Sainsbury’s is the third largest store chain inUKand 80th placed in FTSE 100 companies with market capitalisation of ? 5,457. 35 million. The essay employs SWOT analysis to assess the strengths, opportunities, weaknesses and threats in relation to its strategy and operations in the UK and international markets with reference to its retail business. The strengths and opportunities of the company should be used to neutralise the weaknesses and to develop a competitive strategy against the threats that are identified as facing the organisation.
Introduction Sainsbury’s is aUKbased company whose core operation is retail business in food and non-food products and services. The company’s portfolio of investments include property management, energy services, financial services such as banking and clothing. Sainsbury’s also runs six food colleges where they train their staff. The successful operations of the company has enabled it to be in the FTSE 100 list at position 80, making 21 million transactions weekly, on both traditional and online platforms.
It has the seventh-largest “TU” clothing brand among other over 5000 own or improved brands of products of food and non-food items and a range of over 30000 products sold in its stores countrywide and internationally. The organisation generated ? 22943 million in the 2010/11 financial year and employs over 150000 staff in its 934 stores spread acrossUK(Sainsbury’s Annual Report, 2011). The essay will look at the strategies that the company uses in its operations and how its business environment favours or impedes it from succeeding in its objectives and goals.
SWOT analysis is a tool that is used to understand the position of an organisation in relation to its operating environment. According to Griffin(2011), SWOT analysis is particularly useful in strategy formulation, which essentially entails how the company allocates its resources in all its operations to achieve its objectives. SWOT analysis assesses strengths and opportunities that an organisation has and how it strategizes itself to overcome its weaknesses and threats in its operating environment.
Thus, the strengths and weaknesses of an organisation are internally focussed while threats and opportunities are external forces to an organisation. Regoff and Bezos (2007) noted that SWOT analysis is useful in understanding the competitive position of an organisation in the market. While the tool offers no magic wand to an organisation in succeeding in the market, it offers an opportunity to organise and understand itself in terms of strategy and resource allocation. Strengths Diversified Investments
These are identified resources or abilities of organisation that it has and are known to be successful (Brennan, 2009). Sainsbury’s has diversified individual business units that are not correlated. This enables it to minimise risks in case any one of the business units runs a loss or event that may threatens its anticipated performance (Carel, 2008). However, Jones (2008) argues that diversification in itself is not enough in minimising of risks but the choice of quality investments that are guided by insightful and informed market analysis.
IT infrastructure. The organisation recognises the importance of reaching a wider market through the affordable and wide platform of internet. Through the online checkout system, the organisation in its grocery business increased sales by 20% or 130,000 weekly orders in the financial year 2010/11. It runs a promotional strategy, Click and Collect in over 160 stores where customers buy online. The convenience store enabled the company to earn revenues exceeding ?1 billion, making it to be recognised as Convenience Retailer of the Year by Retail Award Industry. Large capital investment and wide outlet network
In 2010/11 financial year, Sainsbury’s increased its supermarket space by 15. 9% after opening 21 new stores, additional 24 extensions and a further 47 stores, which translates to 1. 5 million square feet. This enables the organisation to reach its customers fast in many areas, hence increasing market share. The company also operates store outlets inChina. Quality human resource The store chain understands the importance of human resource management and invests heavily in quality training of its staff. It has a staff training college that admits 10000 of its colleagues annually.
As a result, the organisation was gold accredited by Investors in People due to its role in improving quality of human resources. Quality staff provide superior services to customers hence increasing customer satisfaction. Opportunities Wide market The company opened stores in China, which is a fast growing economy and has huge population. Beijing, where it opened its store outlets has huge working population to provide market for the company’s wide range of products. This is in addition to the store outlets it operates in the country. With increasing supermarket space, the company reaches potential customers.
Performing economy in UK and China Food prices that have huge impact on inflation are fairly stable, ranging from 4 to 6%, a sign which indicates performance of the economy and affordability of the food commodities (Wood, 2012). ChinaandUKare second and sixth largest economies that translate to high purchasing power of customers in the respective countries. Threats Competition Competition from major companies in the business such as Tesco on price might compromise profitability and market share of the company. Carrefour, Wal-mart and Tesco have similar business operation in China (Wachman, 2010).
Prone online platform Cyber-attacks that led to significant losses in its online strategy are also potential threats to the company that has invested a lot in the infrastructure as a means of reaching a wide client base (Information Age, 2004). Computer malfunctioning also pose potential threat to the company, as was the case in 2010, which affects operational efficiency in in its store outlets (Sawer, 2010). Weaknesses Sainsbury’s being one of the oldest supermarkets, having started operations ahead of competitors like Tesco and ASDA didn’t fully exploit the opportunity to grow and maintain lead in market share.
It took long before making changes to new and promising strategies. The company had issues with inventory management and supply chain management that affected its products in 2004. The company however changed the management after suffering loss in the same year. The overcautious and slack Sainsbury’s has not done enough in investing internationally, particularly China, perhaps because it does not understand fully the trends and operating environment compared to its home competitors. According to Thompson (2012), the few retail stores it has compared to Tesco’s over 100 inChinamight “disappoint investors”.
Conclusion Although Sainsbury’s lost its top slot in 2004 after it made its first loss in 135 years, the store chain quickly rose to profitability in subsequent years due to changes it made in management and widening of its investments. The company was least affected in the 2009 financial crisis due to its diversification and ability to reach a wide client base. However, the company faces competition both at home and international markets, where competition based on prices is likely to affect its revenues.
