STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT

Strategic Management

Strategic Management

Introduction

UK food co-operatives are moving away from their traditional supermarket-type operations and towards convenience retailing. The largest co-op is The Cooperative Group (1,703 stores), followed by Mid Counties (152 stores) and Southern Cooperative (95 stores).

One of the significant lines of businesses of the Co-operative Group is the Co-operative Food. It has more than 120,000 employees working for them, with retail outlets reaching almost 5,000. Furthermore, the Co-operative Group is one of the leading food retailers and currently ranks at number 5 in the United Kingdom. In addition to the Group's accomplishments, its pharmacy chain is the third most successful in the United Kingdom. There are a number of other services, which the Group offers, such as providing a huge range of holidays on the high street (Kevin 2011, pp. 1).

The Co-operative Group has been successful in maintaining strong positions in the market, especially in the banking and insurance sector. There are a number of principles and fundamentals which the Co-operative Group follows in running its businesses, and using profits. One of the primary principles is that consumers run the co-operative to provide benefit to its approximately 6 million members. In other words, these consumers or members of the Group can participate in the decision-making process, and come forward to develop their agenda of social campaigns. As a result, these initiatives made the Co-operative Group as a pioneer in areas such as Fair trade and fighting climate change (Paul 2009, pp. 1).

Current Position of the Co-operative Food Business

Recently, the Co-operative Group spent approximately £ 2 billion for the acquisition of Somerfield. This was a significant challenge for the Group as Somerfield was one of the significant supermarket competitors of the Co-operative Group. In the case of the Co-operative Group, there is no doubt that the Group planned the expansion program extremely well. On the other hand, the integration of Somerfield also worked smoothly for the Group. It seems as if the Co-operative has been doing a fairly decent job in its search for expansion. However, the company now needs to consider expanding globally, and increasing its participation in the global market. The strategy of expansion into global markets would be challenging for the Group. Therefore, the management needs to plan to pull this strategy off.

The Co-operative Group would have to develop an effective acquisition strategy to enter the US market. It would be feasible for the Group to acquire an existing business instead of starting its operations from the scratch. Furthermore, the Co-operative Group would need to determine the retail business it needs to acquire, prepare a feasibility report, and offer its bid for negotiation (Palmer 2005, pp. 23).

Application of Henry Mintzberg at Co-operative Food

Porter defines strategy as the creation of a unique and valuable position comprising a different set of activities to support that position. Some features of the strategy are that it sets a direction, concentrating its efforts toward a common organizational goal, creating a sense of ownership, since the perceived organizational ...