Whole Foods Market Input Analysis

The Firm’s Strategy One of the major stratagems being pursued by the firm is the differentiation. The firm adopts the differentiation strategy in terms of product provision in order to enhance its competitive advantage. In fact, the firm has ensured that all its business processes including products are unique to the industry.Advertising We will write a custom assessment sample on Whole Foods Market Input Analysis specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More The major driver for the strategy is the increased competence of the business associates and employees in terms of skills and capabilities (Whole Foods Market, 2013). Besides, the competitive edge depends on the degree in which the firm’s business processes are conducted. In other words, the firm carefully selects diverse brands of items that are highly valued by the customers. However, highly valued products attract high prices. Whole Foods understands the sensitivity of pr ices. As such, the firm offers its high quality food products at fair prices that clients can afford. The combination of quality and fair prices is one of the greatest competitive advantages to the firm (Whole Foods Market, 2013). As indicated, Whole Foods is different from the major competitors in terms of the prepared food brands. The firm offers a wide variety of prepared meals for lunch, dinner and desert (Martin, 2008). Clients have the options of eating on the premises or take out. Whole Foods takes advantage of the increasing number of clients that normally have their meals on the premises as high end consumers tend to look for ways of curbing spending amid a difficult economic situation (Martin, 2008). Moreover, the retail store prefers the special brands in favor of the common major delicacies found in most of the stores. Since the firm has a narrow niche of customers and few competing stores are found in most areas it operates, Whole Foods can easily scan and understand th e market. The strategies are the main contributors of the firm’s higher profit margins (Martin, 2008). How the Strategy is Aligned to Porter’s Generic Model According to Porter’s generic forces model, strategies are actions that help in the formation of invulnerable place in the industry (Porter, 1998). In other words, strategies are actions that increases the firms competitive advantage in the industry in which it operates. According to the model, the strategies can be either defensive or offensive.Advertising Looking for assessment on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Defensive strategies normally take the form of the industry and place the firm to cope with its strengths and weaknesses (Porter, 1998). On the other hand, offensive strategies transforms the underlying causes of the competitive forces and as such changes the environment in which the firm operates. Porter proposed three b road and standard strategies that the firm can utilize to generate durable defensible situations as well as increase its competitive advantage. The strategies include cost leadership, differentiation and the focus or the niche strategy (Porter, 1998). The firm’s approach fits directly with the differentiation strategy of the Porter’s model. According to the model, the differentiation strategy means offering services, products and brands that are unique to the industry (Porter, 1998). Essentially, the differentiation strategy requires that the firm creates own market niche. Approaches to the differentiation strategy include diverse product designs, brand image, variety of features and the new technology (Porter, 1998). All these approaches have been applied by Whole Foods to create its product brands together with competitive prices to create its own market niche. The differentiation strategy has contributed greatly to the growth of the firm in a highly competitive indu stry. In fact, the differentiation approach has insulated the firm from the competitive rivalry through the creation of brand loyalty and reduction of price elasticity of demand by making clients to be less sensitive to the price changes of the product (Martin, 2008). Besides, the uniqueness of the products have created barriers and the reduction of substitutes, which in effect, has led to higher margins and decreases the need for low-cost advantage (Martin, 2008). Moreover, higher margins enable the firm to handle influential suppliers. In fact, the strategy has enabled the firm to alleviate the buyer’s power since few alternatives are available to the purchasers (Whole Foods Market, 2013). The Firm’s Inputs According to the congruent model, organizational inputs are ranging from the environment to the strategies applied by the firm (Nadler Tushman, 1980). Within the continuum are inputs such as resources and the firm’s history.Advertising We will write a custom assessment sample on Whole Foods Market Input Analysis specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More The resources available to the firm include human capital, technological applications, financial capital, information as well as other intangible assets. Besides, while strategy is considered the