Strategic Objectives of Woolworths-Free-Samples -Myassignment

Question: Your task is to undertake a strategic planning exercise for your own organisation, or for an organisation you are familiar with in your country or region. You are required to produce a report that evaluates the existing objectives and the alignment between the currently deployed strategy and objectives. Answer: Introduction Twenty-first centuries is considered as the era of business as massive development in businesses all over the world can be noticed. Businesses all over the world are growing in a large pace. In this situation, Strategic Management is considered as one of the major factors for the companies all over the world. In order to ensure that the organizations are developing in a steady pace, the organizational managers are required to develop effective strategies (Hitt, Ireland and Hoskisson 2012). Thus, strategic management refers to the process of developing and managing strategies in order to achieve the organizational goals and objectives. In addition, with the employment of effective strategic management in the organizations, the businesses can get the necessary competitive advantages. Hence, it can be seen that strategic management has an important role to play in the overall development of the companies (Hill, Jones and Schilling 2014). In this context, it is required to mention that t here needs to be an effective alignment between the organizational objectives and strategies as strategic objectives provide the organizational managers with the necessary direction to achieve organizational goals and objectives (Eden and Ackermann 2013). This study takes an honest attempt to analyze and evaluate various aspects of strategic management and strategic planning for a business organization. Thus, for this study, Woolworths Limited is taken into consideration. Various stages of this report attempts to analyze and evaluate different aspects of strategic management and strategic planning for Woolworths. Lastly, based on the whole discussion, a conclusion and recommendations are provided. Company and Industry Background Woolworths Limited is one of the major Australian companies operating in the retail market of Australia and New Zealand. This company is considered as the second largest company in Australia in terms of revenue. Woolworths was established in the year of 1924 and the company is headquartered at New South Wales, Australia. It can be seen that Woolworths operates in different business segments; they are supermarkets, petrol, food, liquor, general merchandise, home improvements, hotels and others. Woolworths has an employee base of 202,000. In 2016, the company registered revenue and operating income of AUS$59 billion and AUS$1.6 billion (woolworthsgroup.com.au 2017). The Australian retail industry is considered as one of the major industries as it contributes towards the economic development of the country. At present, the retail industry of Australia is growing in a fast pace with the help of social as well as economical development. The key factors contribute towards the development of Australian retail sector are string economic growth of Australia, rising population of the country and the increase in purchasing power of the Australians. It is expected that the Australian retail industry will expand at a rate of 2% during the year 2013 to 2018 (deloitte.com 2017). Appropriateness of Strategic Objectives As per the above discussion, it can be seen that strategic management is one of the major factor for the success of the business organizations (Slack 2015). There is not any exception of this fact in case of Woolworths. The major organizational goal of Woolworths is to make the company in such a way that they become the first preference of their customers across all brands. In order to achieve this goal Woolworths has developed five major strategic objectives. Out of these five objectives, two are discussed below: The first objective is to develop a customer and store-led culture and team. It is considered as a crucial strategic objective of Woolworths. As per this objective, Woolworths has implemented various revised long-term as well as short-term performance measures that are aligned with the major goal of the company (woolworthsgroup.com.au 2017). After that, Woolworths has also implemented new Operating Model with various shared services so that they can be great help for the companies. As a part of this objective, Woolworths has implemented Woolies Welcome scheme under which the support office team has to spend a week in various Woolworth stores. In addition, Woolworths has also developed some major tools for the customers so that the customers can provide their feedbacks to the Support Office. There are various other steps taken by Woolworths for the achievements of this objective. Thus, based on the above discussion, it can be seen that Woolworths has implemented all of these strategie s so that they can build a customer and store-led culture and team in the organization. Thus, all these strategies are well aligned with the goal of the company. The second objective is the generation of sustainable sales momentum in Food. Under this strategy, the main aim of Woolworths is to deliver the products to the right people and to obtain sustainable sales and profitability. Woolworths has introduced the program called Strong Voice of the Customers that helps Woolworths to describe the customers feedback based on their experience. In June, Woolworths received record overall customer satisfaction as a result of this initiative. In addition, as a result of this objective, customers transactions for Woolworths has grown by 1.4% in the fourth quarter of 2016. Apart from this, the amount of investments increased by AUS$500 million in 2016 as compared to 2015. It has been seen that Woolworths has taken some of the major steps to engage more suppliers. Thus, from the above discussion, it can be observed that Woolworths has taken all these steps so that they can achieve the objective of the generation of sustainable sales momentum in food bus iness. In addition, this particular objective is aligned with the major goal of the company (ausfoodnews.com.au 2017). From the above discussion, it can that Woolworths has taken various strategic steps for the achievements of the above-discussed objectives. However, there are still some areas of improvements. Thus, it is recommended that Woolworths needs to develop more customer-oriented objectives so that the customers can be highly motivated to buy their products. For