Evidence From Strategic Management Journal Analysis – Wesfarmers Coles Supermarket

Identification of Corporation

Discuss About The Evidence From Strategic Management Journal.

The report throws light on examination of the respective corporation that has multiple business units. The appropriate analysis of corporate element is required to be completed as to identify the different products along with various services that are sold by them in the market. The analysis of the corporate unit revenue has to be done as to identify the largest revenue in the respective organization effectively.

Furthermore, the external environmental analysis is required to be conducted as to identify the political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental factors of the selected business unit. The source of the justifiable competitive benefit has to be identified and described with the specific business unit. Proper recommendations have to be done for the future strategic direction of the company.

Corporation is defined as the legal entity that is separate and distinct from the owners and it enjoys the different rights along with the responsibilities that is possessed by the individual in an appropriate way.

Wesfarmers is one of the Australian conglomerate companies that is based in Perth, Western Australia. It was founded in the year 1914 and there are 220,000 employees who are working under the respective company. The respective company serves United Kingdom, Australia, Ireland along with New Zealand (Wesfarmers.com.au, 2018). The revenue earned by the organization is A$65.98 billion and the conglomerate company has different divisions such as Coles retail store, chemicals, coal mining along with safety products. In this assessment, the Coles Supermarket has been taken into consideration to analyse the different issues along with other analysis of the external environment effectively.

The product portfolio is the entire collection of the different products and services that is offered by the company. The product portfolio is an essential element in the financial analysis as this provides context. With the analysis of entire BCG matrix, product classification is done that helps in identifying share of the market of respective product as well as the growth. With the help of the entire arrangement, the executive of the entire organization can decide the various level of reserves along with return amount that will be produced (Baker and Saren 2016).

On the contrary, service portfolio is the fundamental source for various information in company. With the implementation of current history and status of the company, this is helpful for Wesfarmers in listing the different services in an effectual manner (Serra and Kunc 2015). The entire service collection of the organization includes the portfolio of the supermarket that comprises more than 18 shopping centres and this assisted the company in analysing with various attainments.

Summary of Wesfarmers and link with Wesfarmers

The solitary business unit that has been selected in the entire Wesfarmers organization is the Coles trade store that is headquartered in Australia. In Coles supermarket, the SBU is the profit centre required as to analyse a fully purposeful unit that has unique vision and direction. The proper analysis has assisted in analysing the different SBUs that functions in an appropriate manner (Welford 2016). The strategic business unit of Coles has discrete along with separate kind of marketing strategy for the retail unit.

It can be analysed and identified that entire Wesfarmers is mainly focusing on the various sectors that includes the entire vision and mission of various sectors that varies from the other. It has been noticed that the retail store of Wesfarmers that is Coles has separate vision and mission that is handled separately.

There are various products and service lines of entire Wesfarmers company in which retail store Coles focuses mainly on providing and delivering the non-perishable items to their customers who have been targeted. The service and product contour of the specific Coles supermarket is mainly into marketing numerous product line on various brands (Jarzabkowski and Kaplan 2015).

It has been analysed that the Coles retail market is offering different goods and services efficiently with the product line that is existing. This kind of activities are taken by Coles Supermarket as this will deliver the customers with various products from different brands that are acquainted to target customers in the market.

On the contrary, the service line is different segments in a company that focuses on selling and offering the customers with various products. In case of Wesfarmers Company, they have Coles supermarket along with the other different departments that focuses on industrial gases along with energy (Chang 2016).

Revenue is defined as the income increased by the entire business from various normal business activities. These types of profits are generated from various sale of products and facilities to the customers in the market. The income of the entire company is observed as the turnover of definite time span (Bromiley et al. 2015). The largest and highest revenue that is generated for the entire corporation by specific unit of the retail store of Wesfarmers is shown in the table:

Years	Retail ($)	Coles ($)
2017	8540	8666
2016	39211	39200
2015	25856	26833
2014	29850	29595
2013	26874	27854

From the analysis of the table, it can be identified that the generation of the revenue from Coles along with other supermarkets has been showed in the table. It is seen that revenue plays a major role in company in which the analysis is essential as to understand various kind of competitive advantages provided by organization in a specific sector.

