CASE STUDY ANALYSIS

Running Head: CASE STUDY ANALYSIS 0
CASE STUDY ANALYSIS: PART A
ORGANIZATIONAL BEST PRACTICE MGT610
OCTOBER 11, 2019
WALEED AHMED SHAKIR
00275362T
CASE STUDY ANALYSIS 1
Executive Summary
• Woolworths is one of the old and large retail and supermarket chain in Australia and New
Zealand. The company has ranked 4th among the top two thousand companies in Australia.
• The company is successfully operating several retail stores in Australia and New Zealand.
• This report presents a benchmarking study on Woolworth’s Group.
• The report scanned business environment and performed four types of benchmarking studies
such as SWOT analysis, best practice benchmarking, competitive benchmarking, and process
benchmarking.
• SWOT analysis revealed that companies’ major weaknesses are: poor global presence,
limited online presence, and limited product range. The SWOT analysis also identified online
retailers as a major threat to the company.
• Best practice benchmarking identified higher prices of products, value-size packages offered
by competitors, and fast delivery options provided by online retailers as a threat to
Woolworths.
• Competitive and process benchmarking identified some challenges existing in supply chain
and various other factors such as product range, price, small retail outlets, and the depth and
width of products.
• Benchmarking also identified that the Woolworths need to focus on reduction in annual food
wastage, reducing inventory time, and time required for shipping product from warehouse to
store.
• Woolworths is facing challenges in the following areas: Product range, price, supply chain
management, poor online and global presence, and competition from new entrants and
existing international players.
• The Woolworth will be required to use both qualitative and quantitative forecasting methods
to predict organizations future. The organization can use sales forecast, demand forecast, and
revenue forecast under quantitative forecast.
CASE STUDY ANALYSIS 2
Table of Contents
Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 3
Discussion………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 3
Organizational Vision ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 3
Scan of Business Environment ………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 4
SWOT Analysis Benchmarking……………………………………………………………………………………………… 4
Best Practice Benchmarking ………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 4
Competitive Benchmarking …………………………………………………………………………………………………… 5
Process Benchmarking………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 5
Strategic Weaknesses/ Threats…………………………………………………………………………………………………… 6
Environmental Factors need to Forecast……………………………………………………………………………………… 6
Conclusion …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 6
References………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 8
Appendix 1………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..10
Appendix 2………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..11
CASE STUDY ANALYSIS 3
Woolworths Group Australia
Introduction
Woolworths Group is an Australian based company. The company started its operation in
the year 1924 when Woolworths’ first store was opened in Sydney. Percy Christmas was the
founding CEO of the company who was also one of the founders of the Woolworths Group. In
1929, the company opened its store in New Zealand. In the year 1993, The Company offered its
share to the public, and 19000 employees were also given shares (Woolworths Group, 2019).
Currently, the company has secured 4th rank among the top two thousand companies in Australia.
Woolworths Group is mainly into running supermarkets and large grocery retail stores in
Australia and New Zealand. The company generated a revenue of AUD 60,281,000,000 in the
year 2019 that includes sales (IBISWorld, 2019). The company currently has around 19,600
employees, which includes employees working with the subsidiaries under Woolworths’ control.
Brad Banducci is the current MD and CEO of the company, and Gordon Cairns is the chairman
(IBISWorld, 2019).
Woolworths Group is operating as a large retailer in the categories of Food, beverages,
general merchandisers, and liquors. The company also provides its retailing services in
hospitality and game segment. The business operations of Woolworths Group can be divided into
the following categories:
Australian Food: the group is currently operating around 1000 branded supermarkets
(IBISWorld, 2019).
New Zealand Food: the group is currently operating around 180 grocery stores under the
name of Countdown across New Zealand. Also, the group is involved in wholesale operations of
around 69 other stores (IBISWorld, 2019).
Endeavour Drinks: the company delivered a wide range of liquor through its four
brands. Dan Murphy’s provides the widest range of liquor. BWS provides liquor through standalone outlets (IBISWorld, 2019). Langton’s is dedicated to providing fine wines, and Cellar
masters deliver to customers’ location.
