WAITROSE SUPERMARKET'S STRATEGY

Waitrose Supermarket's Strategy



Waitrose Supermarket's Strategy

Introduction to Company

Waitrose comes under a reputed chain of supermarkets in United Kingdom. In addition, it forms the food retail unit of one of the UK's biggest and famous employee oriented retailer namely John Lewis Partnership. The head office of the supermarket is located in Berkshire, UK. There are about 282 branches of the supermarket in UK out of which there are 30 little Waitrose super stores. It has captured 4.5% of the market share in UK, which has brought it in the list of largest superstores in UK at the rank of six. In addition, the company has earned a royal warrant to operate in terms of supplying groceries, wine, and spirits to the Queen of England and the Prince as well (Womack, S., 2002, n.d.).

History

The Waitrose supermarket was initially formed in 1904 by Walllace Waite, Arthur Rose and David Taylor. They operated this store on a smaller scale initially as a general grocery store. However, david taylor separated from the partnership after two years and the store was given the surnames of the two left founders in 1937. At that time, Waitrose successfully grew to run 10 stores and employed 160 people, but later it was acquired by Lewis Partnership (Waitrose, 2013, n.d.).

The very first supermarket began to operate in 1955 and gradually expanded across UK in 1960s and 1970s. The company initiated new services of selling fresh meat, fish and cheese in 1983. It came to known as the very first retailer of selling organic food among all supermarkets. It has also initiated an online delivery service in 2011 and acquired many stores throughout the time in order to get hold of maximum market share.

Financial Performance and Competition

The company earned revenue of £5400.4 million in 2009 and incurred an operating income of £173.5 million and net profit of £123.3 million. There are about 68000 employees working in the company since 2009 (Waitrose, 2013, n.d.). The leading competitors of the Waitrose are Tesco PLC, J. Sainsbury, Morrison, and ASDA (MarketLine, 2011, n.d.).

Analysis of External Environment

The operations of the company are highly dependent upon the external forces that tend to affect the working condition, culture and environment of the organization. These influential factors are described and categorised as per the Pestle Analysis (Cheverton, P., 2005, p. 71-86).

Political Factors

The political dynamics in any country have strong effects on the organization that can lead a strong change. The key players of political factors are United Nations, World Trade Organization and European Commission that have the right to implement or amend any new or existing policy or rule regarding trade and retailing, which can affect the normal operation of the superstore market. The government of UK is primarily responsible for health and safety of population, therefore they are liable to scrutinize the food and other utilities provided to them in market. That's why government is implementing the policy measures namely the responsibility deal that is aimed to carry out a detailed observation and analysis ...