Product and Service Portfolio

From the analysis, it can be analysed and identified that the generation of the revenue by Wesfarmers Company is highest in the year 2016 that is amounting to $39211. Furthermore, the customers are huge in number as this assisted in gaining advantage in the competitive market. Wesfarmers has gained huge profit in the market that is $2670 and has assisted retail store Coles based in Australia (Slack 2015).

Figure 1: Half-year Results

(Source: ABC News, 2018)

From the above results, it can be identified that revenue after tax duty has been disseminated and has been calculated that the NPAT and dividends of the organization is superior in the year 2017. With the entire application of dissimilar technologies, this has assisted the organization in receiving gigantic revenues in the competitive market.

The entire functioning environment is the external environment in which the different analysis is created as to analyse the political, economic, environmental, legal, social and technological factors of the environment. The complete external analysis is created to be followed by Wesfarmers aimed at analysing the problems faced by the organization.

Political Factors assists in defining the level to which the government can create influence on the economy. It includes the different kinds of tax policies that can affect the entire environment of the company. It helps in analysis of the degree of the intervenes from the government in the entire economy (Helfat and Martin 2015). This includes the different policies form government along with political instability or stability in the market has to be described in the market as well.

Economic Factors include the analysis of determining the entire performance that can impact the organization in a direct manner and creates effects that are long term in nature. The economic factors create a less impact on analysis of the measures taken by the organizations to perform the business effectively (Koseoglu 2016). The micro economic factors aid in analysing the different methods through which the individuals spend money in the day to day lives.

Social Factors include the scrutinizing the social situation of entire market that is inclusive of the trends of buying of the customers or analysis of the demand of the product as well. It is also known as socio-cultural factors that includes the different beliefs along with the various attitudes of the individuals in the economy (Grant 2016).

Technological Factors is the inclusion of innovative kind of technologies that assists in affecting various strategies along with procedures of the organization. The companies have to analyse the different techniques to produce goods and services along with distributing goods and services as well (Mastropieri and Scruggs 2017).

Business Unit Research

Legal Factors include both internal along with external sides that includes various strategies along with legislatures such as labour or compensation laws. The different legal factors include the equal opportunities, health and safety of the individuals in the economy that is required to be provided to the individuals and doing business in an ethical manner as well (Lasserre 2017). There are diverse issues that are faced by the different marketers in the economy wherein more and more customers are facing crisis of not receiving the same materials demanded by them. The organization has to include different copyrights and trademarks as well to sustain the competitive advantage.

Environmental Factors include various types of areas that are environmentally related and the geographical location of the entire country is included. This is one of the essential part as there is increase in the scarcity of the essential raw materials along with pollution targets as well. The sustainability is becoming less in the entire economy that is dangerous for the whole economy as well.

Political  The trading hours are obstructive in nature  Regulations related to Ad Hoc (Gomes, Barnes and Mahmood 20 16)  Zoning and planning tenancy leases	Economic  The growth rate of the industry is low in nature  Wage costs are high in nature to the entire market that is global  The forte of Australian dollars is increased
Social   There has been gradual increase in life expectancy rates of humans  Women participation is becoming high in nature	Technological  The online shopping has been increased in the organization in the market  The technology has been utilised as this helps in predicting the behaviour of the customers (Carroll, Primo and Richter 2016)
Legal  There is auction of the underwriting division in Australia insurance group	Environmental  The different organizations are required to report the emissions under NGER reporting act

There are different factors of gaining maintainable competitive advantage in the market that are described as such:

