Wesfarmers Case Study

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Macro-Environment Analysis Summary
Industry-Environment Analysis Summary
Gaps and Current Strategy Analysis
Recommendations
Conclusion
References

Introduction

The current position of Wesfarmers is largely due to the Global Financial Recession that threatened to grind its operations to a halt but thanks to the companys broad conglomerates, it has managed to sail through, albeit with some financial shortcomings.

Wesfarmers acquisition in November 2007of Coles Group, which was one of the leading retailer chains in Australia, made it the biggest retailer and private employer in the country. However, the purchase, which was worth $19.3 billion, left Wesfarmers without adequate funds to operate its numerous businesses.

The global financial crisis further compounded the financial status of Wesfarmers between 2008 2009 (Huang, 2010).

Wesfarmers management and leadership style, however, has also enabled it to be the brand name that it is in the Australian markets. At corporate level, the company has directors who manage different functions and at the same time head various divisions.

This lessens the bureaucracy that would have otherwise existed between senior management, middle, and lower management levels. Moreover, the choice of these managers is made on merit and experience while underscoring teamwork for the success of the company. This paper, therefore, attempts to answer the CEOs, Richard Goyder (Huang, 2010).

Macro-Environment Analysis Summary

Political/Legal Forces

The politico-legal environment in Australia provides a good ground on which Wesfarmers can thrive.

The Australian government has provided good infrastructure for movement and communication within the country and given Wesfarmers diverse businesses it can easily communicate with customers, make deliveries, and receive supplies for its stores. Although it is headquartered in Perth, Western Australia, it is able to easily conduct its business all over the country.

The sound infrastructure provides opportunity for Wesfarmers especially its online divisions (Coles online supermarket), which requires Internet thus making this division a viable project.

Trade liberalization has also opened up a wealth of opportunities in economies such as the European Union markets with un-entered and new target markets which the company can take advantage of (Mahadevan, 2004).

Economic Forces

With the global financial crisis behind it, Wesfarmers can exploit the budding post-financial crisis economy of Australia. The Reserve Bank of Australia has directed commercial banks to drop their lending rates from 10.2% in 2009 to 8.91% in 2011 (Juckes, 2009).

This is an indication of the brighter future for Wesfarmers because it can obtain loan cheaply to undertake its operations. Coupled with the low inflation in the country, people have money to spend and owing to Wesfarmers diverse businesses, at least one-half of its divisions must record increase in sales.

Equally important is the exchange rate against US dollar, which is AUD 1.08233 per USD. and AUD 1.35 per Euro (Juckes, 2009). International trade thus poses a great opportunity for Wesfarmers numerous businesses with relatively better returns.

Socio-Cultural Forces

The social dynamics of the Australian population provide an opportunity for Wesfarmers to expand its business and sustain its growth rate.

The company runs a total of nine divisions with various businesses and owing to the consumerist nature of Australians, they often flock retail stores to purchase food suppliers, home appliance stores, among others. In this era, the Y generation is the spendthrift customers who must be impressed by the products.

Quality issues emerge strongly and must be addressed by the company for it to cash in on this dominant group. Australians have become conscious about the effects of junk food and green energy both to their lives and to the planet.

Wesfarmers energy generating divisions face close down due to perhaps boycott if it does not generate clean energy in the near future. Similarly, the retail division that deals in human food must produce whole grain stocks and reduce the junk type in order to make the business sustainable in the long-run.

Technological Forces

Technology has an irresistible influence to the operations of a companys activities. The advancement has been so rapid that a company that lags behind is working its way out of business.

The federal government in cooperation with state governments has ensured that there is sound infrastructure that facilitates the availability of technology in every corner of the country. Consequently, companies have adopted the use of technology to give them a competitive edge.

Wesfarmers can use its scarce resources to institute a management information system where technology is used to effectively and efficiently manage the daily operations of the company, more so given that it is a large conglomerate.

The acquisition of Coles, for example, enabled Wesfarmers to have an online supermarket where customers can place and pay for their orders upon delivery (Huang, 2011).

Environmental Forces

Issues dealing with environment issues have significantly affected the modern macro-environment for most companies, including Wesfarmers, in the negative. The reason being they have influence on the financial arena such as decline of profit for green and carbon compliance schemes deployed by the Australian government.

