SIM336 Strategic Management _ Westfield Shopping Centre (GC0385)
Executive Summary
Effective business strategies play an important role in the achievement of organizational competitive advantages and meet stakeholders expectations. The aims of this paper are to evaluate and analyze the current business strategies of a particular business organization named Westfield Shopping Centre (at Stratford) and implement the existing strategies to gain competitive advantages, meet market demands and fulfil stakeholders’ expectation. The finding of this paper come from several coerces including academic books, journals and websites mainly website of Westfield shopping centre.
The study found that after the Olympic 2012 finished it has been a significant issue for the authority of Westfield Shopping Centre to implement its business strategies to gain a competitive advantage against its rivals and fulfil the expectations of several stakeholders including around 350 business organizations.  According to PESTLE analysis, the UK government has taken initiatives to develop Stratford areas but organizations are worried about the policies of government about Tax and VAT. Secondly, technological development in the Westfield Shopping Centre has improved its customer experiences.
Thirdly, the introducing of this shopping centre has provided the opportunity of 2000 local jobs. According to the five-forces model, the Westfield Shopping Centre has been facing challenges from its competitors, customers, suppliers, new entreats. The study has found seven key stakeholders of Westfield Shopping Centre: Customers, Government, Westfield Groups, Joint-Venture, business organizations, employees, and partnerships. the resources and competences, including location and physical plant, management, financial structure and products, of the Westfield which make its strategic capability are capable to meet with any changes and implementation in its business…………..
Table of Contents
Executive Summary.
1.0 Introduction.
2.0 Overview of the chosen organization.
2.0 Analysis and evaluation of the business environment
2.1 Analysis and evaluation of the internal business environment.
2.1.1 SWOT Analysis.
2.2 Analyzing and evaluating of the external business environment.
2.2.1 PESTLE Analysis.
2.2.2Â Five-Forces Analysis.
3.0 Stakeholder Analysis.
3.7 Stakeholders’ Power/influence grid.
4.0Â Force Field Analysis.
5.0 Strategic analysis to identify and prioritize key issues/goals.
6.0 Conclusion.
7.0 Recommendation: Two Possible Strategies for Implementation.
7.1 Strategy 1: Late night opening by invitation to young people.
7.2 Strategy 2: Being a cost leader to attract greater customers.
7.0 Reference.
Appendix A: PESTLE Analysis.
Appendix B: Five-Forces Analysis.
Appendix C:Â SWOT Analysis.
1.0 Introduction
Business strategies play a significant role in organizations to gain sustainable competitive advantages and meet stakeholder expectations (Johnson and Scholes, 2012). Business strategy is the details plans to achieve success. This is the bundle of decisions as well as activities that the business organizations choose to achieve their long-term goals (Kotler et al., 2014). In a word, the strategy is the approaches or paths the organizations choose.
The purpose of this report is to examine how possible strategies for a particular business organization, Westfield Shopping Centre (at Stratford), could be implemented, changing its business environment, to achieves advantages, to meets markets needs and to fulfil the stakeholder’s expectations. This report, firstly, analyzes and evaluates the environment/factors that Westfield/Stratford shopping centres operate within. The author applies the SWOT analysis technique to analyze the internal business environment.
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The study uses two models – PESTLE Tool and Porter’s Five-Forces Model to analyze the external business environment. Secondly, the study conducts a Stakeholder Analysis focusing on six major stakeholder groups interested in Westfield’s success. It also creates a power/influence grid to identify where the focus is. Thirdly, the report analyses the effectiveness of the proposed strategies and their implementation for the future success of the Westfield/Stratford shopping centre business. Finally, the report suggests possible strategies for implementing to bring back customers to Westfield/Stratford shopping centre.
2.0 Overview of the chosen organization
Westfield Shopping Centre (at Stratford) is the biggest shopping mall in Europe and the most iconic and ambitious retail project of £1.8 billion in East London. This is the landmark of 1.9 million square feet development in retail and leisure serving over 4 million people in the UK. Local structural change including building the Olympic Park and its villages and millions of visitors during the Olympic contributed a lot to the Westfield business. However, after the Olympic, the local area has been empty, no too much people are visiting like Olympic, which has impacted Westfield’s sales revenue and profits significantly. Thus, it has been important to redevelop or regenerate the area for centre success. As a result, it has been a crucial issue for Westfield to improve its business strategies to survive in the marketing and gain sustainable competitive advantages (Westfield Shopping Centre, 2014).
2.0 Analysis and evaluation of the business environment
2.1 Analysis and evaluation of the internal business environment
2.1.1 SWOT Analysis
SWOT refers to Strengths, Weakness, Opportunity, and Threat. The SWOT analysis technique is applied to assess the businesses’ internal environment to make effective business strategies in the near future. The advantages of SWOT analysis are a) useful for any sort of strategic planning which enables organizations to identify non-conformist and unusual issues raised; b) organization are able to examine very quickly it’s both internal (strengths and weaknesses) and external factors (opportunities and threats). The disadvantages of SWOT analysis are a) it cannot promote a tendency to oversimplify the business circumstance; b) there is no obvious limits in the relevant information come from SWOT analysis; and c) it does not prove any mechanism to resolve any disagreement raised from SWOT analysis outcome (Kotler et al., 2014).
The findings of SWOT Analysis on Westfield Shopping Centre is outlined in the following table 2.1:
| Strengths | Weaknesses |
| a) very reputed organisation in the UK with goodwill and brand image.
b) placed in a very good and convenient location attracting millions of customers every week. c) experience million of customers visits every week with improved sales revenue and profit margin. d) able to attract partners, join-venture and shareholders making sure of available investment. |
a) profit marking is being reduced due to competitive rivalry
b) high cost of entering into new market segment including research and planning, marketing and advertising. c) Westfield needs to manage an additional product’s development and marketing d) delivering the new service is challenging for the company’s expertise to the particular market. e) existing company expertise is not good at producing and selling new products. |
| Opportunities | Threats |
| a) thousand of new people are coming to live and dwell in the surrounding of Westfield.
b)Â The innovation of new ideas towards the market and products c) more online selling, advertising through social networking like Facebook d) advance technology including faster card payment method and automated payment method. |
a) difficult to know the difference in cultures and the existence of known problems.
b) competitors are growing up sharply by effective marketing strategies c) volatile economic issues are giving pressers in making right decisions on right time. d) political issues (like impose of VAT on hot food, and Tax increase frequently) influencing business performance.
|
Table 2.1 SWOT Analysis of Westfield Shopping Centre
2.2 Analyzing and evaluating of the external business environment
2.2.1 PESTLE Analysis
PESTLE analysis a technique to analyze and evaluate the external environmental factors which may affect the strategies of business including Westfield. The key aims of the PESTLE tool are to assess and evaluate the macro-environmental factors which impact business productivity and performance. Organizations can assess six particular external environmental factors through PESTLE framework, which are Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal, and Environmental (Kotler et al., 2014)……………
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