• The resources that are valuable in nature is major factor that will permit the various companies in improving the overall effectiveness and appropriateness. Though, the preferences along with the various demands of the customers makes the valuable resources as less valued possessions and this is seen that the resources that are valuable are rare in the economy as well.
• Rare kind of resources are another vital factor in which such resources are not being possessed by the other organizations in the market as to gain the competitive advantage in the market
• The imitable resources that are imperfect in nature is the third major factor that are costly along with it is hard to copy and make the duplicate of the same
• The resources that are rare in nature are non-substitutable and there are no other resources in the market that can replace the same. This can be a major issue for the company in sustaining the competitive advantage in the market

The different kinds of maintainable competitive advantage for the Coles supermarket that is the designated business unit of Wesfarmers focuses mainly on safety and health of the employees in organization. As per the different reports of the Sustainability of Wesfarmers, it is noticed that employees along with customers of the company are different and varied sources of gaining competitive advantage in the market.

Therefore, it is suggested that the entire Wesfarmers organization has to focus mainly on various weaknesses and threats that are faced by the organization and this can be a huge issue for the business in the future as well. Proper strategic expansion is necessary and essential as this assists Wesfarmers in outlining the strategic direction and planning in an appropriate manner. Strategic course will help and assist the entire organization in understanding the business goals that has to be achieved by the business in the future. Furthermore, the different kind of analysis of the strategic management will help Wesfarmers in managing the issues.

References

ABC News. 2018. Wesfarmers net profit plunges nearly 87pc on Target and Bunnings UK write-downs. [online] Available at: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-21/wesfarmers-profit-falls-87pc-on-target-bunnings-uk-write-downs/9469302 [Accessed 22 Mar. 2018].

Baker, M.J. and Saren, M. eds., 2016. Marketing theory: a student text. Sage.

Bromiley, P., McShane, M., Nair, A. and Rustambekov, E., 2015. Enterprise risk management: Review, critique, and research directions. Long range planning, 48(4), pp.265-276.

Carroll, R.J., Primo, D.M. and Richter, B.K., 2016. Using item response theory to improve measurement in strategic management research: An application to corporate social responsibility. Strategic Management Journal, 37(1), pp.66-85.

Chang, J.F., 2016. Business process management systems: strategy and implementation. CRC Press.

Gomes, E., Barnes, B.R. and Mahmood, T., 2016. A 22-year review of strategic alliance research in the leading management journals. International business review, 25(1), pp.15-27.

Grant, R.M., 2016. Contemporary strategy analysis: Text and cases edition. John Wiley & Sons.

Helfat, C.E. and Martin, J.A., 2015. Dynamic managerial capabilities: Review and assessment of managerial impact on strategic change. Journal of Management, 41(5), pp.1281-1312.

Jarzabkowski, P. and Kaplan, S., 2015. Strategy tools?in?use: A framework for understanding “technologies of rationality” in practice. Strategic Management Journal, 36(4), pp.537-558.

Koseoglu, M. A. 2016. Growth and structure of authorship and co-authorship network in the strategic management realm: Evidence from the Strategic Management Journal. BRQ Business Research Quarterly, 19(3), 153-170.

Lasserre, P., 2017. Global strategic management. Palgrave.

Mastropieri, M.A. and Scruggs, T.E., 2017. The inclusive classroom: Strategies for effective differentiated instruction. Pearson.

Serra, C.E.M. and Kunc, M., 2015. Benefits realisation management and its influence on project success and on the execution of business strategies. International Journal of Project Management, 33(1), pp.53-66.

Slack, N., 2015. Operations strategy. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Sustainability.wesfarmers.com.au. 2018. [online] Available at: https://sustainability.wesfarmers.com.au/media/2222/2017-wesfarmers-sustainability-full-report.pdf [Accessed 22 Mar. 2018]. (Sustainability.wesfarmers.com.au, 2018)

Welford, R., 2016. Corporate environmental management 1: Systems and strategies. Routledge.

Wesfarmers.com.au. 2018. Home. [online] Available at: https://www.wesfarmers.com.au/ [Accessed 22 Mar. 2018].