These forces, irrespective of the industry, are set on long-term basis hence their influence of a companys growth cannot be underestimated.

As the cost of common resources increase such as the cost of crude oil, costs of other resources also rise thus increasing wholesale and supplier costs. Consequently, the potential profit and growth are reduced and felt by associated organizations (Baker, Graham & Harker, 1998).

Industry-Environment Analysis Summary

Threat to New Entrants

According to Porter, the threat to new entrants in any industry is caused by many factors that may shield a given company from cutthroat competition by new companies.

Wesfarmers is a large conglomerate with ten divisions and various businesses. It means that a company needs high economies of scale to enter such a business.

Moreover, capital requirements as well as switching costs are high thus complicating the entrance of new companies. Although access to distribution and government policy may encourage new entrants to venture into the business, the stakes are somewhat insurmountable (Hill & Jones, 2009).

Rivalry within the Industry

Wesfarmers operates in many industries and within these industries, rivalry is high. There may not be rivalry against Wesfarmers as a conglomerate but its divisions and businesses have rivals.

The high growth of industries such as the hardware industry, chemicals and fertilizer industry, electronic industry among others, has led to intense rivalry in the divisions within which these industries fall in Wesfarmers. The easy exit to barrier also makes the rivalry high in the mentioned industries (Hill & Jones, 2009).

Power of Substitutes

Just as in the case of industry rivalry, Wesfarmers feel the power of substitute products/services at divisional level where individual businesses respond differently. Price performance of substitutes relative to Wesfarmers often sways sales especially if the latter is high.

Customers switching costs and brand disloyalty increases the threat of substitutes if it is low and high respectively (Porter, 2004). For example, the Bunning business unit of Wesfarmers that deals in electronics for home improvement and office equipment has the products of Woolworths to reckon with in the market (Huang, 2010).

Bargaining Power of Suppliers

Wesfarmers has numerous suppliers who make deliveries to its various divisions. The bargaining power of suppliers will be high when they are few but as it can be construed from the case study; Wesfarmers reduces this bargaining power by contracting tens of thousands of suppliers for the purposes of growth and sustainable development (Huang, 2010).

Therefore, the high concentration of suppliers makes it difficult for them to wield power over Wesfarmers.

Bargaining Power of Buyers

There is a real threat of bargaining power of buyers for Wesfarmers due to their concentration in comparison to the industries concentration. Although, Wesfarmers deals with thousands of clients, there are also rival companies that operate in the same industries hence giving buyers considerable bargaining power.

Buyers have no switching costs at all and can easily change their stores. The absence of threat to backward integration, however, enables Wesfarmers to regulate this bargaining power (Porter, 2004).

Internal Analysis Summary

Wesfarmers is the leading business conglomerate company in Australia with numerous divisions and businesses. By 2009, it had nine business divisions after acquiring numerous companies.

The companys financial performance of the years 2008 and 2009 attests to Wesfarmers solid financial status leaving its closest rival by a wide margin. In 2008, for example it collected $50,982 million worth of revenue while in 2009 the figure went down by $17,398 due to global financial recession (Huang, 2010).

Tangible Resources

Tangible resources of Wesfarmers comprise the physical plants and equipment that it controls; technological infrastructure; financial status; and organizational culture and management (Harrison & John, 2009). Wesfarmers thrives in acquisition of other businesses hence has a strong asset base.

The ten divisions of the company have numerous plants and equipment that are under its control. It uses these plants and equipment to produce quality products and provide services that enables it to distinguish itself from the rest.

The financial status of Wesfarmers has not been healthy since the end of global financial recession of 2008/2009. The purchase of Coles Group in 2007 at the cost of $19.3 billion left the company in debt making it difficult to wade through the murky waters of recession (Huang, 2010).

However, with the latter gone and banks resuming lending at fairly affordable interest rates, Wesfarmers will be able to turn its businesses around and achieve targeted results.

Intangible Resources

Wesfarmers has a wealth of intangible resources that comprise its human resource that is well trained and disciplined. With a staff of about 200,000, the company must nurture and earn the loyalty of its employees.

