...Introduction 3 1. Analysis of the competition faced by Lidl within the UK food retail industry 4 2. The Strategic position of Lidl 5 2.1 Porter’s Generic Strategies 5 2.2 Bowman’s Strategic Clock 6 3. An analysis of the external business environment and how it affects Lidl 7 3.1 PEST Analysis 7 3.1.1 Political 8 3.1.2 Economic 8 3.1.3 Social 8 3.1.4 Technological 8 3.2 Porter’s Five forces Model 9 3.2.1 Threat of New Entrants 10 3.2.2 Threat of Substitutes 10 3.2.3 Bargaining Power of Suppliers 10 3.2.4 Bargaining Power of Buyers 10 3.2.5 Competitive Rivalry within the Industry 10 4. How Lidl adds value to its strategic position 11 5. The sustainability of Lidl’s strategic position 13 6. Conclusion 13 7. Bibliography 14 Introduction The purpose of this report is to carry out a strategic evaluation of the hard discount food retailer Lidl. It will cover the following key items • An analysis of the competition within the food retail industry and the strategic position of Lidl; • An analysis of the external business environment and how it affects Lidl; • An analysis of how Lidl adds value to its strategic position; This will allow for a discussion of how sustainable Lidl’s strategic position is and conclude where Lidl is likely to progress within the UK grocery sector. Research from on-line literature, books and journals will be utilised for the purpose of the report. Lidl’s history dates back to 1930 when it emerged as a grocery wholesaler...
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...AI? Systems that think like humans Systems that think rationally Systems that act like humans Systems that act rationally Chapter 1 3 Acting humanly: The Turing test Turing (1950) “Computing machinery and intelligence”: ♦ “Can machines think?” −→ “Can machines behave intelligently?” ♦ Operational test for intelligent behavior: the Imitation Game HUMAN HUMAN INTERROGATOR ? AI SYSTEM ♦ Predicted that by 2000, a machine might have a 30% chance of fooling a lay person for 5 minutes ♦ Anticipated all major arguments against AI in following 50 years ♦ Suggested major components of AI: knowledge, reasoning, language understanding, learning Problem: Turing test is not reproducible, constructive, or amenable to mathematical analysis Chapter 1 4 Thinking humanly: Cognitive Science 1960s “cognitive revolution”: information-processing psychology replaced prevailing orthodoxy of behaviorism Requires scientific theories of internal activities of the brain – What level of abstraction? “Knowledge” or “circuits”? – How to validate? Requires 1) Predicting and testing behavior of human subjects (top-down) or 2) Direct identification from neurological data (bottom-up) Both approaches (roughly, Cognitive Science and Cognitive Neuroscience) are now distinct from AI Both share with AI the following characteristic: the available theories do not explain (or engender) anything resembling human-level general intelligence Hence, all three fields share one principal direction! Chapter...
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...Brief Company Background FreshDirect is an online grocery store, founded in 1999 by Joseph Fedele and Jason Ackerman, that offers shopping and delivery services to around 300 zip codes. FreshDirect is known for its convenience, fresh food, and comparatively lower prices. They prepare custom grocery and meal orders for its customers by using Just In Time manufacturing. Their goal is to differentiate themselves from their competitors by providing high quality products with great flavor. Mission Statement for the Company The current mission statement for the company is, “FreshDirect prides itself on sourcing the highest quality food and freshest ingredients available. We believe nutritious, delicious meals and convenient service allow customers more time to live healthy lives.” SWOT Analysis Strengths 1. FreshDirect is an online grocery store that offers the convenience and advantage of shopping at your home. Goods are delivered in refrigerated trucks so that they remain fresh. 2. They offer a wide range of fresh food at low prices delivered to your front door. 3. They offer custom made groceries for the customers called Just In Time manufacturing 4. They provide an efficient and cost effective service. 5. They also offer additional attractive services to their customers like farm fresh quality food, discounts on bulk purchase, chef made entrees, easy family meals, and freshly baked food. ...
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...Recommendation As an individual, “Goals play (an) extremely important function in our life by organizing our thinking and giving our life order and direction” (Chaffee, 2012). Goals influence our decisions and suggest courses of action (Chaffee, 2012). The same can be said of business. Whether as a human entity or a business entity, we grow and become fruitful (profitable) by solving problems, making intelligent decisions and achieving goals that have purpose and provide fulfillment (Chaffee, 2012). Businesses, regardless of industry or size have one ultimate goal in common, that goal is to maximize profit and/or shareholder wealth. And, it is how a business goes about achieving this goal that determines how mighty an opponent the company is in its industry. Take Publix for example. Publix and the Supermarket Industry Publix Super Markets, Inc. was founded by George W. Jenkins in 1930. The company is a member of the highly competitive supermarket industry. Publix made its start in Winter Haven, FL and now operates 1,068 supermarkets in Florida, Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina and Tennessee. The company is largest employee owned supermarket in the United States with over 157,000 employees, and is also one of the top ten largest supermarket chains in the United States (“Publix”). Top 10 U.S. Food Retailers by Sales | 1987 | 1997 | 2007 | Safeway | Kroger | Wal-Mart* | Kroger | Safeway | Kroger | American Stores | Wal-Mart* | Safeway | Winn-Dixie | Albertsons |...
