Corporate Strategy : Vertical Integration And Diversification

The reputation and recognition make Aldi attractive in the marketing activities and this aspect needs to be improved in the future to compete with both existing and forthcoming rivals. Meanwhile, the high buying power and costs control would help Aldi to diversify its products and increase market penetration to serve diverse Australian population. This leads to the reconsideration of Aldi’s current strategy of limiting product range to adopt other strategies as a number of differentiation strategies has been used by other

As Aldi has already established itself as a large discount supermarket chain with over 10,000 stores in 18 different countries including Australia (2001), and holds a large market share in the grocery world due to its business culture and market leading initiatives. This report aims to provide the ALDI board of directors with:

1.3 Physical Resources & Capabilities The ALDI brothers took over the family business of their parents in 1946. World wide expansion led to enormous growth. This comprises around 9800 stores (1000 to 1500 SQM each). The layout is simple with wide ails designed to refill shelves in the fastest, most convenient way {Brands, D. 2003}. They offer a small assortment of mainly fast-moving items (approximately 700 food – including a slim and organic line- and non food products). Small warehouses are located at the back of each store. Affiliates are equipped with limited technology such as intelligent cash systems high-end product concerning quality and price and bottle deposit machines. ALDI won the 2008 energy management award for great results in terms of cooling systems, illumination etc. Most stores have about 100 parking space and a shopping cart area near the entrance. ALDI has a long history which implies that they have gained great experience over the years. The location and layout of stores are designed to support fast and efficient supply and not especially aimed at customer needs. This is a weakness. Stores advantageously located as there are in convenient reach for consumers. Their product range is adapted to various consumer needs (organic, healthy living). The technological equipments are of high quality enabling fast operations at the checkout (ALDI’s staff are two times faster compared with other similar operations). This is

The two supply chains of Walmart and Amazon are different from each other and are efficient at their own perspectives. Both the supply chains are highly efficient in reaching out the customers in different ways. Walmart’s supply chain is completely based on store based retailing whereas Amazon’s supply chain is based on online retailing. The various methods followed by Walmart in its supply chain are vendor management inventory, cross-docking and central warehousing. Amazon acts as a retailer, as a third party and as an agent in supply chain management while selling various products through online.

Integration could also benefit business competitiveness in that it is an extremely fast way for a business to grow. In many industries the ‘first mover advantage’ is crucial to any business that wants to capitalise on other areas of the industry that have not yet been exploited. If one firm manages to utilise the first mover advantage other firms may be left behind and so may struggle to compete in a certain area. However if a firm was to buy out competition then they would have less of a problem trying to establish themselves in the area. Asda recently took over Netto for a figure of £778mil. The move saw Asda instantly take over the 193 Netto stores across the UK many of which are small high street shops compared to the typical supermarket stores that Asda currently operates. The move will allow Asda to compete with other high street stores such as Tesco express and Sainsbury’s division of small high street stores. Without the takeover Asda would have found it incredibly difficult to establish themselves in this area of the industry. However Asda now have bought into an number of stores that will be situated across the UK and will be able to compete with the likes of Tesco and Sainsbury’s. The takeover has also gained Asda a further 0.7% share in the market

This report is going to present the current culture of Aldi, critically examining its current culture and possible proposal for a change in culture. It identifies the current organisational culture, its strengths and weaknesses and make recommendations necessary for an organisational culture change.

Both Walmart and Aldi should be worried about each other because both have distinct advantages over each other in bringing in customers. Aldi advantage is that its stores provide the lowest price in town with their products being on average 15-20% cheaper than Wal-Mart (pg 3). How it does this is by cutting costs and offering its products at the lowest possible price. This practice of cutting cost is best summed up by the Aldi motto “"When you buy a can of peas at Aldi, you're paying almost

A company’s success in developing and sustaining its competitive advantage does not depend on its own value chain but on its ability to manage the value system on which it is a part. An example would be an automobile manufacturer that may have its suppliers set up facilities in close proximity in order to minimize transport costs and reduce parts inventories.

The value chain is one of the critical elements of a company’s strategy in today’s competitive world, because company’s profit depends on how the successful and efficient it runs its operations and how the end product appeals to the customers at a price that covers all the expenses of the company.

The corporate strategy of the business diversification is to create a synergy to achieve more performance under a single umbrella rather than diverse business units (SNU, 2016). A business diversification is to build the company shareholder value when the independent business units can perform under a single corporation as an umbrella organization instead of independent parents or a corporation. A diversified organization has many business units and each business units have its own business level strategy irrespective of whether they are related or not. A successful business diversification not only spreads the business risk across the diverse units but also adds a long term economic value to the company. The strategy for starting a new business is based on industry attractiveness test, the cost of entry and the better off test (Thompson, Peteraf, Gamble, and Strickland, 2016).

The value delivery option is another component that supports the supply chain. Providing attention to the changes within consumer demands that will aid in rapid production of consumer products. In order to gain a larger view of the said component it is vital that the value-based method must be clearly understood. Based on the findings of (Feller, A., Shunk 2006).the ability to realign the structure of the supply chain, this process will allows the supply chain to sustain its effectiveness by adopting to changes in consumer necessities with merchandises of larger value. A diversified supply chain is constructed to match the overall components of the chain with customers need in mind. But if this construction of the supply chain doesn’t match the needs it will make nearly impossible for the organization to provide said products and services to the consumer.

In a competitive market to which Johnson and Johnson operates, the smallest of errors can lead to consequences which can cut revenue. When large mistakes occur, millions of dollars are lost, and even worse, there is a loss of customer confidence. Johnson and Johnson has had numerous recalls in their consumer healthcare division recently, which rocked the organization’s once sound image, and diminished its profits. These recalls have hurt Johnson and Johnson’s stocks and cost the company about $900 million in sales last year (Rockoff, 2011).

Microsoft is a highly diversified company. Its technologically-related products span from software to music players to game consoles to web browsers to search engines to phones. However, its flagship product, the product which has been the primary driver of its profits has been Microsoft Windows, the ubiquitous operating system that runs on virtually every computer in the world. Windows has been deemed so critical that even Microsoft's competitor Apple was effectively forced by market pressures to allow its Macs to run Windows, in an effort to boost sales. "As astounding as Apple's success has been, it hasn't put a dent in the Microsoft Office monopoly. [Current CEO] Ballmer and company still profit on every Macbook running Word, Excel and PowerPoint" (Greg 2012).But while Microsoft continues to make its highly profitable Windows products (despite industry criticism about its user features); it has struggled to diversify in its many critical areas, most notable in its music, phones, and Internet service.

The value chain is a temporary competitive advantage for Zara. The major reason why it is not a sustainable advantage is that it is not rare. Barney stated that it is not a sustainable resource if a large number of other firms can also gain benefit from the same resource. It is clearly that Zara’s competition also get their global value chain. Therefore, no firm could get a competitive advantage on the common strategy. Nevertheless the value chain is difficult for new entrants to imitate cause it is costly in capital and time. Further, there is not another way

This essay plans to focus on the corporate strategy of Microsoft, and show how Microsoft has used diversification successfully within their corporate strategy to gain a competitive advantage.