Conduct a company overview/with a SWOT analysis/ Mission statement/ number of retail outlets in US, primary sales of goods & products.

1.     Conduct a company overview/with a SWOT analysis/ Mission statement/ number of retail outlets in US, primary sales of goods & products.

Stop & shop supermarket companies is largest grocery chain store operate in New England tertiary of United States altogether in seven states; Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, and Rhode Island. (fundinguniverse.com). It has more than 380 retail outlets operating under Stop & shop grocery chain. The annual revenue for stop & shop is 4.4 billion. Basically, stop & shop offer dairy products, grocery products, bakery products, frozen food, fresh fruits and vegetables, pet food, beauty, baby care products. In addition to this, it has some special services, they are: sales of postage stamps, western union money order and wire transfer, film development and state lottery tickets.  Furthermore, “the company’s super stop & shop supermarket stores offer a wider variety of food and nonfood items than its traditional grocery stores including a large number of convenience and specialty departments such as gas stations, full service pharmacies, office supplies, portrait studios, and photo shops.” (Stop&shop.com). The three main competitors of stop & shop are: Big Y Foods, Hannaford Bors, Shaw’s.

The mission statement of stop & shop is: “At Stop & Shop, we believe offering safe, wholesome, high quality foods in clean, modern and attractive stores is the foundation for consumer confidence. Stop & Shop actively promotes safe food handling by continually reinforcing established policies and procedures through associate training and education programs throughout our organization. In addition, we are committed to providing useful information to consumers interested in food safety and product handling.”

Shaw’s supermarkets companies operate as another largest grocery chain store under the Shaw’s and start market banners in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. (Shawssupermarket.com). In 1998 Shaw’s had acquisition with star market retail chain. Now these companies have more than 200 stores operating under Shaw’s and Star market. Basically, Shaw’s offer bakery items, delicatessen, flowers, meat and poultry items, seafood, wine products, photo film, fresh fruits and vegetables, pet foods, beauty and baby care to customers.  The three main competitors of Shaw’s are: Stop & shop, Big Y foods, Hannaford Bors.

The mission statement of Shaw’s is: “For Shaw's, valuing diversity means the inclusion of all of our associates' and customers' differences and needs as part of our overall business strategy. A corporation whose workforce accurately represents its audience is one positioned to thrive and grow.”

SWOT analysis for both companies:

Strengths                                                                             Weaknesses

Large number of retail outlets within a state/city.           High fixed cost investment

Good will/ Image/ strong brand reorganization.              per store.

Offer low price store level products. For example,         Few employees to serve stop & shop brand or Shaw’s brand.                              customers.

Strong real estate in valuable market.

Offer Peapod/ home delivery services to

Customers (strength for stop & shop)

Offer variety of services like money transfer,

lottery, gas station (strength for stop & shop)

Opportunities                                                                                              Threats

Growth/ Expansion in different market.               Economic condition of a country

Offer new products or services.                             Slow market Growth.

Join hands with another partner.                          Low price product offering competitors. For example, wall mart, price rite.

Decreasing income level of customers.

2.    Using DRETS, explain how these 5 components relate and interface with your company’s products.

Demographic Environment: Demographical factor brings opportunities to both stop & shop and Shaw’s supermarket.  In United States of America population growth is increasing and numbers of people coming inside the United State from different nations are also high. This helps these markets to expand their product line. They can offer varieties of products and services targeting those customers.   These markets can diversify their products.

Regulatory Environment:  Regulatory environment consists of both political and legal forces of a country. In this recessionary period, government wants to hold the organization, specially, food retail businesses which provide necessary food for existence. Therefore, regulatory forces bring opportunities for both companies.

Economic Environment:  Economic forces encompass development of Gross National Products (GNP), changing expenditure patterns, country’s stage of economic development. Considering current situation, economic forces bring threats to these companies.  Consumers’ income is going down, people tend to spend less and country is facing recession.

Technological Environment: Technology is getting advanced and advanced day by day. In order to be competent, organizations should be able to update themselves with technological change. Therefore, technological forces bring both opportunities and threats to shop & shop and Shaw’s supermarket.  People tend to be more convenience and choosy. They don’t want to wait long line. These trends bring opportunities for these organizations. Recently, stop & shop has SCAN IT technology. Customers can scan their items on scanner using their barcode of customer loyalty card. So that, they don’t have to wait long line which brings opportunities for stop & shop.  In addition to this, stop & shop have peapod (home delivery) services to their customers. Customers can buy their grocery online. This brings opportunities for stop & shop. Shaw’s do not have these services yet; definitely Shaw’s is losing their customers who do not want to visit store to buy grocery.

Social environment:  Social forces consists of social and cultural trends for example, women working outside home, trend towards more convenience, complexity of society.  Considering the current social scenario, social factors bring opportunities for stop & shop and Shaw’s. They can offer different types of food for Asian, European, Spanish and other people; which is expansion opportunities for them. Furthermore, due to convenience trend they can offer home delivery services. 

3.    Discuss the companies product line (s)

For Stop & shop

·         Bakery: Cheese cakes, layer cakes, custom decorated cakes, Danish pastry, fresh European breads, Bagels and muffins.

·         Natural Foods: Milk, Shiloh farm breads, vegetables, fruits,   cord.

·         Deli: Cheese, butter, meats, salads.

·         Pet shop: Pet food for pet like Birds, Dogs, Cats.

·         Beauti: Shampoo, conditionor, cream, lotion, family care items, baby care items.

·         Home item: Detergent, shop, foods and other things.