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...Fresh Direct Case Study Report Fresh Direct is a web-based supermarket that delivers fresh produce and meals to customers in New York City metropolitan area. Customers can order prepared meals from the website, www.freshdirect.com. Fresh Direct is in the online grocery store industry. BACKGROUND FreshDirect was found in 1999 by Jason Ackerman, Steve Druckman and Joe Fedele as an online alternative to traditional grocery stores. The company specializes in delivering a variety of over 3,000 items such as fruits, vegetables, seafood, prepared entrees and sides, coffee, meat products, deli and cheese products, and bakery items (Goldberg, 2010). The company provides same day and next day delivery to over 600,000 customers in New York City neighborhoods in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Riverdale, Queens, Staten Island, Connecticut, Long Island, New Jersey, and Westchester County (Bruno, 2010). FreshDirect solidified its market position by purchasing directly from farmers and passed the low price to customers within seven days to guarantee freshness; therefore, the company was able to deliver food to customers’ door for 25% less than its competitors. Former CEO, Rick Braddock, used innovative ecommerce technology to give the company a competitive advantage (Hu, 2012). FreshDirect struggled to turn a profit, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement audited the company concluded 15% of the employees were not eligible to work in the U.S (Bruder, 2010). The company also experienced...
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...Trader Joe’s questions; 1. How do firms in the supermarket industry make money? 1. Please conduct a financial ratio analysis using the data in Exhibit 2. How do the results reflect different strategies pursued by the 4 firms? 2. What do the results say about how firms in this industry can deliver strong financial returns in different ways? 2. What are the key sources of Trader Joe’s competitive advantage? 3. What are the main threats to Trader Joe’s competitive advantage? Is their advantage sustainable? 4. How would you modify Trader Joe’s strategy moving forward? What are the key sources of Trader Joe’s competitive advantage? Trader Joe’s Competitive Advantage Their competitive advantage stems not from this “less is more” approach to strategy but from how they execute it. Dan Bane explained, “It’s kind of a loose-tight company. We’re very controlling and tight about cost structure and processes; we’re very loose about how we want the stores to run. We just try to do a good job of what we do, trying to find the next Charles Shaw and trying to keep our hustling going on the buying side.”8 He noted that they don’t carry products like flour, toilet paper, or Coke because these are commodities for which Trader Joe’s can’t get a better price or offer unique value. Bane also acknowledged that by routinely turning over 20 percent of their slower-moving products, customers sometimes were upset and he frequently received letters asking why a favorite...
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...Strengths 1. Core competency/Cost Leadership- Walmart is known for their “everyday low prices.” This sets them aside from their major competitors such as Target. Walmart strives for "saving people money so they can live better." With the cost leadership strategy in effect, Walmart is ensured a steady and returning flow of customers to their stores. That understood, Walmart has a comparative advantage over their competition. Consumers are able to feel better about their purchases knowing they are at a discounted price. Walmart is therefore given a rating of 4 and weighted score of 1.0 in this category. 2. Economies of Scale- Walmart is rated a 3 with a weighted score of 0.3 in this particular category. Being the giant that Walmart is, they have a very large scale of operations. This therefore gives them strong supplier purchasing power and the opportunity to reduce prices. With their vast amount of products they can spread their fixed costs out lowering the price of the products. “Higher economies of scale results in lower prices that are passed to consumers” (http://www.strategicmanagementinsight.com/swot-analyses/walmart-swot-analysis.html) 3. Wide Range of Products- Walmart has one of the largest ranges of products providing ease for their customers. Customers are able to have that “one-stop-shopping” experience they so desire. Consumers certainly like this aspect for the convenience it entails. Although Walmart’s discount stores do in fact provide...
