国际食品零售商市场营销essay,代写essay论文

介绍—Introduction

国际食品零售商在国际贸易和商业已经存在了几个世纪,同时在世界历史上扮演了一个非常重要的角色,在过去两到三年获得了巨大的全球零售业份额。几个国家经济的繁荣,加上经济全球化打开了企业针对跨境建立零售业务的渠道。当进入到全球零售业时，网络技术和多媒体的出现改变了市场规模。零售商也面临着前所未有的挑战,因为他们要应对如何快速修改客户行为和经济的压力，利用新兴市场和全方位使用电子商务这一资源对继续扩展零售业是至关重要的。各种研究和研究结果显示,相比其他方式，全球零售行业巨头模式能获取更多的利润，，主要是由于所涉及的成本低,这就是为什么行业chegn积极寻求全球零售行业巨头模式。因为顾客是上帝这一理念，如今的客户对产品有广泛选择的权利。不考虑他们的地理位置，全球零售市场可包括买家和卖家。零售销售不会受不同的货币,地理或政府边界,距离或语言的影响，因此任何买方都可以找到相应的卖方,反之亦然；只要买方或卖方知道如何策划在如今全球市场的营销方案。关键成功因素是：在操作国际零售业电子商务网络存在的包容性,权责发生制网络用户的人口统计信息,加上全球采购前景的最大化。

Whilst international trade and commerce has been in existence for centuries and has played a very significant role in World History, Global Retailing has gained immense ground in the past two to three decades. The boom in the economy in several countries, together with globalization has opened avenues for Organisations aiming at setting up retailing operations across borders. The advent of internet technology and multimedia has changed the dimensions when it comes to Global Retailing. Retailers are faced with unprecedented challenges as they respond to the rapid modifications in customer behaviour and economic forces. Tapping into emerging new markets and embracing e-commerce is essential to continued retail augmentation. Various studies and researches reveal that retail business derives more profits as compared to other forms primarily due to the low cost involved, which is why giants of industry are aggressively pursuing the global retail format. The customer of today has a wide spectrum of choices due to which the customer is king. The Global retail market being inclusive of buyers and sellers is regardless of their location. Retail sales are not governed by difference of currencies, geographic or governmental borders, distance or language. Any buyer is thus reachable by any seller and vice versa, as long as the buyer or seller knows how to plot a course in today's global marketplace. The crucial success factors operational in international retailing inclusive of an e-commerce web existence, the accrual of demographic information on Web users, coupled with the maximization of global sourcing prospects.

精密分析—Critical analysis

Retailing is the direct selling of goods, commodities or services to the consumer, which is performed through the use of a retail store, through vendors, or through web technology. When you think of International Retailers the names that come to one’s mind would be the Wal-Mart, Gucci, Ralph Lauren, Mango, GAP etc. All of these are International Retailers. However we can broadly classify the International Retailers under two categories. The first category would be the global grocery retailers and the second category belongs to the International fashion Brands.

国际零售商—International Grocery Retailers

The Companies namely Wal-Mart, Carrefour, Metro, Tesco are the leading international grocery retailers who have multi country presence. Major portion of their total revenue comes from foreign sales. Wal-Mart operates in over 8,500 stores in 15 countries with foreign sales contributing to 18% of its $405,046 billion net sales (2000). Carrefour, a French international retailer has presence in 32 countries with foreign sales amounting to over 48% of its net sales.

国际时装零售—International Fashion Retailing

Names like Ralph Lauren, Gucci, Zara, Hugo Boss, JC Penny, Benetton, Jimmy Choo, Swarovski, and Dolce & Gabbana , belong to the second category of International Fashion Retailers. Originally these Companies catered to domestic markets in the countries of their origin. Fashion and Luxury brands have always been known by their label and brand value across countries, through word of mouth and sought after by the rich and famous from all over. For the purpose of this study, the writer has sought to analyse the sector using Porter;s five forces analysis with reference to John Lewis and Wal-Mart

全球零售业中的波特五力分析法—Porter’s five forces analysis of global retail sector

潜在竞争者—Potential Competitors
Competition within the retail sector is extremely vicious. The quandary to this problem is worsened by the actuality that institutions are aggressively diversifying into non-core territories thus creating additional competition.

John Lewis stands exposed to intense competition being a seller of food and drinks with apparel and household goods also coming under its purview. Thus making it exposed to competition from other global retailers as Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury’s and its apparel section being subject to competition from clothes retailers as Next, Marks & Spencer ,Top shop, and Zara.

Porter (1985) opined that companies tend to pursue one of three generic strategies, namely, low cost, differentiation or hybrid. With regard to this fact, John Lewis has long tried to distinguish itself from competition by placing itself as a higher quality value-for-money brand. However, this has being greatly affected by the cuttings in apparel prices which poses a risk of de-valuing the brand in the market and losing the scope of specialization (Arnold, 2012).