For Shaw’s

·         Bakery: Breads and rolls, Bagels, Pastries and Donuts, Muffins, Cakes, Healthy sweets, pies, Decadent Dessert.

·         Daily usable foods: Vegetables, fruits, milk, juices, cord and soon.

·         Deli: Meats, Slicing Cheese, Salads, butter

·         Happy Tails: Pet foods for birds, dogs, and cats and other animals.

·         Home Central: Dishes and laundry pile up, cleaning things and other useful for home, beauty items and baby shop.

·         Wine Market: Variety of wine only in selected store of New Hampshire, Maine, and Vermont and some store of Massachusetts.

           

4.    Who does this company appeal to who are their customers?

People from all income level groups are the customers of Stop & shop and Shaw’s supermarket. However, they are appealing to middle and upper class people. Their products’ pricing strategy seems to be prestigious pricing which is definitely higher than price leadership companies. Both companies offer their own store level products and national brand products. All celebrities who are consider as upper income level people go there to buy their food and lower income level people who even do not have their own convenience and should take bus go there. In addition to this, they are targeting people from all around the world for example, Asian, Spanish, European and people from other countries.

5.    Discuss weather this company is a PL-OE-CI.

Stop & shop and Shaw’s supermarket both are customer Intimacy companies.  They care a lot about their customers. They believe on long term relationship with customers so they want to retain their customers long. Even though both companies largely depend on manufacturing products, they are considered service industry. They care about the services provided to customers. Their definition of the value received by customers carry huge portion of the services provided by them along with time spent by customers in their store to purchase and to pay bills. Stop & shop and Shaw’s for example, declare that information about their customers will not be given to any organization or any sources unless customers give permission.

6.    Place yourself in the role of customer and critique the “service delivery” this company to consumers.

Personally, I like Shaw’s than stop & shop. The food, specially fruits and vegetables are fresh in Shaw’s than in stop & shop. I have been visiting these two stores twice a week to check their services and the response given to the customers. I found that these two giant supermarkets provide almost the same services to their customers; however, they have very few employees to help customers. Employees give response and serve customers according to their dress up and makeup which is not fair to customers. Prices of foods and vegetables are almost similar except that some foods are cheaper in Shaw’s and some are in Stop & shop. The thing which I don’t like about these companies is that they give surfacial discount with card. Card system is good way to retain customers but those who visit the store very first time have to pay extra buck only because they don’t have card.

7.    If you were the company president/CEO how would you define the current service delivery model?

If I were the company president/CEO, I would like to define these two companies as customer Intimacy Company. They are perfectly fit into that category. They provide daily necessary goods to customers. Therefore, customers need to visit them often to buy foods. If they were fail to provide real value in terms of price, service, time, quality to customers then they would not go back to these stores again. Customers have lots of choice to buy their necessities but these companies have very little chance to correct their mistake again. Therefore, they should be customer Intimacy. Another reason is that they cannot be operational leaders like wall-mart and they are not innovator. They supply wide variety of goods manufactured by other companies.

8.    What significant changes would you make in the current delivery model to better serve the customer?

There are three most important components for operating one organization. They are: customers, employees and management. Customers are the most important elements among all three of them. One cannot even think about business without customers. Employees also play significance role to make organization success.  Specially, front desk employees who are considered as lower level employees have powerful role to make customers satisfied or dissatisfied. Therefore, if I were CEO, I would like to motivate employees to better serve the customers. I would strongly recommend them to serve all customers equally with good manner.

9.    Make a comparison between both organizations. Discuss the positives and negatives that both companies have. What attracts one company to a customer verse the other company?

Stop & shop and Shaw’s, both are giant supermarket in New England area of United States. They offer varieties of product to customers and both are competitors of each others. Therefore, it is really difficult to compare them in terms of services available and products offer. Following are some comparison between them:

·         Number of products available: Stop & shop and Shaw’s, both provide wide variety of products. In terms of area stop & shop is wider than Shaw’s so definitely it provides large number of products than Shaw’s. The quality, price and decoration of products are almost the same in both companies. Stop & shop has their own pharmacy and some super Stop & shop has gas station. Similarly, some Shaw’s store has wide variety of wine to their customers.

·         Convenience: At stop & shop, they have Peapod service (home delivery) service. Customers can place their order online also. They don’t have to visit store to buy grocery, flowers and other necessities. Shaw’s do not have home delivery service yet. Shaw’s customers have to visit store to buy their grocery.

·         Extra services available: Stop & shop offer state lottery tickets, western union money order and wire transfer to their customers. Customers can redeem their winning money at shop & shop. Shaw’s do not have these services. Shaw’s has coin star and photo film services which stop & shop do not have. Customers can bring their change and convert it into bills or they can buy their food using that coin.

At last but not the least, these two companies have their own image and are considered as prestigious supermarket. The prices of products and services seem to be higher than price leader companies. They charge high price to give extra services to customers. Their customers are also ready to pay extra more bucks only to get better services. Customers get services via employees. Employees represent the whole company as a whole. When employees are satisfied and motivated then they serve customers well. Customers would be satisfied and buy repeatedly from the same store, when they served and care well. In this way, sales will go up and image of the companies will also increase.

REFERENCES

Overview stop & shop [online information] from www.stop&shop.com retrieved in April   28 2009.

Overview Shaw’s supermarket incorporation [online information] from        www.shawssupermarket.com retrieved in April 28, 2009.

The stop and shop supermarket companies [online article] from

 http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/The-Stop-amp;-Shop-Supermarket-Company-Company-History.html retrieved in April 28, 2009.