Top managers, for example, must attend the Harvard Advanced Management Program before taking office (Huang, 2010). Until recently, the reputation of Wesfarmers has been good, in fact, it was ranked very high courtesy of its high standard of corporate governance and economic performance.

Finally, Wesfarmers is known for making strategic alliances with other companies preferring their acquisition. The company acquired Western Colleries, Federation Insurance, Coles Group, among others. This has enabled it to acquire its position countrywide as the leading conglomerate with many divisions and business units in Australia.

Gaps and Current Strategy Analysis

Macro-Environment

Wesfarmers corporate strategy of enhancing growth through acquisition is considered to be in line with forces of the macro-environment. The company has forestalled further acquisitions due to the effects of the 2008/2009 global financial crisis and it is currently battling to offset its liabilities and integrate Coles Group within it.

The recovering economy of Australia is projected to continue in the next few years before it finally stabilizes. During this recovery process, Wesfarmers can seize the moment and restructure its capital structure. The low inflation rates and affordable lending rates offered by commercial banks are economic stimuli that the government is putting in place to enable firms to recover.

Industry Environment

Wesfarmers has dominated the industries where it operates thanks to its large conglomerates. The trend in these industries, however, is characterized by intense competition, high bargaining power of buyers, low supplier power, high threat of substitute products, et cetera.

Wesfarmers business strategy can be said to have influenced some of these forces to stand as they are at present. To this extent, it suffices to say that Wesfarmers business strategy is congruent with the industry-environment.

Internal Environment

Analyzing the internal environment of Wesfarmers, it emerges that the company has a strong tangible resources that can sustain its growth and development. The management style and the organization culture are some of the areas of competencies that give it competitive advantage over other players in the industry.

The organizational structure allows for ease of interaction between lower level management and senior management hence enabling adherence to corporate strategy at operational level (Huang, 2010).

Moreover, the four elements that drive Wesfarmers organizational culture: shareholder focus, growth philosophy, accountability, and climate; facilitate the achievement of its corporate objective.

Richard Goyders worry of what corporate strategy to use to enable Wesfarmers to sustain its competitive advantage can be answered in Trevor Eastwoods objective that catapulted the company to Australian Stock Exchange market more than a quarter-century ago.

He should therefore, concentrate on the use of return on equity and return on capital to set targets for each division and measure the performance accordingly.

After setting these performance-based targets, the business unit should be allowed to formulate its strategy to achieve the target, as characteristic of Wesfarmers (Huang, 2010). However, the divisional managers must be responsible for the outcome of such strategy as consistent with the spirit of accountability.

Recommendations

Wesfarmers will need to borrow money from the commercial banks and pump it into the businesses in order to turn Coles Group around.

Given that the return on capital for the groups business units are low, Wesfarmers senior management team should invest in these business units by allocating a proportionate amount of capital with reasonable disregard to its non-viable current capital and investment allocation policy (Huang, 2010). In fact, it is high time the company abandoned this policy and replaced it with the Igor Ansoffs matrix model (PP, 2002).

It is recommended that the company maintain its diversification strategy, which has seen its brand in almost all industries in the Australian market. Wesfarmers is able to cash in on all market segments using this strategy hence expediting the process of achieving its corporate strategy.

At present, it should stop making further acquisitions and concentrate on the ones it has in order to get the best out of them. The secret of managing the big conglomerate lies on the two of the companys four-pronged approach of its organization culture: philosophy and accountability.

While the companys philosophy focuses on managerial and employee behavior, accountability ensures the autonomous operation of business units with decision-making responsibility and accountability (Huang, 2010).

The company should make e-business a major component of its businesses instead of dedicating it to a single business unit, Coles Online.

The world has gone global and many customers are increasingly to online shopping and therefore Wesfarmers should guarantee its existence by establishing a strong Internet business network in all its business units.

Furthermore, the management information system of the company is not well established and given the systems importance for managers, Wesfarmers should make a priority.

The strong communication infrastructural network will facilitate Wesfarmers exploitation of the Internet revolution (Li, 2007).

With the Internet revolution and well established infrastructure in place, Wesfarmers should now go global. The macro-environment has provided trading blocs such as the EU with a total of twenty-seven countries and still expanding, which the company can seize as trade partner besides dominating the domestic industry.

