Swot Analysis Of Kroger And The Grocery Store Industry Essay

Kroger Supermarkets were started in 1883 by Barney Kroger in downtown Cincinnati. Mr. Kroger started his business with the motto: “Be particular. Never sell anything you would not want yourself.” Through the years Kroger has strived to uphold this motto to its customers and to provide great service, the freshest products and expansion to meet the needs of their customer base making it one of the world’s largest retailers. Kroger now has over 2,600 stores in 34 states with $108.5 billion in annual sales. Kroger operates 37 food processing facilities and Kroger was the first grocery retailer to use the electronic scanner.

Kroger’s corporate strategy consists of continuously innovating and creating new ways of bring value to the customer. They were pioneers for many of the things that we now consider norms in grocery stores. In the past, Kroger had rapidly expanded to many store locations to gain market share. This expansion strategy caused them to lose profits in

Kohl’s is an American department store, founded by Maxwell Kohl in 1962. In 1946, Maxwell operated his first store which is known as Kohl’s Food Store. After the success of Kohl’s Food Store, he opened his first department store which is Kohl’s Department Store (present). Since that year, it has been operating in the retail industry and it offers clothing, furniture, accessories, electronics, and house ware products. During the 2000s. Kohl’s has expanded nationwide in the United States. Also, Kohl’s is the second largest retail store in the United States. In addition, the target group of Kohl’s are upper middle and upper class individuals especially families.(Gennrich, 2012)

Headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, The Kroger Company is one of the largest supermarket retailers across the United States. Founded in 1883, Barney Kroger invested his life savings of $372 to open his first grocery store at 66 Pearl Street in downtown Cincinnati. (Kroger, 2011). Barney was quite proud. He was the first grocer ever to have a bakery, to sell meat, and to sell other groceries all in one store. From the start, Barney operated his business with a simple motto: “Be particular. Never sell anything you would not want yourself.” (Kroger, 2011). Today, one hundred and twenty-eight years later, the Kroger Company is still following Barney’s motto.

In 1883, Bernard Kroger, who is Kroger Company’s owner, opened the Great Western Tea Company in Cincinnati when he was 22. In 1902, the company became Kroger Grocery and Baking Company after growing to 40 stores in different cities like Cincinnati and northern Kentucky. The company continued growing thorough buying smaller, cash-strapped companies. Moreover, in the late 1920s, the company gained Piggly Wiggly stores, and in early 1940s, the company bought most of the Piggly Wiggly stock. In 1929, the chain reached its greatest number of stores which is 5,575. The company continued buying other stores. After that, the company started opening bigger stores in 1971. In 1987, Kroger sold most of its interests in the Hook and SupeRx drug chains and started focusing on its food and drug stores. Furthermore, Kroger announced that it was purchasing around 75 store (mostly in Texas). Not only Kroger was buying food stores in Texas, but also in Virginia, Nebraska, and New Mexico, which happened around 2000 and 2001. In 2003, Kroger announced Naturally preferred, its own brad products which include baby food, pastas, cereal, snacks, milk, and soy products (Company History-Hoover’s, 2016).

Target Corporation is known worldwide as a large retail chain that brings in millions of dollars each fiscal year. The ability to remain competitive in a saturated industry could prove difficult to some retailers, but Target remains one of the leaders in the retail market. With success comes risk. Target Corporation competes against online retailers as well as “big box” stores to remain competitive.

With Kroger ranging from a variety of goods, it gives Kroger a wide diversity of strengths for the external environment. Some of the strengths are the fact that Kroger has an online market. Customers can order jewelry, deli and bakery products, floral, and more with the click of a button. This puts them higher up on the competition list for the advanced technology and convenience provided to gain loyal customers. Another strength is that Kroger has stores spanning across thirty five states, which is more than half the nation. This gives the company a wide geographical range in order to compete with surrounding stores. A threat into the external environment would be the competition between supermarkets. The trick is to offer something that large corporations cannot compete with. Kroger is known for its organic line of groceries, called Simple Truth, and its naturally fresh foods and produce. While companies such as Walmart or Costco can offer fresh foods, they are not as focused on the pure organic part. They are more about selling in bulk, and offering discounts, low prices, packaging, and quality. Kroger, on the other hand, can focus more on promoting their organic brands of groceries to attract customers. The natural and organic brand of Simple Truth can factor in Kroger’s opportunities, as Simple Truth is growing, now with over 15,000 organic food items. This allows Kroger to provide a huge variety of food and healthy choices to its customers.