example, the objective of Woolworths should be to attract more customers towards the company with the help of various customer loyalty programs. In addition, it is also recommended that Woolworths should develop objectives that will be concerned about the overall welfare of the customers. These are the major recommendation. Evaluation and Determination of Strategies The above analysis shows that Woolworths has some clear strategic objectives for the achievement of their ultimate organizational goal. It needs to be mentioned that Woolworths has developed organizational strategies in such a way so that they can help in the achievement of set objectives. in order to determine the alignment between the objectives and strategies, it is required to discuss about the strategies of the company. Woolworths is always committed towards delivering quality products and services based on the mission and vision statement. It needs to be mentioned that Woolworths has adopted the strategy of building a multi-optional retain company in terms of quality products, quality services, low price and in store experience to meet the requirements of the customers. In this regard, the goal of Woolworths is to reach to AUS$1 billion sales with the help of online channels by the year 2020. Thus, the major strategies of Woolworths are as follows: Extend Leadership: In the recent years, Woolworths has re-established their marketing campaigns so that they can add value to the stakeholders of the company and boost growth in every aspect of business. In addition, it is also the strategy of Woolworths to accelerate leadership in the food and liquor business (ausfoodnews.com.au 2017). To Maintain Track Records to Build New Growth: Another major strategy of Woolworths is to maintain the record of accomplishment of their business performance so that they can be helpful in the near future as a benchmark. It will help Woolworths to grab the future business opportunities (woolworthsholdings.co.za 2017). Maximization of Shareholders Value: The effectiveness of this strategy can be seen by the entering the electronic business by restructuring and divesting Dick Smith. In addition, Woolworths has been able to improve various aspects of marketing with the help of this strategy. Woolworths acceleration alignment with Big W offers the business with new customers and competitive reality (wow2016ar.qreports.com.au 2017). Effective Use of Enablers for Business Growth: Woolworths has been using the enablers of the company in such a way so that they can improve long-term relationship with shareholders. In addition, this strategy helps Woolworths in acquiring local and international talents for their business. This enablers help Woolworths in gaining higher profitability along with effectiveness in the supply chain (woolworthsgroup.com.au 2017). Thus, from the above discussion, it can be seen that Woolworths have employed some of the major effective business strategies for the overall development of the organization. Earlier discussion shows two major strategic objectives of Woolworths. From the above, it can be seen that all the strategies of Woolworths are customer centric as their major motive is to satisfy the retain needs of the customers. On the other hand, all the strategies are developed in such a way so that they can promote the sales and growth of the company. Hence, on the overall basis, it is clear that Woolworths develops their business strategies by aligning them with their business objectives. This aspect can be proved by observing the market position of Woolworths, as they are the second largest company in the Australian retail market. Components of Strategy Execution After developing the strategies, it is crucial for the companies to effectively execute them as the success of the strategies largely depends on this process. In case of Woolworths, the company use to follow certain steps for strategy execution. The first step is the visualization of the strategies. In this step, the managers of Woolworths use tools like strategic maps, activity map and others to illustrate strategies. The next step is strategy measurement in which the key elements are put in the strategy for performance measurement (Hrebiniak 2013). The next step involves the decision making process in which the managers are required to take final decision for the selection of final strategies. The next step in strategy execution is the alignment of strategies with organizational strategic objectives. The strategies are developed in such a way so that they can be helpful for the achievements of strategic objectives. The next steps are the communication and management of the strategi es. It is required for Woolworths to communicate the strategies with the organizational people; at the same time, the managers of Woolworths manage the strategies effectively. In the last stage, the roles are aligned to different individual for the effective running of strategies (woolworthsgroup.com.au 2017). These are the main stages in strategy execution in Woolworths. The above discussion shows that Woolworths has an effective strategy execution process. However, it is a lengthy process that taken large amount of money and resources. Thus, it is recommended that Woolworths should shorten the process of strategy execution so that both time and money can be saved. It can also be seen that there is not strategy review process. Hence, it is also recommended that Woolworths needs to employ effective process for continuous review of organizational strategies. Conclusion The above discussion shows that Woolworths has five major strategic objectives. Two of them are to develop a customer and store-led culture and to promote sustainable sales growth. From the above-discussed strategy analysis, it can be observed that Woolworths has employed some effective strategies to support the string growth of the company. It is also prominent from the analysis that the major aim of all the strategies are to provide satisfaction to their customers need and to promote sales growth. Thus, it can be concluded that there are proper alignment between the strategic objectives and business strategies of Woolworths. The above discussion also shows that Woolworths follow a specific process for the execution of business strategies. Based on the discussion, some recommendations are provided below: It is recommended that Woolworths needs to develop some major customer centric strategies that will be helpful in attracting more customers towards the company. 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