Unit 4 Business Strategy Level 5 GSM London College

Currently, the firm has 5.1% of food market share and in addition to this, Waitrose had 18% of organic food share. As of 2017, the estimated revenues of company is £5,400.4 million and its operating income is £173.5 million. There are around 91,000 employees working in firm and successfully run its business operations. By 2017, Waitrose had 352 stores across United Kingdom and it opened the first cashless shop under Little Waitrose brand. The advertising of firm focuses on unique selling point (Annabi and McGann, 2013). Their recent marketing has attempted to represent the business as more ethical in comparison to other supermarkets. In year 2011, the company introduced its loyalty card scheme as myWaitrose. Later, they began to provide 10% off to cardholders on selected products. Some portion of profits is donate by firm to charities on proportional basis. Along with this, Waitrose foundation was launched in 2005 which administering funds for worker facilities, education and health services.

As a part of John Lewis Partnership, all employees of Waitrose are allotted the title of 'Partner'. Uniforms of all partners are different according to their departments. The branches of Waitrose were largely concentrated in Greater London and England. Some of their stores include an in-house restaurant which is selling hot and cold food. They offers 'Quick Check' to customers which is a self service system. Waitrose.com is their own website regarding delivery services which is available at certain stores only. Customers can ordered goods by internet on this website.

Business Strategies are defined as a course of action planned to attain certain measurable & specific goals. These are developed by high level of management and executed by operational managers under supervision of upper level. Major reason behind formulating strategies is to accomplish goals, objectives and mission of firm (Auzair, 2011). In the present assignment, chosen organisation is Waitrose which is British grocery retailer. The report includes assessment of business vision, mission, objectives and goals as well as factors that should be considered while formulating strategic plan. It also involves stakeholders analysis, environmental and organisational audit. At last, roles & responsibilities of personnel in executing strategy and contribution of SMART targets in successful strategy implementation is defined in this project.

Task 1

1.1 Evaluation of business vision, objectives, goals, mission and core competencies

Mission:

The mission statement of company refers as the long term plan which depicts that where they wants to stand themselves in near future. It is a set of purposes which desires by firm in order to meet expectations of shareholders. It assists in determine how business run, their range of goods and services, customer etc. Mission of Waitrose is “We make what matters best, together”.

Vision:

Vision statement depicts about future expectation of firm. It assists in identifying growth and potential benefit of organisation.

Vision statement of Waitrose is “To be the extremely valued business in eyes of customers they serve, the communities in which they operate, their committed and loyal colleagues & of shareholders”.

Objectives and Goals:

These are the basic guidelines which a firm wants to attain in a defined time period. Objectives are targets for short term that company wants to attain by utilizing their skills as business (Azar, 2011). Goals are the plans for long term and objectives are for short term plan of an organisation. Goals & objectives of Waitrose are:

• To maximize profit by developing organic range.
• Motivate staff to increase customer service level.
• Build links with local community.
• Increase profits by opening new stores.

Core competence:

These are the special qualities and skills that assist in making business distinctive from its competitors. It supports in creating a strong brand image for consumers and attain their loyalty towards firm (Bharadwaj and et. al., 2013). The core competence of Waitrose is their retail network which assist in successful attainment of purposes.

1.2 Analysis of component that are considered while explicate strategic plan

Strategies planning is procedure by which an organization can define its action , plan and strategy which help in making decisions about resource allocation to obtain this strategy. This also render plan to employ this strategy.

Their are various forces which help in considering in explicating strategic planning. They are:

Industry:

In industry planning, the examination of whole industry is important. Under this, size of market, its potential growth, competitive profitability, new market entrants, threats must be focuses when analysing the industry. Because of such factors, organisational activities may influence highly.

Competition:

Competitor analysis is very essential aspect that must be considered by management at the time of explicating strategic plan. A firm could not able to accomplish success without proper knowledge of marketplace and existing competitors. An organisation tries to find out its strength and weakness of the competitors and they are able to determine the way by which rivals meet the needs and want of customers (Bucolo and Matthews, 2011).

Strengths and Weakness:

SWOT analysis is important tool for organisation which provide help to companies in knowing their strength and weakness. These are the internal factors of an organization and the threats and opportunities are external factors. Under this organisation tries to ascertain its internal strength and try to enhance its image in market. On the other hand, it is essential for company to determine its weakness also. If company able to identifies its weakness then they are enable make more betterment and can overcome its weakness.

1.3 Evaluate the effectiveness of techniques used when framing strategic business plan

The suggested techniques for Waitrose to evaluate the effectiveness of strategic plan are as follows:

BCG matrix:

The matrix represents 4 kinds of situations that may confront by firm. According to matrix, Waitrose would face the below mentioned conditions:

Stars: It depicts high market share and increased growth. In this condition, firm requires large amount of funds for making decisions regarding their growth and sustainability in market and acquiring high market share (Jocovic and et. al., 2014).

