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Table of Contents

• • Introduction
  • Main body
    • Three possible future states
    • Things which Woolworth will need to adopt to become successful
    • Benchmarking measures and milestone.

• Conclusion
• References

Introduction

In the modern era, the competition in the retail supermarket industry of Australia has become highly intense, and it is now challenging for brands like Woolworth to sustain in the marketplace (Armstrong et al. 2015). To gain a competitive advantage over other players in the industry, the brand is now required to seek for the ways through which it can gain a competitive advantage over other players in the industry. The present report outlines three possible future states within which the selected organisation which is Woolworth can find itself operating in the next ten years. In addition to this, the way in which selected organisation can adopt the identified future trends are also mentioned in this study.

Main Body

Three possible future states

Woolworth is a very popular chain of retail supermarkets operating in the retail industry of Australia. The selected company has formed a duopoly with Coles, and these two brands are now dominating the entire retail supermarket industry of Australia. The mission of Woolworth is to make the shopping experience of its customer more satisfactory and convenient. In addition to this, the actions and activities of its staff members are directed towards addressing the changing customer needs and demands in every possible manner. The business strategy of Woolworth is directed toward carrying out continuous improvement in its process and reducing the overall cost of operations (Kotabe & Helsen, 2014).

Developing Woolworth as a cohesive brand in the marketplace is also an important business strategy of the selected enterprise. Apart from this, updating the product range and refreshing stores at regular intervals are also some essential business objectives of the brand. Based on the existing degree of competition in the retail supermarket industry, it can be expressed that diversification, market development and product development are three possible states in the future.

Market development is defined as the process in which companies focus on targeting new and potential markets of the world. Here, the objective of business is to enhance the volume of sales, profitability and customer base by selling same products and services to new or different individuals. Entering new market with same services and products is the principle of market development strategy (Papadopoulos & Heslop, 2014). According to the future state, it can be expressed that within the next ten years, a retailer such as Woolworth will be looking forward to entering the growing and potential markets of the world to sustain in the industry. Entry in a new market with same products and services is considered as a bit risky move because lack of knowledge about consumer decision making and buying behaviour can result in the failure of the business in the new market.

However, it can be critically argued that the selected brand can carry out market research and Pestle analysis to identify what sort of threats and opportunities are present in the new market. The concept of market research will help the company to understand changing need and demand of people in the new market (Kotler, 2015). The information collected through Pestle analysis and market research can be further used by Woolworth to develop effective business plan and strategy to enter the new market in the future.

The idea of market development is the future state of Australian retail businesses such as Woolworth because it will help the company to increase its overall market share and customer base. The brand will also be able to enhance its global presence by applying the concept of market development in the future. It is also expected that in future the company will be operating in different markets across the globe (Morschett, Schramm-Klein & Zentes, 2015). At present, lack of global presence is the primary and most important weakness of Woolworth, and the strategy of market development will support the selected brand to overcome this weakness in every possible manner.

The second future state is linked with product or service development, and here, companies look forward to selling new products and services to same market or customers. In comparison with the other strategies such market development and diversification, the strategy of product development is considered as less risky. The rationale behind this is that here, businesses are selling new products in existing market and therefore, they are very well aware of the consumer buying behaviour and decision making in such markets. Product development is another major future state which will be employed by brand such as Woolworth to sustain in the market (Moutinho & Vargas-Sanchez, 2018). The degree of intense competition within the industry is now encouraging the selected retailer to come up with new products and services in the marketplace.

In the next ten years, the brand will introduce something new and innovative which can support Woolworth in creating differentiation. At the same time, the strategy is effective because it will help in getting a competitive advantage over other market players. On the other side of this, it can be expressed that the use of product development strategy in the next ten years will also play a critical role in maintaining the overall interest of customers in the long-run. The benefit associated with this strategy is that Woolworth’s is an Australian based retailer and in the next ten years, the brand will already have a sound understanding of the business environment and customer trends in the industry (Skarmeas, Zeriti & Baltas, 2016). Therefore, developing new products according to the demand of customers in the existing market will not be a challenging task for the selected business enterprise.