Portfolio: the portfolio includes BIG W, Hotels, and petrol stations. The company has
183 BIG W retail stores, 323 licensed locations for gaming, and 530 outlets for serving fuel
(IBISWorld, 2019).
Discussion
Organizational Vision
The organizational Vision of Woolworths is “we create better experiences together for a
better tomorrow” (Woolworths Group, 2019). A detailed purpose along with the core values and
how the Woolworth achieves its goals is provided in Appendix 1.
The Woolworths is achieving its vision by focusing on customers and organizational
culture. The company ensures that it provides convenient ways of shopping and offer products
that are different from competitors. The company is continuously enhancing its portfolio by
evolving products and business and unlocking values for customers (Woolworths Group, 2019).
CASE STUDY ANALYSIS 4
Scan of Business Environment
Benchmarking is a process that helps companies in analyzing their processes, operations
and achievements against their competitors. Benchmarking helps the company in identifying the
problem areas or weaknesses. The main competitors of Woolworths Group are major wholesale
retailers operating in Australia and New Zealand such as Coles, COSTCO Wholesale, Walmart,
Tesco, Carrefour etc. (Owler, 2019). The benchmarking of Woolworths against these
competitors will help in accessing the strategic weakness of the company.
SWOT Analysis Benchmarking
This analysis will help the company to identify its internal strengths and weaknesses and
external opportunities and threats present in the external business environment.

Strengths: • Large store and employee base. • Oldest Company has high brand awareness. • Loyal customer base. • Wide range of trusted brands. • Several promotional schemes for loyal customers.	Weaknesses: • Poor global presence as compares to Walmart, Tesco and Carrefour (FFU, 2019). • Limited online presence as compares to Amazon (FFU, 2019). • Limited product range as compared to Amazon or Walmart.
Opportunities: • Business expansion in global market. • Increase in product range and categories. • Increase online presence. • Business acquisition. • Portfolio diversification.	Threats: • Fluctuation in the cost of raw materials. • Increasing competition from online retailers. • New entrance. • New government policies on the environment. • Changes in consumer behavior or buying patterns.

Table 1: SWOT Analysis, Source: (Learner)
Best Practice Benchmarking
Pollak (2016) says that Woolworths, Coles and many other retailers are no longer worried
about Aldi; they are worried about Amazon. The reasons for their worry are:
• Amazon offers customers to select from a wide range of delivery options such as sameday delivery or in minimum 48 hours delivery etc. Amazon has 54 million prime
members who are eligible to get fast delivery free of cost (Pollak, 2016).
• Amazon placed its distribution centers closer to its customers that helped in saving-cost
and increasing supply chain efficiency (Pollak, 2016).
• Amazon offer products at a much lower price than the Woolworths Group and Cole.
Wesfarmers ex-CEO Goyder and Chairman of Woolworths, i.e. Cairns warned other
wholesalers to reduce the prices of their products and start selling at Amazon in order to
CASE STUDY ANALYSIS 5
remain in the competition. A comparative table of prices is provided in Appendix 2
(Mitchell, 2018).
• Costco and Cole allow customers to buy products in bulk at discounted rates. These
companies have started selling products in value-size packages as per demand (Khalil,
2019). Woolworth is not following this strategy of identifying products that can be
purchased by the customers in value-size packages.
Competitive Benchmarking
This benchmarking helps in understanding what competitors are doing and where the company
is standing against its competitors (Min & Min, 2015). Below given table presents that
Woolworth is existing in industry for a long time and also has a higher number of locations as
compared to its competitors. However, Costco has a lower number of locations but higher
revenue. So, the Woolworths need to understand why it has lower revenue. There could be
various factors responsible for lower revenue such as small locations or retail stores, or limited
sale, limited product variety etc. Costco is a large retail-based in America (Costco, 2019). The
company operates large wholesale, retail outlets that facilitate sales of bulk items. The company
is also known for offering value-size packages and other products at competitive prices(Khalil,
2019).

Woolworths	Coles	Costco
Founded in	1924	1914	1983
Revenue	3,553 million	2 billion	149.6 billion
Number of Employees	19,600	10,000	245,000
Number of locations	995	807	770

Table 2: Comparative Analysis, Source: (Owler, 2019).
