Examine Strategic Marketing alternatives available and recommend a suitable Marketing Strategic and realistic implementation plans that are consistent with the overall objectives of your Organisation.
The report is based on the strategic management of Woolworths which is a supermarket leader of Australia having its operations in Australian and New Zealand (Woolworths, 2017). As a consultant, the strategic marketing alternatives of the company will be analysed and the suitable strategies will be recommended so that the overall objectives of the organisation can be achieved.
The company, Woolworths, identifies new markets and opportunities through market research in which it conducts surveys in the potential markets or developing markets to know their tastes, preferences and demands. It then develops certain strategies to attract the customers of the new markets and to make its own place amidst the competitors (Hill, Jones and Schilling, 2014).
The information needed to identify new markets includes the choices of the customers, the spending power of the customers, presence of competitors and the availability of resources. They also need to analyse the Political, legal, cultural, technological, economic and social factors which affect the overall operations of the company (Peppard and Ward, 2016).
The companies use several techniques to identify new marketing opportunities which include Google Trends, Market scanning, Demographic analysis, Surveys, Trials and experiments, focus groups, etc. Woolworths have to go through the trends and make conclusions about the future of the business in the new market. Feedbacks from the customers, social media and phone numbers are the sources from where the business can make changes and establish itself in the new markets by identifying the opportunities there (Eden and Ackermann, 2013).
Woolworths run marketing campaigns to establish its business in the new markets in order to grow and expand it. The contribution of the marketing programs can be measured to find out whether it is adding benefits for the business or increasing the costs (Wheelen and Hunger, 2017). It helps in measuring the return on the money invested by the company. The return on the investment can be measured through different ways. It can be calculated by asking the buyers that what made them purchase the offerings of the business. The amount of revenue which is resulted from each of the ad campaign can be tracked and then it can be deducted from the money invested in the same ad campaign and calculate the Return on Investment for the marketing campaign by using the following formula:
Return on Investment= (Sales growth- Cost of marketing)/ Cost incurred on marketing
Every company have some strategic marketing problems which are to be solved by adopting various measures. Woolworths also faces several strategic marketing problems. Like the increase in the international competition, change in technology, fast paced innovation, lack of skilled workforce and the changing demographics of the consumers which led to the change in the marketing strategies of the companies every now and then (Peteraf, Gamble and Thompson, 2014). Woolworths also face problems in coordinating the functions of marketing and in managing the human relations in the company. The company plans big but the resources to accomplish those plans are not available with the company which disrupts the plans of the company and affects its expansion plans of the future (Walker and Madsen, 2016).
Woolworths have its business strategies with a particular aim and it uses its capabilities to achieve those aims and objectives. The main aim of the company is to retain its leading position in the industry and to expand its business in the other countries. The opportunities available with the supermarket are many which can be grabbed to grow in the fragmented market (Rothaermel, 2015). The company continuously develop new strategies to win over the other grocery businesses. The company has a big opportunity to win over the millions of regular customers which shops for grocery and there are more than 5 lakhs of online customers which can be made the regular customers of Woolworths. The opportunities available with the company include:
The company have opportunity of attracting the customers from the developing markets and to use their capabilities like a control over the wide range of goods and services and good strategies to achieve its aims and objectives.
The opportunities available with the business have a huge impact on the current business and the customer base of Woolworths. The change in customer’s trends and buying habits will require the current business to change as per the current requirements of the customers because the company is running by fulfilling the needs and demands of the customers. It also increases or decreases the customer base of the company if the company succeeds or fails in managing as per these trends in the industry (Bolton, 2015).
