Long PEST Analysis of ASDA Superstores

ASDA, is the Britain’s best value food and clothing superstore, and became part of the Wal-Mart family on 26 July 1999. Wal-Mart stores, Inc are the world’s largest retailer, with $191 billion in sales in the fiscal year ending 31 January 2001. The company employs more than 1 million associates worldwide through nearly 3,500 facilities in the US and more than 1,000 units in Mexico, Puerto Rico, Canada, Argentina, Brazil, China, Korea, Germany and the UK. More than 100 million customers per week visit Wal-Mart Stores.
ASDA is a private sector organisation, and before Wal-Mart took over ASDA, ASDA Stores were only based in the local and national parts of UK. After ASDA became part of the Wal-Mart family, are now spread globally around the world. I have chosen this organisation because I can obtain information easily as I have an ASDA Superstore two minutes away from my house in Longsight. I have produced a LongPest grid for ASDA Plc. The LongPest grid is explained in detail below. For the LongPest grid for ASDA Plc, see separate sheet.
Political – Local/National level The political element of the external environment remains the same for the local and national levels because the ASDA Superstores are only in Britain. The Ethical trade is crucial element for the ASDA business. ASDA takes every step to ensure that their suppliers are compliant with the Ethical Trading Initiative’s base code of conduct. Also, ASDA has invested in a programme of third-party ethical audits of ASDA’s suppliers. All suppliers will have been audited by mid 2002.

ASDA aims to make sure that no job applicant, existing colleague, customer or supplier is less favourably treated on the grounds of their gender, marital status, sexual orientation, disability, race, religion, colour, nationality, ethnic origin or age and that no one is disadvantaged by conditions, requirements or practices which cannot be shown to be just and fair. In July 2000, ASDA introduced the ASDA Code of Trading Practice. The code builds on the Institute of Grocery Distribution code of conduct, which established industry wide standards for trading practice, and aims to build confidence in trade/ supplier relations.
Economic – Local/National level ASDA offers Britain’s best value weekly shop with prices 10 – 15% lower than their main competitors and an unmatchable mix of fresh food, grocery, clothing, home, leisure and entertainment goods. ASDA employs 109,000 colleagues, who have a reputation for being the best and the friendliest in the industry. Approximately 74,000 are part-time colleagues and 35,000 are full-time. Currently female store managers run 7% of ASDA’s stores and the aim is that this will increase to 30% by 2003.
Only 16 of the Asda stores fall within the Government’s own definition of “out of town”. To help stores become part of their surrounding environment, ASDA spent  100,000 on average on landscaping for each store. The Wal-Mart name appeared on a UK store for the first in 2000, when the first ASDA Wal-Mart supercentre opened in Bristol, bringing a unique shopping experience to British customers with the best of both organisation’s products on offer. Two more supercentres were launched at Havant and Minworth last year, with the idea for a total of ten by 2006.
ASDA continues to widen the gap between their competitors. ASDA were 11. 2% cheaper than their competitors. Economic – Global level ASDA became part of the Wal-Mart family on 26 July 1999. For more information, refer to the introduction at the beginning of the report. The Wal-Mart Company was formed in 1965 by a group of farmers from Yorkshire, and now has 245 stores and 19 depots across the UK. Unique to ASDA is the George fashion range, which was launched in 1990 when George Davies, founder of the Next chain of high street stores joined the business.
From only five stores, the George label has grown into a i?? 600m business in 215 stores. George works with approximately 200 suppliers in the UK, Europe and across the world. George launched in January 2001, the prices on average were 30% lower than the standard ranges with no compromise on quality. In 2000 ASDA opened Britain’s first multi-lingual superstore in Bradford, West Yorkshire. The store features customer service signage in three languages – Urdu, Punjabi and English.
Forty seven per cent of the new colleagues employed are Asian, again meeting ASDA’s commitment to reflect the local population profile in the workforce. Asda leads the way in giving customers the products that they want at the best possible value Socio-Cultural – Local level Asda can help put life back into areas of urban deprivation and have an unrivalled record of developing stores in such locations, e. g. Moss side, Longsight, which re the are the areas of Manchester.
The store – an ASDA Wal-Mart supercentre – will bring 40 million of investment and i?? 1,000 new jobs to an area of Manchester that has been designated for regeneration in line with the government’s recent Urban White Paper. Socio-Cultural – National level The Wal-Mart name appeared on a UK store for the first time in 2000, when the first ASDA Wal-Mart supercentre opened in Bristol, bringing a unique shopping experience to British customers with the best of both organisations’ products on offer. ASDA leads the way in giving UK customers the products that they want at the best possible value.
ASDA has always been committed to keeping prices permanently low, something that ASDA’s customers value and recognise. Since joining the Wal-Mart Mart family in 1999, ASDA’s customer numbers have grown from 6. 5 million to 8 million per week and for the fourth time running, ASDA has been voted ‘Britain’s best value supermarket’ by the Grocer 33. ASDA has been continually investing in customer services. i?? 8 million was invested in the first quarter of this year (2001), which lead to a 50% improvement in queue lengths.
Life improvement to urban deprivation areas also included places like Birmingham, Liverpool, London and Hull. ASDA collects and recycles 50% of all store waste. Approximately 80% of all cardboard used to pack products coming into store is recycled. To reduce waste sent to landfill sites. Also investing in food waste composting and plastic recycling. ASDA has 185 sites with glass banks, 160 sites with paper banks, 191 sites with can banks, 43 sites with plastic banks and 121 sites with textile/shoe banks.