In fact, a robust turn-around of the entire company would dictate that once considerable financial base has been established, branches should be opened in these countries to enable it meet its corporate objective, which is to maximize shareholders equity (Huang, 2010).

Conclusion

Wesfarmers is a big conglomerate that operates in different industries in Australia as a result of its diversification. Its success has been partly due to the strategy of acquisition and partly due to sound management. Although it was affected with 2008/2009 global financial crisis, it did not collapse.

The external and internal analyses have revealed the gaps and influenced recommendations that need to be worked on to enable the company to continue growing.

References

Baker M., Graham P. & Harker D. 1998. Marketing: managerial foundations. Sydney, Australia: Palgrave Macmillan Australia.

Harrison, J. & John, C. 2009. Foundations in Strategic Management. New York, NY: Cengage Learning.

Hill, C. & Jones, G. 2009. Strategic Management Theory: An Integrated Approach. New York, NY: Cengage Learning.

Huang, X. 2010, Case 3: Wesfarmers in 2010. Edith Cowan University.

Juckes, K. 2009. Market Commentary. Web.

Li, F. 2007. What is e-business?: how the Internet transforms organizations. New York, NY: Wiley-Blackwell.

Mahadevan, R. 2004. The economics of productivity in Asia and Australia. New York, NY: Edward Elgar Publishing.

Porter, M. 2004. Competitive strategy: techniques for analyzing industries and competitors. New York, NY: Free Press.

PP (Perseus Publishing), 2002. Business: the ultimate resource. Detroit, Michigan: Perseus Publishing.

Appendix 1: Macro-Environment Analysis of Wesfarmers

Factor	Issue	Impact	Growth Effect
Political/Legal	Government Influence (Proper infrastructure etc.)	+	Positive
	Trade liberalization	+
	Government concern and increased spending on food products awareness	+
Economic	EU economic block	+	Positive
	Lower lending interest rates	+
	Low exchange rates	+
	Global financial recession
	Trade agreements	+
Socio-Cultural	Desire to be healthy	+	Medium
	Awareness of environmental effects	+
	Dynamics of purchase patterns
	Brand loyalty
	High purchasing power of generation Y	+
Technological	Computer literacy level of the population	+	Positive
	The Internet	+
	Online business	+
	Management information systems
Environmental	Trends towards organic food products	+	Negative
	Clean energy	+
	Increasing rate of global warming
	Energy Efficiency