Digitisation and online business changes the scope of the business and the customer base can be increased if the business approaches those customers which are available online and cannot approach the stores of Woolworths. Technological advances will also advance the current business and will increase the customer base of the company. Globalisation also helps the business in expanding and growing and it also gets a change to serve more number of customers (Peppard and Ward, 2016).
|
Marketing opportunity |
External factors |
Costs |
Benefits |
Risks |
Opportunities |
|
Change in the customer’s trends and buying habits |
Social factors and economic factors |
Medium |
High |
Medium |
High |
|
Digitisation and online business |
Technological factors and legal factors |
High |
High |
Medium |
Medium |
|
Technological Advances |
Technological factors and economic factors |
High |
High |
High |
High |
|
Globalisation |
Social, political and legal factors |
High |
High |
High |
High |
(Bolton, 2015).
Australia has a national law for fair trading and consumer protection which is Australian Consumer law (ACL). Woolworths have to follow the Act to cover the unfair practices in the market, industry codes and the other regulations related to price safety and monitoring. There are codes of practice for e- marketing also which aims to reduce the volume of commercial electronic messages in Spam and to have best use of the practices in compliance with the act (Australian Government, 2017).
The probable return on investment of Woolworths is approximately 5% for the year ending Dec 2016 (Financial Times, 2016). The potential competitors of the company include Aldi, a German supermarket brand which is slowly and gradually making its place in the markets of Australia. It also has a tough competition from Coles, Wesfarmers and Metcash.
|
Marketing opportunity |
Ranking |
Description |
|
Change in the customer’s trends and buying habits |
4 |
The change in the customer’s lifestyle is a great opportunity for the business which includes medium costs but high benefits for the business. It contributes in the success of the business if it is successful in fulfilling the requirements of the business. |
|
Digitisation and online business |
3 |
Digitisation of business includes high costs and high benefits and it contributes a lot to the business but can also be risky for the business. |
|
Technological Advances |
1 |
It is because the technological advances can lead to high costs and high benefits to the business. It also contributes highly in the business in the form of giving growth and development to the business. |
|
Globalisation |
2 |
Globalisation brings growth and expansion of business which is highly beneficial for the business but also incurs high costs. It contributes a lot to the business |
The current operations of Woolworth are limited to Australia and New Zealand. The company needs to modify its operations to take itself global. The company need to improve its core services to put customers first by giving preferences to their choices and demands (Nair and Dube, 2017). The company need to innovate more in order to satisfy the dynamic population across different countries where it is planning to expand the businesses and also the company need to prepare itself for the supermarkets war in the industry by increasing the frequency of promotions and cutting the prices of the products to protect its own market share (Nair and Dube, 2017).
Conclusion
It can be concluded that the supermarkets needs to be strategically active and updated as per the needs and requirements in the markets. This is necessary to protect the business and to retain the leading position in the industry of Australia and across the world.
References
Australian Government, 2017, ‘Legal obligations of marketing’, Retrieved from https://www.business.gov.au/info/plan-and-start/develop-your-business-plans/marketing/legal-obligations-of-marketing.
Bolton, S 2015, ‘Woolworths workers back at work’, Green Left Weekly, (1065), p.3.
Das Nair, R and Dube, S C 2017, ‘Growth and Strategies of Large, Lead Firms-Supermarkets’.
Eden, C and Ackermann, F 2013, Making strategy: The journey of strategic management, Sage.
Financial Times, 2016, ‘Equities’. Retrieved from https://markets.ft.com/data/equities/tearsheet/financials?s=WOW:ASX.
Hill, C W, Jones, G R and Schilling, M A 2014, Strategic management: theory: an integrated approach, Cengage Learning.
Peppard, J and Ward, J 2016, The strategic management of information systems: Building a digital strategy, John Wiley & Sons.
Peteraf, M, Gamble, J and Thompson Jr, A 2014, Essentials of strategic management: The quest for competitive advantage, McGraw-Hill Education.
Rothaermel, F T 2015, Strategic management, McGraw-Hill Education.
Walker, G and Madsen, T L 2016, Modern competitive strategy, McGraw-Hill Education.
Wheelen, T L and Hunger, J D 2017, Strategic management and business policy, pearson.
Woolworths, 2017, ‘About Us’, Retrieved from https://www.woolworthsgroup.com.au/page/about-us/.
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