Sainsbury’s is the third largest store chain inUKand 80th placed in FTSE 100 companies with market capitalisation of £ 5,457.35 million. The essay employs SWOT analysis to assess the strengths, opportunities, weaknesses and threats in relation to its strategy and operations in the UK and international markets with reference to its retail business. The strengths and opportunities of the company should be used to neutralise the weaknesses and to develop a competitive strategy against the threats that are identified as facing the organisation.
Introduction
Sainsbury’s is aUKbased company whose core operation is retail business in food and non-food products and services. The company’s portfolio of investments include property management, energy services, financial services such as banking and clothing. Sainsbury’s also runs six food colleges where they train their staff. The successful operations of the company has enabled it to be in the FTSE 100 list at position 80, making 21 million transactions weekly, on both traditional and online platforms. It has the seventh-largest “TU” clothing brand among other over 5000 own or improved brands of products of food and non-food items and a range of over 30000 products sold in its stores countrywide and internationally. The organisation generated £ 22943 million in the 2010/11 financial year and employs over 150000 staff in its 934 stores spread acrossUK(Sainsbury’s Annual Report, 2011). The essay will look at the strategies that the company uses in its operations and how its business environment favours or impedes it from succeeding in its objectives and goals.
SWOT analysis is a tool that is used to understand the position of an organisation in relation to its operating environment. According to Griffin(2011), SWOT analysis is particularly useful in strategy formulation, which essentially entails how the company allocates its resources in all its operations to achieve its objectives. SWOT analysis