The John Lewis credit cards and insurance do face a stiff competition from banks and building societies.

Grocers are highly likely to enter into the retail industry. This could potentially affect Wal-Mart’s market share in the consumer retail sector.

However, looking at the entry barriers in this market, entry barriers are comparatively elevated. This is because; Wal-Mart has set-up exceptional distribution systems. This is supported by the company’s locations, strong brand name, and a deep pocket that competitors and potential competitors may findhard to break.

It is clear that Wal-mart has an upper hand when it comes to cost over its competitors. In summary, competitors’ force against Wal-Mart is medium. According to Porter (1980), a company must identify its factor of competitiveness and focus on it. For Wal-Mart, cost advantages are passed onto the consumer in terms of low prices.

行业之间的长期竞争—Industry Rivalry Among time-honoured Companies
In the consumer retailers sector, there are three large firms that are currently operating in the same market as Wal-Mart. These firms include Sears, Target and K Mart. Among these companies, Target is the main company in the retail industry. Target has grown over the years in their domestic market; the company has clearly defined its niche and is very effective in implementing its business model. On the other hand, Sears and K-Mart do not present a major challenge to Wal-Mart. Looking at the industry in general, it is clear that the retail market is mature. In general, competitor rivalry is medium (Yahoo Finance, 2011).

替代产品的威胁—of Substitutes
The threat of substitutes is relatively low as there is no substitute for food or clothes that is noteworthy.

Notably, the perceptible threat in substitutes for the food market operations is mainly from Waitrose, while Marks and Spencer and Peter Jones offer high quality apparel. Tesco and Asda have also intruded this sphere with the introduction of less affordable alternatives and have even begun trading dinner jackets (Wilkes, 2012). Taking these facts into consideration, the threat of substitutes remains relatively high.

In the retail market, there does are not as many substitutes who offer the low prices and convenience to consumers. Wal-Mart ensures that the customer gets what they want under one roof, as opposed to moving from one specialty store to another. The development of online stores also allows customers to gain price advantages since the lack of a physical store allows the company to pass savings onto the consumer (Porter, 2000).

购买者的议价能力—The Bargaining Power of Buyers
This is relatively high. The buyer’s concentration is high which gives them an added advantage in dictating tastes and rules. As the switching costs are low, there exist plenty of alternatives. The UK economy is prospected to slow down by mid 2013 forcing retailers to cut down prices and focus more on customer needs (BBC, 2012).This makes John Lewis quite vulnerable on this count.

Wal-Mart is a well established company with store located in major places of the world. The individual buyer does not have much bargaining power on Wal-Mart. In the past, consumer lobby groups have expressed their anger about Wal-Mart’s pricing strategies. The company has also faced criticism regarding its workplace practices. As a result, consumers would opt to shop at alternative stores, however, by doing so; they lose the convenience of Wal-Mart stores.

供应商的议价能力—Bargaining Power of Suppliers
This is rather low. John Lewis being a large company listed with a huge turnover, suppliers always want their products on the retailer’s shelves in order to reach a large customer base enjoyed by John Lewis (Davey and Laurance, 2008).

Unlike other stores, John Lewis is not overly dependent on suppliers as it mainly sells own branded products. This means that it largely buys raw materials and not finished goods, which is favourable for margins (John Lewis, 2012).

Wal-Mart enjoys a significant part of the market share, their business is wide and hence they offer a large number of businesses to manufacturers and suppliers. This gives the company an upper hand over its suppliers. If the company just threatens to switch to an alternative supplier, it would leave the existing supplier in panic mode. In addition, Wal-Mart has the opportunity of vertically integrating. The company does not deal with major suppliers like Coca-cola and Proctor & Gamble who may have more bargaining power as compared to small suppliers (Wal-Mart, 2011).

新侵入者的威胁—Threat of New Entrants
The threat of new entrants is relatively low for both John Lewis and Wal-Mart. This is primarily due to the enormous capital investments essential in setting up of a successful chain store. The retail industry being mature requires that a new entrant has something very radically new to offer which is a very difficult proposition in cloth retailing.

All major retailers have superior and reputed brand names therefore accrue benefits from customer loyalty, which turn out to be increasingly significant in homogenous markets (Doyle, 2002).

The existing retailers are firmly tightening their grasp on their market shares and would undoubtedly use all resources to counter any new entrants. More important is the fact that, the lack of market knowledge – particularly with regard to foreign investors-pose as a significant barrier to new entrants.

Competitive Advantage is defined in Lynch (2003) as above and of particular note is the idea of value and the desire to add value to the company’s offering. The ability to add value appears to be intrinsically linked to gain competitive advantage. Johnson, Scholes & Whittington (2008, p.95) define strategic capability as “the resources and competences of an organisation needed for it to survive and prosper”, this breaks down further to consider the types of resource and competency. Threshold resources and threshold competences are the basic requirements for the company’s survival. Unique resources and Core competences are described as the sources of capabilities to create competitive advantage.

