Strategic Management at J Sainsbury plc.

  
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The purpose of this report is to critical analysis of Sainsbury’s incremental strategies to its
strategic management and to developa strategy for business resilience and sustainability. This
report will also evaluate a change management programme within Sainsbury’s.
The change management programme of Sainsbury’s Supermarket is influenced by the current
business scenario that is dominated by the external factors, including fierce competition,
integration across global markets and advancement of technology. The internal factors of
Sainsbury’s are its managerial talent and the employee motivation level that influence the
company’s strategic management. The importance of strategy is that it improves the
organisation’s effectiveness as it leverages the individuals’ and the institution’s capabilities in
a cohesive way. As Sainsbury’s is looking for business resilience and sustainability, so the
perfect development strategy for the company is an incremental strategy.
Task 1
Detailed Analysis of the Sainsbury’s Internal and External Business Environments
Within the present dynamic business environment in the retail industry, implementation of
incremental strategies is effective. To effectively tackle change and sustain profits, a key
factor in the selection of incremental strategy is regulatory convergence. To make strategic
management effective, the challenges posed by global competition have to be comprehended
within the wide-ranging regulatory framework. So, an ever changing corporate environment
that is complex in nature can be handled by implementing the incremental approach to
strategic management. Thus, the strategic process moved in incrementally conforming to
changes occurred inthe organisation’s internal and external environment. Multiplegoals will
then drive decisions. A comprehensive incremental strategy will be perfect development
strategy for the retailer as transformations to its current operational activities are reflected by
organisational goals, missions and strategies(Hannagan, 2002). Incremental strategy also goes
after business resilience and sustainability across the business operations(Sanders and Wood,
2014).
As the present-day retailbusiness environment is all the time more dynamic, the incremental
strategies would be ideal for Sainsbury’s, as usually incremental strategies do not change in
major shifts of direction, but they usually change by resting on and adjusting what has gone 
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before (Werbach, 2009). Former decisions have a tendency to make influence on prospect
directions giving rise to the type of pattern. An organisation’s coherent and logical strategy
may establish based on its strategic initiatives each of which be reasonable, logical and
comprehensible in terms of formerinitiatives(Lang and Murphy, 2014). It is possible that a
decision about heavy investment, or a product launch, creates a strategic direction which
gives guidance to decisions on the subsequent strategic initiative. Such an initiative may be
an acquisition(Lang and Murphy, 2014). This approach is very helpful as it consolidates the
strategic direction. Every initiative is informed by this developing strategic pattern with the
passage of time that ultimately makes stronger it(Lang and Murphy, 2014).
The financial business resources level of Sainsbury’s Bank is low(J Sainsbury plc, 2015). The
major financial risks for the Sainsbury’s are the availability of financial resources (both short
andlong-term) to achieve business needs and variations ininterest, commodity and exchange
rates. Now, full ownership of Sainsbury’sBank has been acquired by the business which
poses a risk that the financialperformance of Sainsbury may be badly affected if theBank
transition and overall performance is not delivered as planned(J Sainsbury plc, 2015).The
transitional risk can also negatively affect people,processes, regulatory submission and
technical set-upand failure to tackle the transition effectively may have a negative impact on
the Sainsbury’s brand. However, the retailer is making effort to improve and expand its
financial business(J Sainsbury plc, 2015). In this regard, Sainsbury’s must have high business
resources to stand out in the industry.
The incremental strategy would be perfect as it effectively tackles the challenges of dynamic
retail environment(FitzRoy, Hulbert and Ghobadian, 2012; Wheelen and Hunger, 2004).
Currently, Sainsbury’s is confronting with a changing socio-economic atmosphere (J
Sainsbury plc, 2015) and by adopting an incremental strategy the retailer would be able to
deal with this effectively. The retailer would also be capable of to achieving its organisational
mission and vision that can be done by merging all the goals (short, medium and long term)
within the current dynamic and changing business atmosphere (Cho and Hambrick, 2006;
FitzRoy, Hulbert and Ghobadian, 2012). As compared with inventive strategic approach, an