leadership wherein this will help in making them more effective
in nature.

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References
Bustinza, O.F., Bigdeli, A.Z., Baines, T. and Elliot, C., 2015. Servitization and competitive
advantage: the importance of organizational structure and value chain position. Research-
Technology Management, 58(5), pp.53-60.
Dawes, J., 2018. The Ansoff Matrix: A Legendary Tool, But with Two Logical Problems.
El-Sayed, A.F.M., Dickson, M.W. and El-Naggar, G.O., 2015. Value chain analysis of the
aquaculture feed sector in Egypt. Aquaculture, 437, pp.92-101.
Fil, A., Prabhu, J. and Bocken, N.M., 2016. Scaling up social businesses in developing
markets.
Gereffi, G. and Fernandez-Stark, K., 2016. Global value chain analysis: a primer.
Grünig, R. and Morschett, D., 2017. General Strategic Planning as the Starting Point for
Going International for New Markets. In Developing International Strategies (pp. 57-65).
Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.
Muerza, V., Larrodé, E. and Moreno-Jiménez, J.M., 2017. Identification and selection of
ICTs for freight transport in product service supply chain diversification. Industrial
Management & Data Systems, 117(7), pp.1469-1484.
Redpath, N., O'Connell, J.F. and Warnock-Smith, D., 2017. The strategic impact of airline
group diversification: The cases of Emirates and Lufthansa. Journal of Air Transport
Management, 64, pp.121-138.
Savino, M.M., Manzini, R. and Mazza, A., 2015. Environmental and economic assessment of
fresh fruit supply chain through value chain analysis. A case study in chestnuts
industry. Production Planning & Control, 26(1), pp.1-18.

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Simmonds, P., 2015. Product Market Diversification. Wiley Encyclopedia of Management.
Woolworths.com.au. (2018). [online] Available at: https://www.woolworths.com.au/
[Accessed 29 Mar. 2018].
Yin, N., 2016. Application of AHP-Ansoff Matrix Analysis in Business Diversification: The
case of Evergrande Group. In MATEC Web of Conferences (Vol. 44). EDP Sciences.