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ABSTRACT

As a part of the coursework of the module STRATEGIC BUSINESS

MANAGEMENT AND PLANNING we were expected to carry out a SWOT

analysis of any organisation of our choice. I chose the organisation

“SAINSBURYS” as a topic for my coursework.

INTRODUCTION

SWOT analysis provides the platform/structure to evaluate the strengths,

weaknesses, opportunities and threats. It can help any organisation in

providing the report of its overall performance, its competitors and all

the weak areas that might be hindering its success or reputation among

the customers. SWOT analysis forces to ask some difficult questions that

would help to find out the problems and in turn solution to them. I chose

“Sainsburys” as a topic because being a supermarket retailer it becomes

very crucial to know ones strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats

because this not only provides the company with the feedback on its own

performances but also helps it to know what all are the loopholes it is

having so that it can work on it. In today's competitive market it becomes

very important to analyse one's quality, customer satisfaction level, sales,

and prices with those in competition in order to maintain good reputation

among the customers and also to remain in competition in the market.

SWOT analysis of sainsburys will help me to evaluate its performance

against all other supermarket retailers and will also help me to enhance

my knowledge on the strategies that an organisations might adopt to

establish itself on top among the competitors and increase its sales by

providing the customers with finest quality of product and services

thereby meeting the level of customer satisfaction.

SWOT ANALYSIS

STRENGTHS

Strengths of an organisation help it to implement the strategies adopted

by it in order to achieve the aims and objectives it is intending to achieve.

(1)

Some questions that must be asked while evaluating strengths of the organisations are:

What is your broad customers group?

What unique you have?

Cost of capital?

Source of company revenue?

Are the employees well skilled?

Reward system? (2)(3)

STRENGTHS OF SAINSBURYS

The main strengths of sainsbury's is the quality of products, its value and

services. Sainsbury's motto is TRY SOMETHING NEW TODAY which

itself reflects its diversity in the ranges of products it provides to its

customer.

Sainsburys has a range of products that are marked as “

SAINSBURYS BASIC

”. Sainsburys products are not only cheaper as compared to other

products of same category but are also of good quality.

Strength of Sainsbury that provides it edge over other supermarket

retailers is the nectar card concept it uses. Customers can use nectar

card to get points for every shopping at Sainsburys, it also gives extra

points to the customers for the re use of the bags. Points earned can be

redeemed in order to pay for the shopping. This not only attracts

customers towards it but also helps them to encourage people to re use

their own bags and be environment friendly and decrease the cost of

bags the company has to pay to some extent.

Sainsbury provides its employee with >Rewards for their good

performance and customer service. This is a good way of encouraging the

employees which is an important aspect for any organisation's success.

Employees play a major role in working of an organisation therefore it is

becomes very important to appreciate them with rewards to keep them

motivated.

Another important strength of sainsburys is its Recruitment process ,

which helps them to select its employee in the most fair manner which

would help the company to have employees who are efficiently skilled to

carry out the their duties in the best possible way which in turn will help

them increase the level of customer satisfaction which is an important

aspect in success of sainsbury's.

Some other factor that adds to the success of sainsburys are-

Good reputation among customers.

Range of offers provided by them from time to time.

Large number of stores at different locations which makes easier

for the customers to reach them

Monitoring process it follow to check the performance of the

respective stores(MCM)

Weaknesses

Evaluating weaknesses of the organisation helps to identifying its weak

areas which can be improved by finding out the solution to it. It not helps

to find out the areas which might be hindering its progress or degrading

its position in market but it also helps to rectify it by choosing an

appropriate way out or alternative in order to eradicate any possibility of

downfall in the current positioning of it in the market.

Some questions that should be asked in order to find out orevaluate the weaknesses are:

What do the customer complaint about

Is marketing effective?

Is company being able to compete with the competitors?

Is company able to attract talent?

Some of the major weaknesses of Sainsbury's are as follow:

Prices of products in sainsburys in usually higher as compared to

the tesco which can be a reason for the customer to go for tesco

rather than sainsbury's to shop.

OPPORTUNITIES

Opportunities are usually identified rather are enforced into action with

the help of the strengths of the organisation, this is because in order to

make best use of the opportunities available to the organisation it is

important for the organisation to make the use of its strength in the best

possible manner which would help them effective decision making which

in turn will help them to make profit by adopting better strategic policies

and succeed in the market by ensuring good customer service, better

quality of goods and services etc.

Some questions that should be asked while evaluating the strengths of the organisations are:

What is position of competitors?

Introduction of some new technology.

What are favouring circumstances are available to you?

Some areas, products or services that other in competition might

not have covered?

New trends in market.

Some of the major opportunities for the sainsbury's are as follows:

Sainsbury's has a started “YOU CAN” program under which it will

recruits almost 10,000 colleagues by 2010.

Sainsbury is introducing self checkouts slowly n all the stores

which help the customers to scan and pay for their shopping more

quicker which will help them improve customer service.

Fresh food counters in Sainsburys also provides it edge over other

super markets.

Sainsbury has also adopted a strategic approach for fair-trade. This

is being done by replacing the regular products with fair-trade

alternative. For example fair trade bananas in Sainsbury's are

available in prices which are close to non fair trade bananas in

tesco and argos which is another marketing strategy.

Sainsbury's switch and save campaign and increasing popularity

for its basic brand has helped it increase its sales to a great extend.

THREATS

Any kind of threat to an organisation, in internal or external, can damage

its strategy. The threat may be in the form of obstruction, constraint,

pressure from rivals etc.

While evaluating the threats of any organisation it is very important to take into consideration some of the following question that might help the organisation to identify its threat to a great extent

Changing customer need.

Increasing competition

Obstacles being faced by the company

Is change in technology a reason of threat for you?

Is there any internally in term of finance and development?

Some of the major threats to the Sainsbury's are discussed below:

Increasing competition with tesco and argos might be a threat to

sainsbury's. As tesco work with the motto of keeping the prices of

products cheaper than the rest supermarket it can give a tough

competition to sainsbury's.

Another threat to sainsburys might be changing needs of

customers. Today when the customers have so many option to opt

for while shpping it becomes a real threat to any supermarket

retailer including siansbury's, in such situations it becomes very

important for them to provide the customers with the best possible

quality of goods and services.

Another threat to sainsburys is growing number of tesco stores

which can take the customer away from sainsburys.

CONCLUSION

Swot analysis of sainsbury's helped to analyse and bring forward the

issues that are or might be a cause of concern for the sainsbury's.

Sainsbury's can use its strengths like its good customer service, excellent

quality of goods and services, its marketing strategy and well trained and

skilled employees to make use of all the possible opportunities in order to

gain the top position among all the other competitors like tesco, asda etc.

Sainsbury's being one of the most popular supermarket should

concentrate more on the marketing and