Cash cows: It shows high market share but relatively low growth. Under this position, firm may face decline in market growth but same time, company have increased market share by which they are able to generate high revenue.

Dog: It depicts low market share and reduced growth. In this condition, firm have to cut down its unneeded costs. When goods of firm stops to generate profits, the firm must close its business & start a new business.

Question mark: It depicts low market share but relatively high growth. Risk is includes in this condition due to decline in market share which indicates that company is in loss. It shows that company should introduce new product in market.

Advantages of BCG:

• It assist in evaluating current portfolio balance of company.
• It facilitates in making decisions regarding future actions.
• It is a simplest model which is easy to follow (Kalyani and Sahoo, 2011).

Disadvantages of BCG:

• Difficult to get data regarding market share and growth.
• Sometimes high share market can represent low profitability.
• It eliminates synergies effect between business units.

PIMS (Profit impact of marketing strategy)

It helps in sustaining competitive advantage by administering evidence to aid procedures and policies. Thus, Waitrose will enable to make achievement in execution of policies & procedures (Klettner, Clarke and Boersma, 2014).

Following facts are considered by PIMS strategy:

• Budget allocation.
• Production process structure.
• Operating activities.
• Strategic development.
• Nature of business environment.
• Competitive position of business.

Task 2

2.1 Analysis of current strategic positioning of firm by conducting organisational audit

Organisation audit for Waitrose can be done by SWOT investigating which assists in determining strengths, opportunities, weaknesses, and threats of firm. It helps in estimating strategic positioning of company (Auzair, 2011).

SWOT analysis:

Strengths:

• Sixth largest retail firm of world which perform its operations in various countries.
• Has good revenue and profit generation policies.
• Has great strategy of business.

Weaknesses:

• Largely dependent on market of United Kingdom and Europe.
• High transport cost.
• Lack of geographic diversification (Köseoglu and et. al., 2013).
• High price of Waitrose as compared to other firms.

Opportunities:

• Fostering home delivery and online sales services.
• Possibility of increasing area diversification.
• Able to administer high quality goods and services.

Threats:

• Growth of firm is at unsafe position due to high rate of unemployment in recent years.
• Decrease in income which affects badly the sales of company.
• High competitive market (Murano and et. al., 2011).

2.2 Environmental audit of firm by using appropriate tools

For carrying out an environmental audit, PESTLE analysis is conducted by Waitrose. It includes 6 factors which are defined as follows:

Political: As firm operates their business worldwide, its operations are influenced by global political factors. These factors includes government policies, tax rates etc. Various nation allow Waitrose to operate its business in their country because it provides a lot of job opportunities to unemployed people.

Economic: Variables like price, demand, profit etc. put great influence on operations of Waitrose. Any decline in market can influence business negatively. It depicts that, firm will be at high risk. Diversification and internationalisation are major reasons of company's success.

Social: Social changes are crucial for firm as due to these, Waitrose starts to offer non food items. Activities of business are influenced by attitude and behaviour of customers. Because of this, firm adapting changes and focus on improving supply chain management and operations to increase overall performance of business.

Technological: It is concerned with changes in technology. Technological advancement brings significant success for Waitrose. Now, firm is offering home delivery and online shopping services to customers by utilizing advanced technology (Oestreicher-Singer and Zalmanson, 2012).

Environmental: One of the important aspect of is to doing business in ethical manner. Waitrose is highly concerned with CSR and with satisfying its stakeholders. They minimize waste to save environment and make commitment to decrease carbon footprint by 25%.

Legal: Policies and legislations made by government directly influence performance of Waitrose. Firm adhere all the laws made by legal authority of respective country.

2.3 Importance of stakeholder analysis while formulating new strategy

Stakeholders are individuals, organisation or group who has involvement in business. These includes employees, government, suppliers, creditors, directors etc. Stakeholder analysis is a method utilized by firm to determine the individuals who support business activities.

Significance of stakeholder analysis in developing new strategies are:

• Get support from powerful stakeholders.
• Able to determine reaction of people regarding business.
• Get essential opinion from stakeholders (Schaltegger and Wagner, 2011).
• Understand stakeholders nature by making interaction.

Steps includes in Stakeholder analysis for Waitrose are defined below:

Step-1: The initial step is to estimate individuals who are participating in business operations and influenced by it.

Step-2: In this, influence, interest and power of stakeholders are determine. For this, Waitrose should develop a stakeholder grid.

Step-3: It is the last step in which a good understanding is developed of important stakeholders for firm to get their sufficient support and feedback.

2.4 New strategy for business based on stakeholder analysis and organisational audit

The principle strategy of Waitrose is to create value for customers and emphasize on increasing their satisfaction. Firm can adopt a strategy, i.e., new product development. It enables Waitrose in meeting different needs and desires of customers by offering them a new product. The strategy will assist in generating high revenues and developing further opportunity for firm regarding expansion (Scholes, 2015).