Appendix 2: Industry-Environment Analysis of Wesfarmers

Item	Issue Analysis	Impact	Effect
Threats of New Entrants (Barriers)	Economies of Scale: Has many conglomerates which enable it to realize high costs per capita. Large investment required for startup. Several assets required such as head office, plants, transport, et cetera	High	High
	Brand Identity and Loyalty: Brand recognition or identification of supplying a certain quality or level of service with a particular experience or offering of value to customer. Usually longtime market leaders have solid brand identities. However customers are not very loyal to Wesfarmers brands due to issues of quality and price.	Medium
	Proprietary Product Difference: New entrants may be excluded from entering a potential market if products created cannot be replicated or replicated easily. All products and services offered by Wesfarmers can be easily copied by other competitive firms.	Low
	Capital Requirements: Large funds required to purchase machinery and invest in technology to produce comparable products. Wesfarmers owns a lot of subsidiary companies, which give it control over the vast machinery and investments.	High
	Absolute Cost Advantages: Existing companies having absolute cost advantages of new entrants. Wesfarmers experience absolute cost advantage via experience, acquisitions and alliances.	High
	Access to Distribution: Entrances to Industry affects the distribution of products. The industry requires large monetary resources to ferry and arrange freight to retail outlets for products. Contracts with suppliers and distributers may prevent product distribution. Wesfarmers is able to manage ferrying merchandize across Australia to its scattered stores.	High
Bargaining Powers of Suppliers	Differentiation of Inputs: Important components for production of products. Quality differs with manufacturers and suppliers of materials. Certain manufacturers have patents that give them exclusive rights to own brands.	Medium	Low
	Supplier Concentration: Alternative suppliers to source for production. There is high number of suppliers to be contracted by companies such as Wesfarmers. Due to their large numbers, suppliers have no bargaining power.	Low
	Supplier Volume: Quantity of production components supplied to industry. In these industries where Wesfarmers operates, suppliers do not supply high volumes of inputs hence low bargaining power	Low
	Costs relative to total purchases in the industry: Supplier costs as a portion of total costs in production. The diverse geographic locations of suppliers in Australia and growth of many manufacturing industries resources wise means more choice lowering supplier power.	Medium
	Supplier Substitutes: These are alternative suppliers that produce substitute inputs to the industries Industries where Wesfarmers operate has/have power, not suppliers due to the existence of substitute inputs.	Medium
	Forward Integration: This is the threat of supplier becoming a competitor producing products in the industry. Suppliers of similar size, resources and network connections have ability to penetrate the industry but that is not the case with suppliers in these industries.	Low
	Information about suppliers products: Bargaining power of suppliers depends on target market. If such a market for instance requires some degree of quality that only a single supplier can provide then supplier has power.
Bargaining Powers of Buyers	Differentiation of Outputs: This refers to specialty products produced by companies. Buyers preference to specialty products associated with particular companies increase their bargaining power.		Medium-High
	Industry Information: This refers to buyer knowledge of industry and competing products. Easy industry accessibility of industry information by customers including other current competitors thus giving power to customers.
	Switching Costs: The amount of monetary expense involved in locating an alternative product. The buyers propensity to switch from one brand to another without incurring extra costs. Buyers in the industries wield more power over companies such as Wesfarmers.
	Presence of Substitute Products: Considerable for industry as products may be substituted with ease a good example is the products from Wesfarmers Bunning and those of Woolworths.
	Buyer Concentration: Degree of buyer number relative to industry. The industry where Wesfarmers operates is fraught with buyers from various demographics including the dominant Y generation giving buyers more bargaining power.
	Backward Integration: This means buyer becoming a producer of the product within the industry/industries. There is difficulty of buyers to integrate backwardly owing to the colossal amount of money needed thus erecting entrance barriers.
Threats of Substitutes	Relative Substitutes: There are many industries that produce substitute products to Wesfarmers nine divisions and their business units. These substitute products also exist not only outside these industries but also for various demographics.	High	High
	Switching Costs: This is the ease of buyers switching products. In these industries, buyers have power to switch products without incurring extra cost given the abundance of substitutes.	High
	Buyer Propensity to Substitute: Refers to the ability of buyers to purchase alternative substitutes. Although the costs of substitutes is a factor in the propensity, the brand adherence is a major determinant. Wesfarmers brand has some work to do to reduce this propensity.	High
Rivalry among Competitors	Rate of Industry Growth: Most of the industries that Wesfarmers operates in are growing for instance the insurance industry, the energy sector, the home improvement thus mortgage industry, etc. Moreover, globalization has facilitated international trade such as the expansive EU markets. Therefore, many companies are scrambling for the growing market share.	Medium	Medium
	Product Difference: Product differentiation in the industries bring about market segmentation. At least the nine industries where Wesfarmers operate experience product differentiation hence stiff rivalry among competitors.	High
	Brand Identity: Brands are essential because they are considered to give differences between competitors. Brand identity, furthermore, is associated with trust and recognition for value by the customers within the industry.	Low
	Switching Costs: This is the ease with which buyers change to another product. Buyers in this industry switch easily to other products thus fueling competition.	High