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...INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS Strategic analysis and Strategic Analysis tools Name : Eduardo Christian Rodriguez Munoz – 30118825 Subject : Competitive Analysis Course Code : BUMKT5922 Lecturer : Sally-Anne Leigh Due : 8 June 2014 Word limit : 2271 SUMMARY CONTENS SUMMARY CONTENS 1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 3 INTRODUCTION 4 EXTERNAL ENVIRONMET ANALYSIS 5 Fast Food industry analysis 5 PESTLE analysis 5 Political and Legal 5 Economical 6 Social 6 Technological 7 Environmental 8 Porter’s Five Forces Framework 8 Threats of new entrants 8 Bargaining Power of Buyers 9 Bargaining power of suppliers 9 Threat of Substitutes 9 Intensity of Rivalry among competitors 10 Key Success Factors in fast food industry 10 Branding 10 Location 11 Speed 11 Efficiency 11 INTERNAL ENVIRONMETS ANALYSIS – THE FIRM 11 Subway - Strengths and Weaknesses Analysis 11 Subway Strengths 12 Subway Weaknesses 12 Subway Analysis 12 Subway - Key resources, capabilities and competencies 13 Subway – Resources tangibles 13 Subway - Intangibles 13 Subway Human Resources 14 Subway – Porter value chain 14 Firm infrastructure 14 Human Resource 14 Technology 14 Inbound logistics 15 Outbound logistics 15 Marketing and Sales 15 Service 15 OVERALL ANALYSIS OF SUBWAY 16 CONCLUSION 18 REFERENCING 19 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The following report shows an analysis of the real competitive environment into...
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...Strategic Analysis of ALDI Table of Contents 1. Introduction 2 2. Brief Background on Aldi 3 3. Market Identification of Aldi 4 4. Environmental Analysis 5 4.1 PESTEL Analysis 6 4.1.1 Political factors 6 4.1.2 Economical factors 6 4.1.3 Social and cultural factors 7 4.1.4 Technology factors 8 4.1.5 Environmental Factors 8 4.1.6 Legal factors 9 4.2 Key Trends affecting the industry 9 5. SWOT Analysis 10 5.1 Strengths 10 5.2 Weaknesses 11 5.2 SWOT Table 12 6. Identification and evaluation of the Strategies pursued by Aldi 13 6.1 Strategies implemented by ALDI 13 6.2 Critical Evaluation of the Strategies 14 7. Conclusion 16 8. References 16 1. Introduction Albrecht Discount Inc., globally known as Aldi, is a German based family owned global discount chain of supermarkets. Aldi constitutes of two independent groups, that are Aldi Nord (North) and Aldi Sud (South) legally and economically independent but family related (Aldi Sud Business, 2013). It is the market leader in the industry of international grocery retailing and owns and operates chain of discount grocery stores in Europe, Australia and United States. It’s stores retail and supply general merchandise and food including meat products, fresh meat, frozen and refrigerated foods, sweets and snacks, dairy and bakery products, beverages and pantry items in addition to home care and personal care products (Report Linker, 2013). In the present Aldi Inc.’s strategic...
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...The supermarket retail sector in UK has started as a fundamental part of the retail industry, that leading the food retailing (Shitti et all, 2006, P.94). The supermarket sector has an essential influence on the retail industry. The UK supermarket sector is led by few companies, Tesco, ASDA, Sainsbury, Safeway, Morrison and Co-op Group that control over 50% of grocery retail. A shift in consumer lifestyle has changed retail industry to offer a diversity of services. (Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada)) The UK grocery has been classified with a wide range of formats including Hypermarkets, Superstores, Discounters and Convenience stores. Generally, food retailers were developed from a highly simple source then they established a sound successful business, interspersed by failure (Williamson et al. 2004). The UK competing supermarkets in the retail industry are; 1. Morrison The supermarket was established in 1899 by William Morrison. In 1962, he purchased the Victoria Supermarket out of town. The growth of Morrison went steadily to increase their stores from 45 in 1990 to 81 in 1996 located in towns that close to main roads. It has been regarded as a leader in Sale-Based Ordering (SBO). Customers consider Morison chains as price competitive. Morrison is considered as the pioneer in feature of Market Street 2. Tesco It is classified as the market leader in grocery retailing that reached 545 outlets by 1996 guided by formula ‘pile it high, sell it cheap’. Tesco...
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...German Grocery Discounters Source: Ghauri, P. & Cateora, P. 2010, page 566-571 With a worldwide annual sales volume of €3.7 trillion in 2007 and an average annual sales growth of 2.7 percent during the past ten years, the grocery retailing industry can be considered as one of the world’s key economic sectors. Over the past decades, grocery discounters such as Aldi and Lidl have strengthened their position in the grocery retailing industry – especially in Germany and Europe. With their no-frills approach, they have led to significant changes in the industry and have challenged many companies which operate other store formats,’ such as supermarkets or hypermarkets. In this context, a Financial Times report on international retailing noted in 1995: ‘The spread of the discount format has been particularly disruptive to Europe’s grocery retail industry and has driven retailers to examine cross-border markets’. The Grocery Discount Format The key terms describing a grocery discounter are ‘minimalism’ and ‘efficiency’, which are integrated into all business areas. In fact, grocery discounters’ ambitions are to sell quality products at the lowest price possible. To realise profits in spite of the low prices, grocery discounters reduce their costs to a minimum and attempt to generate high volumes of sales through a limited product range of fastmoving items. The approach of cost reduction especially affects the spending for store design, customer service and advertising: grocery discounters...