Task 3

3.1 Appropriateness of alternative strategies regarding substantive growth & market entry

Market entry:

Organic growth: When firm doing development on its own company in the same manner it done in first.

Strategic alliance: When more than 2 firms share their assets for attaining its objectives then it refers as strategic alliance.

Substantive growth strategy:

It refers to the market share growth by utilizing merger, diversification, joint venture & acquisition. If Waitrose use this strategy, it will leads the firm towards future growth and also helps in creating wealth. But the main disfavour of company is that rivals will emerge & try to step out the firm (Slack, 2015).

Limited growth strategy:

In the stage of limited growth, there is little diversification in product line or limited expansion in market share. The disadvantage for Waitrose is that it can not get merits of economies of scale. The main aim of company is to earn high profits by satisfying customers.

3.2 Justification of selection of new strategy based on alternative strategy analysis

Main objective of Waitrose is to become successful international retailer. To attain this objective, firm must adopt strategy of market development. It assists company in initiating its business operations in other countries by food & non food items. Company can do strategic alliance with other firms by adopting this strategy. It will assist in further expansion of strategies that can facilitate in increasing revenues. In order to differentiate with competitors, firm can adopt product development strategy.

Task 4

4.1 Roles and responsibilities of personnel in charge in implementing strategy

The strategy implementation need a person who can give more advantages to other individuals and delegate the work among various worker as per their roles and responsibilities and level in firm. The workforce of WaitRose who are trying to execute these strategies must have some roles & responsibilities. If company want to implement these strategies they must have clear roles and responsibility according to personnel which they defined clearly. CEO of this company is also responsible to communicate different strategies which is related with information to workforce & other parties. CEO is also accountable for making proper planning for work (Svee, Giannoulis and Zdravkovic, 2011).

In strategic planning, the human resource of Waitrose who are in charged for strategy execution must have proper duty to maintain correct records. It is very important for planning which help in avoid lawful obligations. To maintain legal and ethical standards it is important duty of workforce for this execution. For this proper planning is required so that organisations utilize it in proper manner for better success. They do proper monitoring as well as controlling which means taking a intermittent summary of action. This help in determine that whether actual steps are taken by workers apply the actions.

4.2 Analysis of estimated resource requirements to execute new strategy

In order to apply various effective strategies, mainly three types of resources required namely, Human - resources, financial resources and time and material resources.

Human resources:- For the successful implementation of strategy related with human resources have to be followed by wait-rose .Human resource Department is important department which help in making strategy which give better performance in their growth. The performance of company depends on much more in HR. For this company given strategies require the HR who have adequate knowledge, technical and productivity (Scholes, 2015).

Financial resources:- This deals with how Wait-rose finance their strategy in order to make it more effective. Finance means goods or movement of money. Financial resources are assets which help in level of liquidity. It includes cash, credits, bank deposits, divided and ownership into shares and bonds .It can be done in two ways debt and equity. In comparison to both equity give more return in future because it is more desirable as there is no interest imposes on bearing cost on principle.

Time and material resources:-To apply any strategies in the organisation it requires a longer period of time not short period of time. It is simple to frame out the growth strategy but it comparatively take more years to execute the strategies in real time. Under this initially the plans are made, finance and resources are collected than the strategies are implemented. Wait-rose should use latest and advance technology and machine for completing their development strategy (Ackermann and Audretsch, 2013).

4.3 Contribution of SMART targets to accomplishment of strategy implementation

With using Smart Objectives or Targets it means the goals which is set by Waitrose company that must be accurate in nature which can be computed with defined criteria that help in accomplishing in time .

Importance of SMART objectives:-

• These objectives help the Wait-rose which help in clarify it vision and make it emphasize on the strategies and if the vision are clear to their employees and managers then the strategy can be executed in terms of its vision statement .
• This also helps the firm in identifying their priorities and help in move toward right direction (Annabi and McGann, 2013).
• In this if target are not specific or clear that what they desired to accomplish, then all their efforts will go in vain or waste for haphazard situations.
• If ore-defined target are not measurable as per the established targets then it is not possible to determine any problems.
• If Wait-rose set a target which is unachievable in nature then they set target so that they can attain on time.

Conclusion

As per the above mentioned report, it has been figured out that an effective execution of strategy rely on analysis of environment in a proper manner. Main business strategy of firm is to satisfy customers and creates value for them. It is suggested that firm can expand their business operation in more areas. Effective execution of strategy rely on prevailing situations of target market.

References

• Ackermann, S. J. and Audretsch, D. B. eds., 2013. The economics of small firms: A European challenge (Vol. 11). Springer Science & Business Media.
• Annabi, H. and McGann, S. T., 2013. Social media as the missing link: Connecting communities of practice to business strategy. Journal of Organizational Computing and Electronic Commerce. 23(1-2). pp.56-83.
• Auzair, S., 2011. The effect of business strategy and external environment on management control systems: a study of Malaysian hotels. International Journal of Business and Social Science. 2(13).

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