Appendix 3: Internal Analysis of Wesfarmers

Tangible Area	Tangible Resource
Physical	Premises: Wesfarmers is a large conglomerate with nine divisions and several business units. These divisions have premises which include: Coles Group, Home Improvement & Office Supplies, Target Group, K-Mart Group, Resources, Insurance, Industrial & Safety, Chemicals & Fertilizers Divisions, and Energy. All these divisions have their business units and together compose Wesfarmers premises and/or plants. Logistics: Wesfarmers has a logistics network from suppliers spread all over the Australian territory although it is headquartered in Perth, Western Australia.
Organizational	Acquisitions: Since the company was listed in the Australian Stock Exchange Market in 1984, it made acquisition and joint ventures it expansion strategies hence had a total of nine divisions with a variety of business units (Huang, 2010). Management: The management style of Wesfarmers is a resource in the sense that the matrix organizational structure is made to enhance cooperation and reduce bureaucracy.
Financial	Wesfarmers Investments: The company invested in a total of nine business divisions, each of which has several business units. This strategy of diversification helped Wesfarmers to be present in virtually all industries in the Australian market and cash in from every sector of the economy (Huang, 2010). Financial Report: Going by the companys financial report of 2009, Wesfarmers had revenue amounting to $50982 million in 2008 which translated in 160 cents earning per share; while in 2009 the revenue dropped to $33584 with earning per share of 174.2 cents (Huang, 2010). Sales: Each business recorded impressive sales in 2008/2009. Coles Groups market share was 33% leading in the grocery industry, Home Improvement & Office Supplies, Target and K-Mart accounted for 13% of the $350 billion Australian retail sector.
Technological	Manufacturing Processes: Slowly implements new technology to enhance business processes and logistical support. It also has Coles online store which facilitates e-business and therefore requires good Internet network

Intangible Area	Intangible Resource
Human	Worker Training: Training programs are implemented for new staff including managers until they are confident to fulfill their duties. they are also trained on the job though workshops to enable them improve continuously on the quality of their work. Feel Rewarded: At Wesfarmers, there is good worker relationship with the management hence workers feel well rewarded and appreciated and they are more likely to work harder and become a core competency of the company.
Reputational	The reputation of Wesfarmers has been good, in fact, it was ranked very high courtesy of its high standard of corporate governance and economic performance. Nevertheless, this has relatively changed because some of its divisions engage in practices that interfere with environmental practices (Huang, 2010).
Innovation	Wesfarmers is currently doing research on how to produce clean energy, which is environmental friendly and reducing global warming. Moreover, in its grocery industry, it is striving to introduce whole organic food given the consciousness of the Y generation with health issues. The company has used acquisitions and joint ventures approaches to diversify its business and increase the market share.

Functional Areas	Capabilities
Distribution	Wesfarmers has a sound logistical support system that enables it to deliver merchandize from the manufacturing sources to its stores located all over the territory of Australia.
Human Resources	The company has a total of 200,000 staff in all its businesses It practices decentralization of authority and accountability to the corporate office hence quick and decisions are made by divisional management. Motivating, empowering and retaining employees Importance of employee commitment and job satisfaction favouring motivation, innovation and learning
Marketing	Coles Group market share in grocery is 33%; Home Improvement & Office Supplies, Target and K-Mart divisions account for 13% of the $350 billion retail sector. The Resource division produces 13.5 million tons of coal that supplies energy (Huang, 2010).
Management	The management style is decentralization which gives autonomy for decision making to the middle or lower managers but make them accountable to the corporate management.
R&D	Wesfarmers divisions have their own research and development departments that are active depending on demands posed by consumers. For example, the grocerys R&D looks into organic whole food production towards providing healthy food to consumers.

Appendix 4: Identification of gaps

Macro-environment-business strategy

Trend	Date of impact	Business strategy
Less protectionist governmental policies on international trades	From now to the coming decade	Expanding globally especially across the EU member states.
Underutilization of information systems	Next 10 years	Management information system should be established
Y Generation	From now to the next 15 years	Products and services should be tailor-made to suit their needs
Environmental neglect	From now to the next 10+ years	Clean energy production be enhanced.

Industry environment-business strategy

Industry environment element	Opportunity or threat	Effect on industry profitability	Business strategy
Suppliers	Opportunity to cooperation with respective R&D departments Threat to lose suppliers to other competitors	Average	Limit the power of suppliers
Buyers	Enhance the brand name Volatility of buyers	High	Lower the power of buyers
Substitutes	Lack of real substitute to the standard of Wesfarmers	Low	Consistent with its strategy
Threat of new entrants	Importance of brand identity	Average	Limit consistency
Industry rivalry	Imitation, low pricing, and the ability to make high sales volumes	Average	Limited consistent

Industry rivalry gaps

Competitor	Financial performance	Market position	Technological performance	Service performance
Local competitors	Average	Good	Good	Good
European competitors	Average	Poor	Good	Excellent
New entrants	n/a	Average	Poor	n/a

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