Could someone help me with a reply to my classmate discussion post: Here is the
ID: 356178 • Letter: C
Question
Could someone help me with a reply to my classmate discussion post:
Here is the topic Every effective manager/leader will most likely face opposition within their own organization; however, in order to capitalize on the strengths and mitigate the weaknesses, an organization must first understand their key internal forces. An internal analysis is an opportunity for the employees within the organization to understand how what they do fits into the organization as a whole.
Using either Kroger or Nike, create an abbreviated IFE and EFE chart using the format below.
Here is what they post: Kroger is a business that specializes in grocery and food store but also has business in convenience and jewelry stores. The previously posted strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats were chosen because Kroger owns 37 of their own processing facilities, which enables the company to be able to lower the cost of their products to their consumers. With Kroger’s ownership of their own processing facilities, they are able to create their own private label for their foods, including organic foods, which leads to Kroger offer low cost and receiving all profits of food sales (Bells, 2015). The last strength was chosen because, Kroger operates 2, 782 stores in 35 states. This number shows how committed the company is within the U.S. and they give right back to the communities that they operate in (Kroger, n.d.). On the other hand, since Kroger owns their own processing facilities the risk of food contamination is high and if there ever were a food contamination in their plants the company would be a grave risk of financial hardship and a bad brand reputation. All of Kroger employees are unionized, which means Kroger has to pay high wages and at risk for union strikes. Lastly, operating in 35 states is a strength, as well as, a weakness. When compared to their competitors who have store nationwide, as well as, globally Kroger has a huge risk when it comes to shares within the grocery market.
Consumers today are more health conscious than ever before, which is adding to the trend of organic whole foods. Kroger needs to capitalize on the whole food trends by adding to and marketing their organic whole food brand. A new trend that is popping up is meal delivery services where a customer has pre-portioned ingredients to make two to three meals delivered per week. Kroger has an opportunity here to add this to their services that could go hand in hand with their grocery delivery service already offered within a certain radius of their stores. Kroger already has pharmacies in many of their stores, a new service that Kroger has been adding is The Little Clinic, where it offers its customers a customer-focused healthcare with board-certified nurse practitioners and physician assistants providing high quality, affordable healthcare conveniently located inside their stores (The Little Clinic, n.d.). Kroger needs to couple this new service with its pharmacy to create a one-stop health stop for their customers. Customers can see a doctor, fill their prescribed prescriptions and pick up healthy foods that promote healing. Kroger also faces some threats, mainly from new competitors. They are now facing competitions from Wal-Mart and other retailers that now carry groceries, as well as, e-commerce sites like Amazon, which now offer grocery deliveries through their new Amazon Fresh service. There are also new small low-cost grocery stores, like Aldi that are gaining their own piece of the market share.
On their IFE, which focuses on the key internal factors of Kroger, i.e. their strengths and weaknesses, Kroger had a weighted score of 2.46. The average weighted score of an IFE is 2.5. From a strategic point of view, a 2.46 for Kroger means that they are doing slightly below average in regards to their internal strengths and weaknesses (Maxi-Pedia, n.d.). On their EFE, which focuses on the key external factors of Kroger, i.e. opportunities and threats, Kroger had a weighted score of 2.65 from a strategic point of view this means that Kroger has slightly more than average ability to respond to external factors (Maxi-Pedia. (n.d.).
Explanation / Answer
This is an excellent post about internal force analysis of Kroger and the SWOT analysis of it. You have told about the competition Kroger is facing right now be it from Amazon, Walmart, Aldi etc. I do have two specific question to you
1- How Kroger is making itself a significant player in the evolving e-commerce market. what are the plans of Kroger to adopt new edge technology in its operation.
2- How would you define the value chain of Kroger and how the leadership in Kroger isputting value in its.