The third future state is linked with diversification where the selected brand which is Woolworth will look forward to offering new products for markets which are entirely new. As compared to the other strategies, the future state of diversification for the retailer selected. To deal with the existing state of increasing competition from brands such as Aldi and Coles, in future Woolworth will be looking forward to entering new markets with a complete range of new products and services. The rationale behind selecting this future state is that the existing areas or other business operations of Woolworth will not get affected because of adverse condition of one business. For instance, the brand is facing losses in a new venture in the market such as Singapore, but this loss will not have any impact on existing operations of Woolworth in the Australian market (Eteokleous, Leonidou & Katsikeas, 2016).

The strategy of diversification is also useful because it will provide the company with an opportunity to reduce high dependency on Australia market and its supermarket operations. New markets and revenue streams will be developed by the company so that its reliance on existing products and market can be reduced to a great extent. However, it can be critically argued the brand will need to be very careful in the selection of new product and market because a huge amount of resources in the form of a human, financial and technology will be invested in the same. The overall brand image of Woolworth at the global level will also be affected if the new venture in new market fails.

Things which Woolworth will need to adopt to become successful

The first future state is related to market development where Woolworth will be required to enter a new market with existing ranges of products and services. To adopt this future state, the selected organisation will be required to conduct market research so that it can become aware of the emerging markets in the world (Baker & Saren, 2016). It can be expressed that Woolworth should seek for expanding operations to Asian markets such as India, China and Singapore. The economies, GDP and per capita income of the mentioned above markets are increasing with a rapid pace, and therefore, the company will have the opportunity to enter these markets and attain the desired volume of sales and profitability. To make the best out of the future state, Woolworth will also be required to conducted PESTLE analysis so that it can become aware of the political, social, economic, legal, technological and environmental factors or situation in the markets mentioned above (Doumeingts & Browne, 2016).

Effective market research is mandatory for the company as it will provide the company with an opportunity to develop knowledge about the demand and trends in the marketplace. It can also be asserted that before entering the new markets, laws and regulatory practices existing within the new country should be efficiently analysed by Woolworth. The business and marketing strategies for the new market should be developed according to the political, social and legal environment within the country. Woolworth will focus on establishing its retail supermarket stores in central locations within India and Singapore. The objective here will be to enhance global market share and increase the customer base in every possible manner. The firm will not focus on carrying out any changes in retail products and services in the selected future state of market development (Caiazza, 2014). Woolworth will also emphasise on using e-commerce platform to increase the sale of existing products and services in the new market.

To make the best utilisation of second future state, i.e. product development, the brand will need to emphasise on areas such as new product development. Here, the objective of Woolworth will be to introduce a new product or service range in the existing market which is Australia. It can be stated that in future, the retail supermarket will be coming up with its range of fast fashion products (Zhu, 2014). The fashion retail industry of Australia is growing with rapid pace, and therefore, the organisation has an opportunity to introduce its brand of fashion in the existing market. Strong brand image and market reputation will support the company to attract the desired number of customer and sales from the new venture of fashion retail. Woolworth will be introducing a new range of clothing and fashion accessories for male, female and children in the country. Here, the selected business will need to conduct market research to become aware of the fashion trends in present and future. The information collected through research can be further used for the process of new product development.

At the same time, Woolworth will be carrying out aggressive marketing and promotion of its new fashion products and accessories so that it can create demand among people in the existing market. During the initial stage, Woolworth will be operating through e-commerce platform so that it can maintain and manage the low cost of operations.

A new e-commerce platform will be developed by Woolworth where separate section for male, female and kids will be created on the website so that customers do not have any issue or difficulties in the finding products and services required. In addition to this, modern marketing tools will be adopted by the brand so that it can reach a large number of the target audience in a very cost-effective manner. The selected company will be using social media platforms, i.e. Instagram, Pinterest and Facebook to carry out marketing of its products and services (Svensson & Høgevold, 2017). At the same time, mobile marketing and email marketing will be taken into consideration by the brand to create more and more awareness among the people in the target market. It can be expressed that the focus of Woolworth will be on creating and attaining a high degree of satisfaction among its customers. The brand will be operating with e-commerce platform for one year, and once the fashion products of Woolworth become successful in the market, the company will emphasise on setting up fashion retail stores within different locations of Australia.

The third future state is linked with diversification where the company will be looking forward to opening its chain of restaurants in a new market which is the United Kingdom. Here, the objective of Woolworth is going to be delivery of fresh, fast foods and drinks to people in UK market (Gorman & Klimberg, 2014). It can be expressed that diversification of business from supermarket retail to chain of the restaurant will not be a complicated task for Woolworth as the same diversification has been successfully carried out Tesco in UK market. Delivery fresh food which does not create any negative impact on health and well being of people is going to be the primary objective of Woolworth in this future state.