The above table shows that Woolworths stands somewhere between in competition.
Which means, the company is performing better than Coles below than Costco.
Process Benchmarking
This type of benchmarking help in mapping Woolworths’ process with other companies’
processes in order to identify gaps. Woolworths improved its supply chain management practices
by implementing effective technologies such as data analytics and tracking of products (Boyd,
2019). The company witnessed that its supply chain become more efficient. However, there are
still gaps and problem with its supply chain if we compare Walmart with Woolworth. The
Woolworths need to focus on reduction in annual food wastage, reducing inventory time, and
time required for shipping product from warehouse to stores (Arli et al., 2013). The company
should also reduce inventory management cost. It was also observed that the company lacks
product range. The organizational structure adopted by the company is compatible with only a
few products and services (Shakoor et al., 2017). Woolworth also lacks behind in accessing
forecast of products, which resulted in maintaining a large inventory of various products. So far,
Woolworth has not seen success in other businesses, and the company is focusing on its core
businesses (FFU, 2019).
CASE STUDY ANALYSIS 6
Strategic Weaknesses/ Threats
Above benchmarking analysis reveals that Woolworths is facing challenges in the
following areas: Product range, price, supply chain management, poor online and global
presence, and competition from new entrants and existing international players.
The above analysis shows that product range and price impact marketing and operation
department of the company. The supply chain is also managed by the operation department. Any
decision-related product expansion or category expansion will be taken by the management so
they will impact strategic decision making (Trento et al., 2016). The company also has a poor
online and global presence and decided to increase presence in the global market will be taken by
the management. So, the strategic weaknesses and threat directly impact organizational
performance and can be measured by tracking revenue and sales. For example, when the
company increases its online presence, it can measure success by comparing current online sales
with past online sales. Similarly, the company can measure revenue generated by any new
location. So, the areas vulnerable to the organization are its performance, response to
competition, and growth. These can be measured by accessing revenue, sales, organizational
growth, and position against competitors.
Environmental Factors need to Forecast
The company should forecast its total sales, revenue, number of locations, number of
major potential competitors, and revenue generated from online sales in order to address the
above-mentioned threats and weaknesses
The company should forecast internal factors such as its inventory cost and time, the
number of employees, increase in customer base, implementation of new technologies, and
addition in the distribution network.
The Woolworth will be required to use both qualitative and quantitative forecasting
methods to predict organizations future. The organization can use the sales forecast, demand
forecast, and revenue forecast under quantitative forecast (Hyndman & Athanasopoulos, 2018).
There are other factors that cannot be forecasted quantitatively, such as upcoming competition
and new technologies. Therefore, the company will require to use qualitative forecasting
methods.
Conclusion
Benchmarking analysis of Wool Worth revealed that the company is performing well in
the Australian market. However, despite various advantages, the company is facing tough
competition from American retailers such as Amazon and Walmart. Woolworth is currently
operating in Australia and New Zealand markets with multiple locations. The company also
emphasized on building its product portfolio by launching private label products and expanding
its business in other areas such as gaming and petrol distribution. However, the benchmarking
analysis shows that the company is lagging behind from Amazon when it comes to price and
product range. Amazon offers a wide variety of products at a much lower rate than Woolworths.
Also, Amazon is capable of delivering products at the doorstep of consumers in very less time by
its multiple delivery options. Benchmarking analysis also shows that companies like Walmart
CASE STUDY ANALYSIS 7
and Costco are utilizing advanced technology to improve their supply chain and other associated
processes. Costco is offering value-size packages that Woolworths is not offering.
The study utilized a variety of benchmarking methods to analyze weaknesses and threats
of the company. Findings from the benchmarking can be used by the company in improving its
processes and increasing sales and revenue. The primary purpose of any business is to generate
revenue by serving its customers an inefficient way. Woolworth also emphasizes on serving its
customers to create better tomorrow. The findings from benchmarking can help the company in
achieving its vision, mission, and strategic goals. For example, finding from benchmarking study
reveals that the company does not have a global presence, which a big opportunity for the
company to grow. Hence, Woolworth can emphasize on expanding its business in global markets
to increase its revenue while serving to needs of many customers located in different parts of the
worlds. So, the company can improve its process inefficient way by using benchmarking study.