most important input in the model, it forms the link between the mentioned inputs and the system mechanism of the entire firm’s transformation process (Nadler Tushman, 1980). According to the model, environmental inputs are factors that are outside the firms influence including things that come from an institution or industry, individuals, groups as well as events (Nadler Tushman, 1980). Essentially, the environmental inputs must have a potential influence on the organization. In this case, the firm’s environmental inputs include industry research and development, suppliers and most importantly organic food consumers. Similarly, res ources include all assets that the firm can access. The resources include both human and financial capital as well as information. In addition, resources include intangible assets such as recognition by the market niche. Generally, the resource inputs are broad and normally applied by the firm to produce the desired outcome (Nadler Tushman, 1980). In terms of the input history, past decisions, activities and behavior are considered as greater effort to attain the current desired results. Essentially, these factors must have a direct influence on the existing organizational operations. Whole Foods is known for its traditional quality organic food offerings, which the firm exploit to increase its competitive advantage. Whether the Inputs are Congruent to the Strategy According to the congruent model, the firm’s strategy is the stream of decisions concerning the manner in which the inputs or the organizational resources are transformed to meet the needs of the clients. Besides, strategies are involving the way the firm’s resources are configured to deal with limitations as well as prospects available to the firm within the context of the patterns of the past behavior (Nadler Tushman, 1980). In order to attain the desired results, the inputs have to fit within the strategies. Essentially, aligning the firm’s inputs to the strategies is critical for increased performance and success.Advertising Looking for assessment on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More As indicated, the congruent model argues that the inputs have to be aligned to the strategies in order to increase performance (Nadler Tushman, 1980). In other words, the level of performance would depend on the degree of congruity of the firm’s inputs to the strategy. In this case, the resource inputs fit greatly to the firm’s strategy. Whole Foods has used all its resources in order to ensure increased competitive advantage. In other words, the inputs are aligned to the firm’s strategy to attain the desired competitive advantage. Essentially, the firm’s resources are highly utilized to increase the performance of the strategy. In fact, the firm has ensured that all its resources are aligned to the strategic goal of ensuring increased competitive advantage. In other words, the firm’s resources greatly fit with the organization’s strategy. Besides, the firm has fully utilized its human resources to attain the desired product brands. Similar ly, the capital resources including financial and other assets have been fully utilized to ensure that the specialized and unique food products are produced to meet the client needs. The target clients’ acceptability of the products confirms the congruity of the resources to the strategy. The environmental inputs available to the firm including clients have a greater degree of congruity to the strategy of differentiation. The differentiation strategy aims at increasing the target customer value. Within the context of Whole Foods Market, clients and suppliers are considered as individual inputs. The contribution of the suppliers and consumers remains critical in the product development and distribution. However, in terms of suppliers, the differentiation strategy has ensured a drastic reduction of supplier’s power, which in turn has resulted in increasing the firm’s performance. Essentially, the firm’s environmental resources are highly congruent to its st rategy. However, the history inputs fairly fit with the current differentiation strategy. The firm barely utilizes its historical resources in the determination of the current product offerings. Nevertheless, some of the effective decisions that were made before form the basis of the current strategy. References Martin, A. (2008, August 2). Whole Foods looks for a fresh image in lean times. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/02/business/02food.html Nadler, D. A., Tushman, M. L. (1980). A model for diagnosing organizational behavior. Organizational Dynamics, 9 (2), 35-51. Porter, M. E. (1998). Competitive strategy: Techniques for analyzing industries and competitors. New York, NY: Free Press. Whole Foods Market (2013). Whole Foods annual report 2013. Retrieved from https://eu.wholefoodsmarket.com/ This assessment on Whole Foods Market Input Analysis was written and submitted by user Jabari Gonzalez to help you with your own studies. You are free to use it for research and reference purposes in order to write your own paper; however, you must cite it accordingly. You can donate your paper here.