The new restaurant and food chain business will provide the brand with an opportunity to develop new streams of revenue generation. However, it can be critically argued that the strategy will be little risky as the brand will be entering a new market with new product. The state of diversification will also support Woolworth to minimise its high dependency on the Australian market and its existing retail operations.

Benchmarking measures and milestone

Benchmarking is an effective tool which is used by companies to carry out the comparison of existing business practices and operations either with best in industry or with desired one. For the adaption of market development where the brand will be entering new market with existing products, benchmarking measure which is comparison of sales with other supermarket retailers will be used. A comparison of the sales of Woolworth’ supermarket stores with Singapore retailer such as Mustafa Market and FairPrice will be carried out. The comparison will help in understand the differences in sales of both the brands along with the reasons behind the same (Anthopoulos, Janssen & Weerakkody, 2016). The brand will be taking control measures in situation where the difference in sales is very high.

Measures such as increasing spending on marketing activities and carrying out modifications in products and services offered will be taken into consideration by the brand. In case of the difference is very high, Woolworth will be looking forward to carry out aggressive marketing and promotion of its products and services. The milestone in the first future state is going to be the leading the supermarket retailer of Woolworth. The brand will be entering the new market with an objective to give intense competition to the existing supermarket retailers and dominate in retail industry of Singapore in every possible manner.

The second state is related to product development in which the company will be offering a new range of fashion products in the Australian market. Here, result benchmarking is the technique which will be taken into consideration (Mann et al. 2017). The selected business enterprise will be focusing on the analysis of the services and products offered by other market players in the fashion industry of Australia. Furthermore, a comparison of Woolworth’s fast fashion products with other fashion retailers will be carried out.

The features, performance and overall characteristics will be carried out. In case if any issue or gap identified, the company will be taking measures of control. The control measures will be carried out with the help of customer and competitor analysis. Woolworth will also be focusing on carrying out continuous improvement in its fashion products and services to attain a high degree of satisfaction among customers. In addition to this, customer surveys at regular intervals will be conducted so that the brand can become aware of the issues and challenges faced by the people in target market with respect to the fast fashion products and services of Woolworth (Kailash, Saha & Goyal, 2017).

The use of result benchmarking technique will also provide the company with an opportunity to identify and understand ways to resolve its weaknesses and to enhance its existing strengths linked with the new range of clothing and fashion accessories. The comparison with companies with similar operations and products will also assist the brand in identified what sort of modifications it can carry out more improve quality of its existing products and services.

The third future state is linked with diversification, and here both techniques which are benchmarking results and benchmarking processes will be taken into consideration (Archer, Chetty & Prinsloo, 2014). The company will be carrying out a comparison of products, services and process of its new venture which is fast food retail store with the brands which are the leading players in the fast food industry of United Kingdom.

The use of benchmarking technique here will play a critical role in outlining how Woolworth can be improve the overall operational efficiencies of its new venture i.e. chain of fast food restaurants (Kunisch, 2017). The result analysis technique will help the brand to understand changes which it can bring in its food and drinks to attract more and more customers. The technique of result benchmarking will also play a vital role in outlining the current market trends and fast food demands of people in the UK market.

On the other side of this, it can be argued that it is required by the company to make sure that its operational process as effective as the operations of other players in the market.  According to the present scenario, people in the UK have now become more concision towards their health and well-being, and they are now looking forward to consuming food products which are made up of low fat and cholesterol (Kirstein & Brent, 2017). The existing market players such as Tesco restaurants are now looking forward to offering healthy food and drinks to customers. Therefore, Woolworth will need to make sure that its products, services and operational process are matches with the other players operating in the market.

Conclusion

From the above study, it can be concluded that the competition is increasing within the retail supermarket industry of Australia and it has resulted in making it very complicated for the brand to sustain in the market. It can be inferred that to deal with intense competition and in the future, the brand has three possible options available. The first option is linked with product development where Woolworth will introduce a new range of clothing and fashion accessories in the Australian market.

On the other side of this, market development is an option in which Woolworth will enter a new market, i.e. Singapore with existing range of products and services. The last strategy is of diversification where Woolworth will introduce its fast food restaurant chain in UK market. Benchmarking is an effective technique as it will support the brand to compare its operations, products and services with leading players in the industry and carry out measures of control according to the same.

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