CASE STUDY ANALYSIS 8
References
Arli, V., Dylke, S., Burgess, R., Campus, R., & Soldo, E. (2013). Woolworths Australia and
Walmart US: Best Practices in Supply Chain Collaboration . Journal of Economics,
Business & Accountancy Ventura, 16(1) , 27- 46.
Boyd, T. (2019, April 23). Woolies backs supply chain revolution. Retrieved from Australian
Financial review: https://www.afr.com/chanticleer/woolies-backs-supply-chainrevolution-20190422-p51g7d
Costco. (2019). About Us. Retrieved from Costco : https://www.costco.com/about.html
FFU. (2019). Woolworths SWOT Analysis / Matrix. Retrieved from Fern Fort University:
http://fernfortuniversity.com/term-papers/swot/1433/1138-woolworths.php
Hyndman, R.J., & Athanasopoulos, G. (2018). Forecasting: principles and practice. USA:
OTexts. Retrived from
https://books.google.co.in/books?id=_bBhDwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=foreca
sting+techniques&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi0tcmPwpHlAhXKTX0KHWg4BZoQ6
AEIYTAI#v=onepage&q=forecasting%20techniques&f=false
IBISWorld. (2019, June 30). Woolworths Group Limited – Premium Company Report Australia.
Retrieved from IBIS World: https://www.ibisworld.com.au/australian-company-researchreports/retail-trade/woolworths-group-limited-company.html
Khalil, S. (2019, May 15). Coles is now offering bulk purchases of its goods, rivalling bulk
retailer Costco. Retrieved from News.com:
https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/food/eat/coles-is-now-offering-bulk-purchases-of-itsgoods-rivalling-bulk-retailer-costco/news-story/9678432794d2e33ee8714921c8550446
Min, H., & Min, H. (2015). Benchmarking the service quality of airlines in the United States: an
exploratory analysis. Benchmarking: an International journal, 22(5) , 734-751.
Mitchell, S. (2018, Nov 30). Amazon undercuts Woolworths and Coles on food and grocery
prices. Retrieved from Australian Financial Review:
https://www.afr.com/companies/retail/amazon-undercuts-woolworths-and-coles-on-foodand-grocery-prices-20181126-h18ckr
Owler. (2019). Woolworths’s Competitors, Revenue, Number of Employees, Funding and
Acquisitions. Retrieved from Owler:
https://www.owler.com/company/woolworthslimited#competitors
Pollak, A. (2016, June 29). Why Coles and Woolworths should worry about Amazon. Retrieved
from Financial Review : https://www.afr.com/work-and-careers/management/the-newdefinition-of-a-retailer-and-why-coles-and-woolworths-should-worry-20160623-gpqahv
CASE STUDY ANALYSIS 9
Shakoor, M., Jaber, N., Jadayil, W. A., Qureshi, M., & Jaber, S. (2017). A Novel Model for
Benchmarking the Performance of Retail Stores for Retail Operations using Lean
Manufacturing Approach. International Journal of Applied Engineering Research, 12(17)
, 6686-6692.
Trento, C. R., Stüker, T., Pereira, G. M., Borchardt, M., & Viegas, C. V. (2016). Strategic
benchmarking of service pricing based on the value added. Benchmarking: An
International Journal, 23(4) , 754-767.
WoolworthsGroup. (2019). Strategy and objectives. Retrieved from Woolworths Group:
https://www.woolworthsgroup.com.au/page/about-us/our-approach/strategy-andobjectives/
WoolworthsGroup. (2019). The Woolworths Story. Retrieved from Woolworths Group:
https://www.woolworthsgroup.com.au/page/aboutus/The_Woolworths_Story/How_We_Were_Founded/
CASE STUDY ANALYSIS 10
Appendix 1
Woolworths Vision and Core Values
Source: (Woolworths Group, 2019).
CASE STUDY ANALYSIS 11
Appendix 2
Source: (Mitchell, 2018)