Charles Law essays

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Wilkie Collins The Moonstone Essay -- Wilkie Collins Moonstone Essays

Wilkie Collins' The Moonstone Near the beginning of Wilkie Collins’s novel, The Moonstone, John Herncastle’s cousin explains, â€Å"The deity commanded that the Moonstone should be watched, from that time forth, by three priests in turn, night and day, to the end of the generations of men†¦ One age followed another—and still, generation after generation, the successors of the three Brahmins watched their priceless Moonstone, night and day† (2). As a result of remembering the past, and specifically their deity’s command, the Indian priests are bound by a circular, repetitive chain of events. In contrast, Rosanna Spearman and Franklin Blake, two non-Indian characters in the novel, are able to use their memory of the past to break the cycle of repetitive, unwanted events in their lives and effect desired changes. Each Indian priest’s self-concept never changes; he is simply an embodiment of his office or his societal role, and he lives solely to watch the Moonstone. The self-concepts of Rosanna and Franklin, however, do change over time. Through battling haunting effects of the past and fighting against negative self-concepts, Rosanna and Franklin additionally align themselves with a progressive notion of history as they battle against the cyclical notion that binds the Indian priests. The past has the power to corrupt or infect the lives of characters like Rosanna and Franklin, but when these characters confront and remember the past, they are freed from its ability to perpetuate a cyclical series of unlucky events. For example, Rosanna’s past as a thief causes Franklin to suspect her of having stolen the Moonstone as well. He says, â€Å"’Rosanna Spearman came to my aunt out of a reformatory? Rosanna Spearman had once b... ..., generation after generation, the successors of the three Brahmins watched their priceless Moonstone, night and day† (2). Even the end of the novel isn’t really an end to the repetition of events in India; Mr. Murthwaite writes, â€Å"So the years pass, and repeat each other; so the same events revolve in the cycles of time. What will be the next adventures of the Moonstone? Who can tell?† (466). In contrast, Rosanna Spearman and Franklin Blake, two non-Indian characters in the novel, are able to use their memory of the past to break the cycle of repetitive, unwanted events in their lives and effect desired changes. Through battling haunting effects of the past and fighting against negative self-concepts, Rosanna and Franklin additionally align themselves with a progressive notion of history as they battle against the cyclical notion that binds the Indian priests.

Is it ethical to mask your true emotions in order to get along with others? Essay

Honesty is the best policy. Or is it not? As children, we were taught that honesty is telling the truth straightforward. We were told that it is being sincere, genuine, trustworthy, loyal, and fair. We were taught to tell the truth at all times, despite consequences. Our parents taught us to do our own homework, keep a friend’s secret, return stuff we found, and keep our promises. But as we grew older, the line between the truth and falsehood started to blur. We began to tell and accept half-truths. We began to resort to telling white lies to get out of potentially disastrous situations. We are confronted everyday by basic issues of honesty. If a man is forbidden by his wife to smoke, should he confess that he took a few sticks from his buddy’s pack when they were at the bar earlier that night? Is it really imperative that he do so when he only smoked two, maybe three, cigarettes? Does he have to be completely honest with his wife or can he get away with something that insignificant? If you are anti-Bush and attending a formal dinner where every single person at your table is pro-Bush, should you be completely honest and let everyone know your sentiment, at the risk of alienating yourself? Or should you save your Bush-bashing for another time and another place? Should you just go along with the conversation and act indifferent towards the topic? As Saki (1929) said, â€Å"A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanation†. But is this ethical? Or must honesty always reign supreme? Some people, institutions, and dogmas bolster the virtue of being completely, straightforwardly honest. But is it not also true that sometimes people who are brutally honest find more satisfaction from being brutal than from being honest? The philosopher Immanuel Kant claimed that the telling of a truth is the â€Å"perfect duty†. He said that it cannot be superseded by other values – not even the concern for the life of a friend or the loyalty to someone we love. He insisted that the act of lying is always incorrect morally. However, many scholars have found Kant’s philosophy to be too extreme and self-serving. In the book â€Å"On Moral Grounds†, moral