Since it first began in the late 1800’s, Kroger had been a store motivated to expand itsrole in the community. After first starting out by selling grocery items to customers, it began toalso sell bakery items and opened bakeries within the grocery store itself. This was a bigconvenience for the consumer to be able to shop for most of their grocery items within the samestore. The company then set its sights on the meat industry by purchasing several meat marketsand packing plants. This allowed them to provide cuts of meat to their customers so that theydidn’t have to go to another store to purchase meats. Once again, they found a needed serviceand expanded their role to capitalize on it. Over the years, Kroger’s expansion has followed

According to the Kroger business web page, in 1883 Barney Kroger invested his life savings of $372 to open a grocery store at 66 Pearl in downtown Cincinnati. The son of a merchant, he ran his business with a simple motto: Be particular. Never sell anything you would not want yourself. It is a motto that has served him well for the next 120 years. Today, Kroger has grown to 2500 stores with $70 billion revenues, 40 food processing plants ranging from bread, milk, soda pop, ice cream and peanut butter. Kroger operates under two dozen banners, has acquired warehouses, trucking companies, and has over 14,400 private-label items (The Kroger Co., 2012).

The Kroger Company owns and operates most of its banner companies. They have convenience stores, fuel centers, pharmacies, fine jewelry, apparel, grocery stores, manufacturing sites, clinics, and financial services. According to Bethel University, (2017) this is called the broad differentiation strategy. They have several services to offer the public, and are always trying to stay ahead of the competition.

In 1883 Bernard (Barney) Kroger invested 372 dollars that consisted of his life savings to open the first ‘Kroger’ grocery. That first store, located at 66 Pearl Street in downtown Cincinnati, would soon turn into the giant retail chain that consists of nearly 2,500 stores all over the country and most recently produced sales of over 76 billion dollars. Barney Kroger was revolutionary in the formation of the modern grocery, in that he was the first grocer to have his own bakery, as well as selling meat and other groceries all under one roof. Kroger was also the first to manufacture the products that he in turn sold in his own store. This was the beginning of what is today one of the largest food manufacturing companies in America.

The Kroger Company grew in 128 years from one store to over 3,500 stores of various banners and products. The Kroger Company is the largest food and drug retailer in the United States and is growing constantly with diversity in the retail market, dealing in food, pharmacies, apparel, jewelry and fuel. Kroger is governed by a 14 member Board of Directors including a Chief Executive Officer. Kroger is a leader in Corporate Social responsibility by maintaining environmental consciousness, social awareness and energy conservation awareness. Kroger is committed to customers, builds diversity and focuses on growth. The company operates a large part of it’s own manufacturing and distribution to increase profit

At present time, I believe the two most pertinent factors for the Kroger company are sociocultural forces and environmental factors. According to Orlando,2017, Kroger has formed a partnership with Lucky’s supermarket located throughout central Florida and will open eight more stores in the state adding to their numerous banners. Kroger will have to conduct research on the forces that include lifestyles. cultural differences and attitude that could have an impact on their stores.

SWOTT analysis is a fundamental systematic stratagem used for examining both the external and internal factors which affect the company (Lee et al., 2001). Operating businesses use the SWOTT examination to analysis their market standing based on the competitive edge, market share and complete feasibility. SWOTT analysis provides the company with the current information on its weakness, strengths, business trends, and opportunities (Lee et al., 2001). The primary elements of SWOTT analysis are internal and external elements. This paper discusses the external and internal elements which can have an impact on the business of Costco’s new division.

Now that there is an understanding of the particularities of Taiwan’s business environment and of the McDonald’s company structure and its operations in Taiwan, a SWOT analysis of the company’s current operations in Taiwan can be performed and discussed.