A STEEPLE Analysis of Countdown Supermarket

The purpose of this essay is to develop a STEEPLE analysis and 10-year outlook for Countdown Supermarket [hereunto referred to as Countdown], a leading supermarket in New Zealand, which is owned by Progressive Enterprise Ltd and is a subsidiary of the Australian company, Woolworths Limited; which in the last two years have won the best retail store award. This has portrayed Countdown to be a more confident, reliable, motivated and responsible supermarket.

The STEEPLE analysis will be used as a tool to determine and identify the internal and external factors that may be affecting Countdowns' Greerton store. The STEEPLE (Social, Technological, Economic, Environmental, Political, Legal, and Ethical) analysis is a method used by companies such as Countdown as a management strategy to better understand and identify positive and negative factors affecting their business, in the present and in the future. Two such STEEPLE issues that affect Countdown and influence there ten-year outlook are environment/ecological issues and brand, company, and technology image. They are important in ensuring a better environment for sustainable trading in a consumer market aware of their environment, branding, and pricing.

One Steeple factor affecting Countdown are environment/ecological issues. Environmental issues are negative aspects that human activity has created on the environment such as waste. This has become a recently occurring issue for Countdown as the government are beginning to increase their laws and regulations on the way that businesses deal with waste from the company and the emissions produced. This is because in recent years, customers are becoming more aware of the effect that waste can have on the environment and the effect that is...

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...tomers with new noticeable things such as new packaging. By doing this Countdown are taking into consideration their competitors as well and the idea of any new competition through altering packaging to stay current in the market.

This STEEPLE factors could also be significant to Countdown as it could directly affect their ability to achieve the aim/objective of being a self-branded marketing leader. This is because they will need to ensure that they are making their products more appealing to their customers than their competitors companies. They will do this by modernising their brand and company. Countdown will be unable to meet this aim if they are not doing enough to adapt their business to make it more appealing to customers than their competitors. This is because more people will buy their competitors’ products, leading to Countdown unable to meet this aim.