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...intent of this paper is to compare the current strategy and operational approaches for two pharmacy retail stores such as Walmart and Walgreens chain stores. A SWOT analysis for both companies is bellow in table. My understanding after the initial study / investigation is that Walgreens has chosen to be conservative with their strategy in increasing their customer reach, market and base by a more organic growth than Walmart which growth approach is to rapidly build small and large supercenters on major neighborhoods in the United States and key cities around the world. The main strategy reporting evidence that reflect these two companies operational growth is mainly reflected in each financial statement that shows profit and loses for each company and their reinvestment percentage into each one. The financial analyses display the result of each company decisions to their market growth approach and impact on investment. Because of their more conservative stand and minimum risk taken by Walgreen’s, their operations model seems more solid and better prepare to accept their rate of growth in contrast to Walmart aggressive scheduled and heavy investment direction. Two different and what appear to be very effective approaches despite their very recent and impressive operations growth for each company. SWOT Analysis Walmart Weakness * Walmart approach to go with large space stores has little penetration in urban stores, plus as it continue to open in larger cities, the...
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...THE KROGER COMPANY Company Analysis BY Wayne Hurt 6/27/12 Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to run a complete company analysis. This includes the company background, the industry structure including practices of economic theory to create value, ethical issues, regulatory agencies, the macroeconomic and microeconomic environment of corporate operations, and a conclusion. Table of Contents The Kroger Company’s (KR) Background…………………………………….3 KR’s Structure………………………………………………………….............4 Ethical Issues…………………………………………………...........................9 Regulatory Agencies………………………………………………………….10 Environmental Issues………………………………………………………....12 Macroeconomic and Microeconomic Environment………………………….14 Conclusion.........................................................................................................17 Appendix 1 Table 1…………………………………………………………..21 Appendix 2 Chart 1…………………………………………………………..21 Bibliography…………………………………………………………………22 Background of The Kroger Company (KR) The Kroger Company (KR) is one of the leading companies in the grocery sector of the nation. It is the nation’s leading pure grocery chain. As of now, it operates about 3620 stores, which includes 2435 supermarkets and multidepartment stores, under two dozen banners, in almost 30 states. It also runs 775 convenience stores under the brand names such as Quik Stop and Kwik Shop. Its subsidiary Fred Meyer Stores operates about 125 supercenters which offer wide range of products...
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...1. Melbourne & Perth, Australia Executive Summary The purpose of this report is to provide insights into the Australia’s fast casual restaurant industry and the level of competition of Manhattan Fish Market were in the new market, Australia. Through the brief overview of Australia’s Political, economic, Social, Technological and Environmental factors to gain a better understanding of the external environmental factors of Australia. With the application of Michael Porter’s three out of five forces of the model, 1. Bargaining power of buyer 2. Threats of substitutes 3. Intensity of rivalries in fast casual dining to access the level of competition that Manhattan Fish Market were to face if it were to decide to expand into Australia. An overall assessment of the level of competitiveness/profitability of the restaurant industry in Australia will be made from the analysis of Michael Porter’s model. Lastly, recommending possible ways Manhattan Fish Market could overcome the threats of substitution/ bargaining power of buyers discussed in the report. Introduction Australia has been said to have a political system that is highly effective in responding to economic challenges and policy direction. Australia has good trading policies with its neighboring countries and its government open door policy has encouraged various international businesses to set up companies in Australia thus benefitting the Australian consumers from the increased choices. Australia is not...
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...Table of Contents Executive Summary Introduction Situation Analysis Product & Service Market Market Trends and Growth Distribution Network Competitive Current Financial Situation Historical Marketing Efforts Macroenvironment SWOT Analysis Internal External SWOT Action Plan Campaign Objectives and Critical Issues Marketing Communications Marketing Strategy Target Market Positioning Marketing Mix Creative Strategy Strategy Statements Tactics Advertising Tactics Public Relations Tactics Digital Tactics Promotional Tactics Market Research Quantitative Qualitative Implications Internal Communications Timeline Budget & ROI Evaluation Conclusion Appendix MENU Feature Survey Instrument 3 5 7 8 10 11 12 17 18 21 23 23 24 26 28 28 28 29 31 33 34 37 39 41 43 43 46 48 49 50 51 52 53 2 Executive Summary Wegmans Food Markets is a grocery retailer that has enjoyed considerable and enduring success while displaying wisdom through adaptability. Based on an evaluation of the company’s sales, markets, as well as consumer trends, an integrated marketing communications plan has been developed for the implementation of a campaign to capitalize on the growing demand for organic food in Wegmans’ New York State markets. While Wegmans serves market areas in six states, this IMC plan is focused on the regions of New York in which Wegmans operates; Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Southern Tier and Finger Lakes. As the focus of this plan is simply expanding...
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