The Background Of Wilkinsons Marketing Essay

Wilkinson is a high street retailer. Its a family business. First store of Wilkinson was opened by JK Wilkinson in 1930 at Charnwood Street, Leicester. Today, Wilkinson has become one of the biggest retailers in the UK with more than 325 stores and a turnover of £1 billion. In 2008, they opened their first overseas office in Hong Kong, Asia. Wilkinson has put forward a good example in front of all the businesses by remaining competitive in the growing competition and in the changing customer demands. Throughout these 80 years, Wilkinson has not only survived but also grown in the retail sector. Today, Wilkinson sells more than 25000 product lines including a wide range of food, home, garden, office, health and beauty products (The Times 100, 2013).

Vision and Mission Statement:

Wilkinson’s vision is to make shopping with them a wonderful experience. It’s a statement which shows their spirit, enthusiasm and team work.

‘Extraordinary everyday shopping in the heart of the community’ (Wilkinson, 2013).

Wilkinson’s mission statement consists of two questions, which they want to ask themselves to be extra ordinary. It goes in line with the Vision.

‘What can you do/have you done to passionately deliver extraordinary everyday shopping in the heart of the community?’ (Wilkinson, 2013).

According to Wilkinson their mission statement is a call for an action. Answers to these questions help them to exceed in the market by providing a wide range of quality products at affordable prices.

Values:

Wilkinson has developed their values which will help them to shape their future, by working passionately and pulling together all the resources to produce unique products for making the shopping and working with them a fun experience (Wilkinson, 2013).

Strategies:

Wilkinson’s business strategy concerns with the continuous growth in the market. They want sell quality products at affordable prices. Wilkinson’s strategy based on five key elements which are long term thinking, working smarter all the time, staying true to their selves, baking the high streets and risk management (Wilkinson, 2007). . The overall business strategy is concerned with producing and selling quality products at cheap prices.

Aims and objectives:

Wilkinson is family business and they respect their values .As stated above Wilkinson’s main aim is to grow continuously. For that Wilkinson has responded to rapidly changing market and that is why Wilkinson is one of the oldest companies in the UK.

Wilkinson sales a wide range of products. From that more than 66% are branded products. Most of the products are sourced from the eastern countries. To make this base stronger Wilkinson opened its first overseas office in Hong Kong, Asia with 50 team members. They always have made sure that products are available to the customer on time. For that they have been improving their product supply chain.

For every businesses customer is a king and Wilkinson is not exception to that. They have always been listening to the customers to make improvement. They change themselves with the customer demands and now they have succeeded in building a trust amongst the customers. The products sold by the Wilkinson are branded products at affordable prices. Recently they have introduced their own ‘Wilko’ brand.

Customers will be satisfied if the service they are getting is good. Hence, to provide good customer service Wilkinson train their employees. They educate and train their employees according to their work and position in the company. They also have many competitions within the company. They listen to them and encourage them to work passionately.

Environmental and Social:

Environmental and social or Corporate Social Responsibility aspect is gaining importance. CSR is important because, “The corporation receives its permission to operate from society, and is ultimately accountable to society for how it operates and what it does” (Benston, 1982). Wilkinson has many social and environmental objectives.

In the year 2010-2011 Wilkinson has raised £1 million. They donate 1% of their pre-tax profits to charities. They have two important strategies to achieve this objective. First, Get involved-community (Wilkinson, 2011) this means as a part of their CSR activities they provide placement for school children to provide a work experience to young and disadvantaged people. Second, get involved-team members (Wilkinson, 2011) this element is designed help our planet. Under this scheme team members are encouraged to live their lives in a most sustainable way at work as well as at home (Wilkinson, 2011). Along with these they have environmental objectives like, reduction in the water and energy usage, reducing waste, recycling and cutting down mileage.

Concept

Balanced scorecard is, “A performance metric used in strategic management to identify and improve various internal functions and their resulting external outcomes” (Investopedia, undated). Balanced scorecard shows only non-financial data. According to Kaplan and Norton (1992) “Financial measures are inadequate for guiding and evaluating organisations’ trajectories through competitive environments. They are lagging indicators that fail to capture much of the value that has been created or destroyed…” In this assignment the concept of balanced score card has been used to analyse the strategies and vision of Wilkinson.

The important strategy of the Wilkinson is to grow continuously in the competitive market and it goes with their value of being extraordinary. The accomplishment of their values and strategies depend upon four important factors which are: financial aspect, customer aspect, employee aspect, internal business aspect and one environmental factor. Hence, in balanced score card there total five aspects. According to Kaplan and Norton (1992), “these are the measures which move companies forward.”

Each aspect of the balanced scorecard can be conceptualised as follows:

Financial aspect: This is the most important aspect for any company. Whether the company is financially sound or not, which can be measured by the growth in the sales, increase in the profits and turnover. According to James Allen, Head of Strategy, Wilkinson stores, “We don’t have to worry about short-term gains to pay shareholder dividends. All our decisions are built around making good long-term choices” (Wilkinson, 2007). Hence to give long term view of the financial aspect balanced score card is best suitable as it is visionary in nature.

Customer aspect: Customers will get attracted if they are getting quality products in the affordable price and in addition to that good customer service is also important. Being a retailer, Wilkinson has always made sure that they have taken appropriate measures to achieve these objectives so that they can succeed in making shopping a fun experience.

Internal business aspect: According to Kaplan and Norton (1992), “customer-based measures are important, but they must be translated into measures of what the company must do internally to meet its customers’ expectations.” Wilkinson has always succeeded in translating these customer-based measures into internal aspect of the business, which can be measured by the customer satisfaction rate. This aspect aims at improving the product distribution channels in order to give the customers quick delivery of the product, improving the supplier relationship and employee skills.

Learning and Growth aspect: This aspect shows the areas in which the company needs the continuous excellence to improve the efficiency of the company. To survive in the competitive market, it is always important to adapt according to the changing market. Wilkinson is an 80-year old successful business. In 2012, it was on the 24th rank in the list of top 100 private companies (Fast Track, 2013). This shows that Wilkinson is continuously improving itself to improve and create company value by listening to people and talking to their teams.

As mentioned above along with these four aspects there is one more important aspect of the company, i.e. environmental and social aspect of the business. This aspect is absent in the balanced score card model created by Kaplan and Norton (1992). This aspect of the business was added by taking into account the increasing importance and need of the Corporate Social Responsibilities (CSR) and Environmental sustainability.

Wilkinson has many social and environmental objectives like energy saving, recycling, reducing the waste, reducing water usage, and it donates 1% of its pre-tax profits to charities. These are the important points which will help managers to take decisions regarding this aspect. Wilkinson measures the accomplishment of these objectives by calculating the percentage of reduction in the water usage and waste, percentage of energy saved and products recycled. The CSR activity is measured by the amount of money donated and comparing it to last years’ donation amount.

According to the Kaplan and Norton (1992), “The balanced scorecard, is well suited to the kind of organization many companies are trying to become.” By following the path charted out by the balanced score card, Wilkinson, in my opinion, has stood the test of time of 80 years. It is definitely a reputed organisation in the UK that has made consistent progress in all the mentioned aspects, and hence can be a role-model for other companies. Hence, according to me balanced score card is best tool measure the company performance.