Whole Foods Case

Ashley Lam

BA 495

Internal Analysis

Whole Foods Case

Define and describe whole foods core competencies: Core competencies allow firms to differentiate their product offering from their competition. They can create higher value for their customers similar to what wholes foods hopes to achieve with their customers. Their core competencies include offering their customers a whole new grocery shopping experience that makes shopping viewed as a pleasant activity and not simply a chore which is how grocery shopping was viewed by whole foods previously.  Their CEO wished to change that about grocery shopping and aimed to make shopping fun, interactive, and a learning experience. Their core competencies also include offering their customers all the foods they want but in healthier alternatives.  

What are whole foods most important capabilities and the resources that comprise them:

A firm’s capabilities include their organizational and managerial skills they use to utilize their resources. Usually they are intangible, they are found in the firm’s structure, their daily routines, and their company culture. Whole foods is able to leverage the communities they reside in, taking advantage of their local agriculture which helps to give their customers a higher value of their product and their brand. They are also able to utilize their employees and strive to include team members in their strategic thinking.

Does whole foods have a competitive advantage? Justify using the VIRO framework:

The VIRO framework stands for. Valuable, rare, costly to Imitate. And finally, the firm itself must be Organized to capture the value of the resource. I think that Whole Foods does have some of the attributes of the VIRO framework since they are valuable and can also be costly to imitate the exact same environment that a customer sees when entering whole Foods but I think that their business model is not rare. Since there have been other substitute firms that have emerged such as Trader Joes and Market of Choice which are similar business models and have taken some of Whole Foods Market share.

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