philosophers Daniel Maguire and A. Nicholas Fargnoli (1991) state, â€Å"Very simply, Kant would not be the man you would want to stand between you and someone intent on murdering you – at least if Kant knew where you were. † Furthermore, Maguire and Fargnoli (1991) refer to Kant’s stand on lying to explore the restrictions of universal moral principles. They write, â€Å"Universalization is an unrealistic and inaccurate abstraction that passes over the fact that there are exceptions to valid moral principles. † Also, â€Å"To protect other values, like the life of an intended victim or a legitimate secret, exceptions to truth-telling must be made. † In her book â€Å"Lying†, philosopher Sissela Bok (1978) says, â€Å"The failure to look at an entire practice rather than at their own isolated case often blinds liars to cumulative harm and expanding deceptive activities. Those who begin with white lies can come to resort to more frequent and more serious ones†¦ The aggregate harm from a large number of marginally harmful instances may, therefore, be highly undesirable in the end – for liars, those deceived, and honesty and trust more generally. † For the author, there is danger in all acts of lying because there is a possibility that the telling of even the smallest of lies may affect common discourse. She emphasizes that lies have a tendency to â€Å"spread†. Lies, even the most seemingly insignificant ones, can grow and affect other aspects of our lives. Nowadays, most people are utilitarians when it comes to the topic of honesty. White lies are okay because they probably don’t hurt anyone; but we avoid outright lies that have the possibility of offending or harming others. However, the utilitarian attitude to truthfulness has to have its limitations. As author Austin O’Malley said, â€Å"Those who think it is permissible to tell white lies soon grow color-blind†. Telling a white lie -like reassuring a sick person that he looks much better when, in fact, he doesn’t- is alright; but if it becomes a habit, there could be dire consequences. A person may lose credibility and respect from his partner, family or friends. Masking one’s true emotions to keep the peace in a certain situation or in order to get along with others can be ethical, but there are limits to how far you can go with faking how you really feel. There is a very fine line between truth and fiction, between lies and white lies. Even the Bible makes this distinction. The commandment does not say, â€Å"Thou shalt not lie†; instead, it says, â€Å"Thou shalt not bear false witness. † This means that lies that do not cause harm –for example, telling the hostess that a meal she made is really good when it was, in fact, absolutely horrible- is acceptable. In this instance, the lie is told to make the person feel better about herself and to show appreciation for her efforts. Here, the lie was actually made in attempt to do something good. However, a lie that could have grave consequences –such as when a person who has caused damages to his neighbor’s property does not admit that he did so to avoid having to pay for the cost of repairs- is a sin. To mask one’s true feelings in order to get along with others is fine as long as a person keeps to the boundaries and the motivation behind the lie or the masking of the truth is valid. Another consideration would be the frequency with which the person disguises his true opinions or feelings. If done too often, the person could risk losing his sense of self and authenticity. In â€Å"The Critic as Artist†, Oscar Wilde (1905) says that â€Å"a little bit of sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal†. For people in relationships, he may have a point. Honesty may not be the best policy when we are hiding aspects of ourselves from the other person, when we do not want to be revealed, to be known completely. Honesty may not be the best policy when we do not want to get into trouble or when we are avoiding conflict. Honesty may not be the best policy when we are trying to spare the other’s feelings, when we do not want the other to feel hurt or disappointed. In a relationship, people may tell lies because they believe that it is the kind thing to do. Robert Brault once said that, â€Å"Today I bent the truth to be kind, and I have no regret, for am I am far surer of what is kind than I am of what is true. † Noble lies, which are intended for another’s benefit, are usually made under these kinds of circumstances. But while the motivation behind this type of lie may seem valid, there are still those who believe that the concept is flawed. Critics of utilitarianism say that â€Å"people often poorly estimate the consequences of their actions or specifically undervalue or ignore the harmful consequences to society (e. g. , mistrust) that their lies cause† (Mazur, 1993). Also, the concept of lying for the sake of a â€Å"greater good† may cause a further blurring of the line between moral justifications supporting the greater good and empty excuses.