Assessment Task 1

Before Ian McLeod landed at Coles head office in May 2008, Coles had a poor performance because of broad factors. There are 7 elements in cultural web that might explain the roots of the problems in Coles. The first element in culture web is rites and routines. Coles management had unfavorable culture, which is bureaucracy. This bureaucracy is interrupt communication between head office and stores because there are substantial gap between them, so that many brilliant ideas and initiatives from store employees do not reach the top management desk. Poor customer service is also their main problem at that time. For example, there is no help desk at the store, which is very important for customers who confuse to find specific items. Thus, Excessive queuing times also quite annoying because it is very uncomfortable for the customers. This problem is occur because of many checkout machines are broken or simply because the store had only small number of checkout machine or cashiers. Lastly, poor training programs for managers an employees are is the important factor why the employees seem less passionate and excited. First thing that Ian McLeod doing at his arrival is removing ‘head office” mindset and change it to ‘store support centre” term and improving communication pattern between head office and shop fronts, so that, Coles becomes

According to Pettinger(2004) The Company extends its pillar of service not only by aiding clients in making decision to shop in stores, but also making it easy for them to drop by the stores and shop. There are two potential competitors existing in the market .There is Woolworths which has an 8% stake of the vast Australian market share and uses its subsidiaries such as Home Hardware and Timer, Thrifty Link, and Masters Home Improvement. There is also Metcash which has a 7.3% market share and uses its two subsidiaries: True Value Hardware and MITRE 10. Bunnings is currently the market leader in Australia (see Appendix figure1.1).Australia’s largest and most profitable home improvement retailer with (9,012,000) customers who shop at Bunnings over period of four week July 2014. This numbers was up in July 2012/13 which was 8,435,000. Bunnings potential competitors are Mitre 10 (1,789,000) and Masters (1,217,000).

Coles Myer Limited (CML) and Woolworths Limited (WOW) are two major Australian companies with extensive retail interest and listed on the Australian Stock Exchange. They are Australian public companies which operate a number of retail chains.

New England Seafood Company is a leader in the northeastern United States in harvesting and processing seafood. The company’s senior executives believe that there must be a change in the corporate strategy to maintain their competitive advantage, as foreign producers are affecting their current yields. Currently, New England Seafood Company operates in the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico dealing exclusively in saltwater fish. Management feels that a move into the freshwater fish sector will provide the company with a new directive and future stability.

In 1985 G.J Coles, primarily a Melbourne-based supermarket chain, merged with Myer Ltd, an upmarket Melbourne department store, becoming Coles Myer Ltd. The merger was brought on by an expectation of significant cost savings from sharing services and overheads such as purchasing, warehousing, information technology and property. However these benefits never occurred. Coles Myer was burdened with poor management, bad strategic decisions, and internal conflict. Their share price was faltering, and lagging behind their biggest competitor Woolworths, and profit had been stagnant for three years.

Each store is independently owned and unlike any other supermarket brand in Australia, every store is different and each have a strong sense of independence, giving them full flexibility to tailor their store to their local community’s needs.

At Coles, Australians ideal state would be that every item on their grocery list would be at Coles, and would be on a discount. In reality, the actual state or the way things really are, is that consumers will have to make another brand work when they can’t find exactly what they want, and that nothing is on sale. After consumers recognize that there is a problem, then they go into an external search or internal search. External search

Kudler Fine Foods is a remarkable small business that has a solid business model. In just a few years' time, the company has been able to expand their operations to new retail locations as well as expanding the model to offer catering services as well. Despite the initial success Kudler has achieved, the expansion of the business will dictate that the company reevaluates their market position. There are many tools that can be used to help the company determine how to best manage the expansion and a detailed market research product should be performed. However, this analysis will serve as the basis in which further research will be conducted. The 4 P analysis will be performed and is generally a well-suited foundation for further research.

According to Coles' parent group Westfarmers, the supermarket giant had a modest increase of 2.1 percent in its first quarter sales, from $9.23 billion last year to $9.43 billion in 2015, reported Perth Now. Comparable food and liquor store sales were in line with analysts’ expectations and rose by 3.6 percent. Coles’ managing director described its first quarter results as "pleasing and with good momentum" that's expected to continue until

Woolworths is a conventional supermarket owned by Woolworths Limited. It started as a basement store in Pitt Street in 1924, and is now one of the leading competitors in the supermarket business. With over 850 stores in Australia, and 110,000 Woolworths staff, they provide

A. Executive Summary: Neptune Gourmet Seafood is currently struggling with what appears to be a temporary problem of excess inventory. A combination of new coastline regulations and an investment in new fishing vessel technology and freezer trawlers has increased their average catch size while demand in the current segment has not grown as quickly. The Neptune management team is faced with a decision of how to clear out its excess inventory that is not moving fast enough under its Neptune Gold branding. My recommendation is to launch a mass-market product under a different product line in order to monetize excess inventory and position Neptune to capture more of the North American seafood market share. Going forward

“We are on the cusp of exciting change in retail as we enter the new era where the customer is in charge. But far from being daunted by change, I firmly believe it brings opportunity for our business, our employees, our suppliers and of course, our customers. You just have to look for that opportunity. Woolworths is leading this shopping revolution in Australia and there’s a lot more opportunity still to be realised.”

Like any small business, Abel and Cole have threats which they have to face. The recent credit crunch which has had a huge influence on food prices of late will be something Abel and Cole have to deal

White Plates focuses on serving their customers with the best Indian cultural food, and exceed the customer’s expectation.

As a buyer you want to have knowledge available on seafood such as different choices of fish or average pricing. There are many places to obtain helpful information over the internet such as seafood.com,