CASE ANALYSIS – WEGMANS FOOD MARKETS

The Wegmans Food Market are mainly focused on the providing the super
market experience with high quality products and excellent services. The
company had developed to its current state because of the market research, trial
and error and listening to its customers.
OPERATIONAL STRATEGY:
Business Strategy:
Wegmans Strategy was to provide the complete line of products ranging from the
groceries to meat to food items, film processing, pharmacy video rentals and old
cheese under one roof. They also have several delicacies which attracted many
customers. Overall, the company focused on the satisfying the customers.
Mission:
The sentence “Quality and Customer Satisfaction are utmost in the minds of
Wegmans’ management and its employees” indicate that the company’s core
mission is to serve the customers to fulfill their needs and expectations so that
there wont be any dissatisfied customers. This led to the 50% more sales per
square foot compared to its industry standards.
Operations Strategy:
Cost:
 The Bigger the size, lower the cost is the strategy used the Wegmans
market, hence the large order quantity helped Wegmans to negotiate the
supply price to the lowest.
 Procurement of Produce directly from the local market also helped them to
reduce the price.
 Centralized Meat processing reduced the cost of employing more butchers
and increase the shelf life of meat because of the vacuum packing.
Quality:
 Wegmans is known for their Quality.
 Direct procurement from farmers and Flowers were stored in specially
designed containers which preserved the freshness of the flowers.
 Managers were made responsible for maintaining the quality of the goods.
 If the customer was not was satisfied, the supermarket provided the option
to refund or replace the product.
 If the customer found any defect with the fool item, that food item is sent
for testing to find the cause of the problem.
Delivery:
 The produce was directly sourced from the local growers bypassing the
warehouses which reduced the preserving time.
 The stock was replenished 12 times a day, so that there were no dissatisfied
customers.
 Each store received 2 trucks of stock and Each store was given option to
order the inventory individually.
Flexibility:
 The company adopted new technologies to maintain the inventory, and
freshness of the produce.
DISTINCTIVE COMPETANCE:
 The store provided the opportunity to select the food they desire from the
vast array of foodstuff.
 They had inhouse bread making facility, Coffee shop with table and chairs,
different cuisines of food ranging from Italian, oriental dishes etc.
 They also had ready to serve sandwiches and freshly prepared food for
people who are on their way back to home from work.
 Produce were stored in shop floor instead of bins which reduced the
wastage of the produce.
 Large Number of Checkout (25-35) which reduced the checkout time for
customers.
  Special system to track inventory so that there is no over inventory and also
there is adequate stock of all products.

CAPACITY OF THE STORES:

 As we said earlier, the larger the capacity, lower the price.
 The company operated 100 Stores.
 Most of them were super stores and Each super store had an capacity of
100,000 Square Foot which double or triple the size of average super
markets.
 Employs 500-600 people per super store and 45000 employees in the entire
Wegmans chain.
 Floral shops of 800 Square Foot, Card shop of 1000 Sq. FT and 500 Sq. Ft of
Shop offering fish.
 70,000 Individual units in each shop.
 Regular supply of stock from the Warehouses.
 These huge capacities of facilities were market focused to cater the needs
of the customers so that they leave the stores with a fulfilled heart.
KEY DECISIONS IN INVENTORY:
 The Wegmans market had a centralized system to track inventory in all of
its stores. This helped in maintaining the adequate inventory across all the
stores.
 Each department of the stores took monthly count of the inventory so that
they can ensure there is no over presence of any stock or too little stock
which leads to the unsatisfied customers.
 Strict control over supplies, reduced the delay.
DISTINCTIVE COMPETANCE IN HR:
 The company invested $7000 to train the employees and also, they
provided the employees with profit margins.
 This helped in lower turn out of employees which was 6% while the
industry standard was 20%.
  This reduced the training costs of new employees, recruitment and also
since the older employees are retained, improved the customer service.
 Butchers were trained about different combinations of meat with wine,
breads which made them to interact more with the customers and also
helped in selling more meat.

SUSTAINABILITY:
 Wegmans cares for the environment and It is shown in investment in their
activites.
 They replaced the incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent bulb
which reduced the carbon footprint by 3000 tons.
 They used technology and installed sensors in cooling systems which used
50% lesser energy.