The operations and competitive advantage of Tesco are analysed for an understanding of how the concepts involved for sustained competitive advantage are practised.

Tesco distinctly gained the core strategic advantage due to:

品牌营销—Brand marketing
Companies today sell their brands even prior to selling their products. Tesco has a well-built brand image supplemented with good quality, faith worthy goods which exude excellent value, the service and product development have been significantly reorganised for implementation of better management with regard to product lifecycles, resulting in the efficient delivery of products to customers. Tesco’s efficient operations, continuous innovation, and strategic expansion have propelled it to effectively emerge as one of the largest and highly successful retailers. With a view to increase customer satisfaction, Tesco has augmented its operational efficiency through the addition of new products, innovative new services coupled with other capabilities. Tesco is also working on expanding new avenues, product mix and store format and will begin on the IT system architecture, business partners ,legacy systems to assess the execution of these plans with a view to determine the requisites for the successful implementation of the plans.

客户忠诚度—Customer loyalty
Tesco has managed to secure customer loyalty with its loyalty card system which has enabled it to customise its services to cater to the varying needs of its customers. One of the key factors why Tesco is so favoured by the market, is due to its series of loyal customers and its ability to consolidate and implement its consumer-oriented and comprehensive care services to a single point of access mechanism .This is perceived by the incredible growth of on-line sales and the company possesses a strong platform to develop this revenue stream.

价格和促销—Price and promotions
Another key factor determining Tesco’s competitive advantage is the retail low prices, experienced customer service and high quality that has led to profit growth, which is a consequence of the numerous years of experience in the market , providing retail products and service, which has promoted the corporate image of Tesco to potential customers as one of trustworthiness and quality.

特斯克的价值链分析—Value Chain Analysis of Tesco
The Value Chain Analysis is essentially used to identify the key activities that provide competitive advantage with a view to maximising the value while minimising the cost. It is the contribution of each part in the overall added value of the business is made (Lynch, 2003). In order to carry out the value chain analysis, the primary and support activities are analysed.

采购运筹—Inbound logistics
This aspect is at the first stage of the value chain providing the earliest opportunity for value creation .Incoming material, proper storage of goods, the ensuing of timely delivery and undamaged goods form the essence of this stage. Tesco has managed to achieve competency on this score due to the constant upgrading of the order system and in-store processes while at the same time maintaining the level of consumer choice, and benefitting from low costs from suppliers due to its market position. This has led to improved efficiency in the distribution system.

业务操作—Operations
Tesco’s core operations consist in the creation of products and services, the activities being service oriented. This comprises machining, packing, replenishing the stock and maintaining the shelves. According to Tesco (2010), in order to gain future competitive advantage, the company has invested over ￡76 million for their digital program which is the third generation ERP solution. Due to the introduction of this system, Tesco has gained an increased in profitability ￡550 million during 2009 alone.

出厂物流—Outbound logistics
This stage is concerned with location, queuing systems and opening hours, as also the delivering of the appropriate product or service to the potential customer. The implementation of the trolley service has enabled customers to have quicker access which is an advantage over competitors. The Home delivery service could also immensely add value for Tesco by saving customers time.

营销和销售—Marketing and Sales
This stage is concerned with the promotion and advertising of products and services with a view to attract customers. The Tesco Clubcard offers extra bonus points on certain products thus providing loyalty to customers. Promoting further discounts undoubtedly dissuade the customers from switching over .Moreover Tesco has also introduced Greener Living Scheme with environmentally friendly products and are also providing the customers advice on aspects such as reduction on food waste and scaling down of carbon footprint in meal preparation

客户服务—Services
With Tesco pursuing a dual strategy of cost leadership and differentiation, tremendous importance has been given to customer service. This is concerned with the additional service aimed at improving or maintaining the product such as installation, repair and after-sales service.

技术发展—Technology development
This area of the value chain takes into consideration technology with research and development relating to raw material or component inputs and then goes past the operational processes using IT forecasting for ordering the right amount of stock, at the right time, into each store to improve delivery.

总结—Conclusion

Global retailing is now the order of the day and has with it numerous challenges which have to met in order to maintain the viability and sustainability of the company. It is imperative therefore those organisations concentrate on their strengths and opportunities while at the same time make conscious efforts to overcome their weaknesses and threat perceptions from competitors. By putting Tesco’s value chain analysis into perspective, it is pertinent to note that despite cost leadership strategy the company has been able to create a high degree of value when compared with its key competitors. In light of the above analysis, it can be concluded that Tesco continues to hold its leadership position within the highly turbulent retail segment, where companies are required to pursue both cost leadership and differentiation strategies. Tesco has been able to achieve both with the help of a lean and agile supply chain management, along with the strategic use of information technology. The core competencies of Tesco have been seen to be aligned with the business environment, therefore highlighting a positive future outlook for the company.