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Introduction

David Jones is currently facing the market disruptions and multiple changing factors in the economic and industrial changes of the marketplace. The current sales and revenue data indicates declining trend in the market chains and brick and mortar departmental stores (source 1). The company is not able to sustain its growth in the changed scenario caused by covid 19, digital marketplace, changing consumer trends. The purpose of this report is to assess the feasibility of the suggested strategies to repositioning the business to contain its deckling trend and catch the growth numbers again (David Jones, 2019).

Current situation

The problem with the retail chain and departmental stores in Australia is that they operate in an oligopoly market which is hard to adjust with the changes industrial and sectoral changes. Though the company has its brand value and is one of the largest departmental store chains in Australia, but in the last 200 years the market f Australia has seen drastic changes (Best, 2014, pp 22). The covid 19 and subsequent lockdowns have without a doubt changed the purchasing patterns and consumer preferences of the consumer gods and its industry and sector. The retail data shows 0.1 retails slump and 0.1 in the next month (source 2). The year on year sales growth is estimated to grow by 2.7%, thanks to the increased online sales. Australia’s retail sector is getting none prioritized by the consumer due to the changing trends that has been noted into them. The primary reasons of changes are consumer preferences (source 5) i.e. consumers are less loyal than ever, as they are expecting something new and disruptive in the market every now and then, they wait for a new and attractive deal or a new innovative product, increasing cost of living which has changed the discretionary spending patterns and preferences of consumers, data and analytics is the new challenge for the company (in general) to effectively estimate and predict the needs and changing preferences of the consumer (source 5).

Business strategies of David Jones

Business functions	strategies
Marketing	A new social media management and marketing strategy Keep the long trusted name of David Jones and building a marketing communication plan on the same basis
Operations	Reduction in the brick and mortar stores. With effective data analytics reduce the market store to those products only which are necessary in physical checks by the consumer.
Finance	Usage of the extra cash flows and assets by selling brick and mortar spaces to integrate a value chain and supply chain which is digitally connected
Human resource	Transfer of the employees or redundancy of employees from the market stores. Training of employees for the new needs and changing business operational needs like digital analytics, inventory management, and manufacturing efficiency.

The strategic factors of David Jones

Strong distribution network- company has built a strong network of reliable distribution which can reach the majority of the potential consumers and serves their best (Rhou & Singal, 2020).

High level of customer satisfaction- the consumer satisfaction if the recent disturbances and disruptions are not calculated is strong enough to retain the consumer. The company has a separate educated customer service research department for customer relationship.

Strong cash flow- the company has a very strong cash flow of 300 million USD and a provision of 210 million USD through which it can pay its liabilities anytime of the year and can get debt free within a period of 1 year. This shows its strong position to open up to new avenues of changes and transition.

Higher performance as compared to the Australian stress has been noticed by the company with the help of its innovative approaches to attract the consumers. This means in the market where the consumers still prefer the brick and mortar stores to visit have higher chances of success for company as its customer retention and attractive offers are good enough.

The industrial forces also impact the potential ability of the business to change in a smoother and less frictional way. Thus an analysis of the industrial forces can give an insight into new changes implementation.

Industry forces on David Jones

forces	David Jones’ industry position
Intensity of competition	Coles group, ALDI, Amazon, Tesco provide tough competition to the David Jones in terms of lower prices. The company needs to decrease the prices as competitors are also in the race of increasing their shares in the market. Further, the retail industry is growing tremendously with inclusion of online market place it more efficient inventory and cost effective business model.
Threat from new entrants	High investment is needed to enter this market and it’s not easy to achieve the economies of scale in a short period. The production cost is also higher with strong influence of government regulations in terms of supply chain, food safety, licensing system. Thus this makes the new entries difficult to enter into this market.
Bargaining power of buyers	David Jones is facing competition from the lower prices offered by Coles and Aldi which provides high bargaining power to the buyers. There are also considerations of the products differentiation which makes the switching costs high and this weakens the bargaining force.
Bargaining power of suppliers	Huge number of suppliers in the industry where the major shares are bought by limited number of players and thus the supplier’s forces are weaker forces to apply, as suppliers have lesser or no substitutes which can make their position strong.
Threat of substitute products	There are limited numbers of substitute to the products which are offered by David Jones and related industry and the companies can earn huge profits, further there are substitutes which are expensive enough to attract larger number of customers, this makes the switching cost of buyers weak.

SWOT analysis of David Jones

Strength

Strengths

The key aspects of the business operations of company are what the main strength is. Some of the important factors which lie in the brands strength are its market position, financial position, the workforce which is trained and experienced, uniqueness in products and authenticity, the brand value of the company.

It has strong domestic presence in the Australian consume market.
Variety of products offered.
Low risk and high value locations of the stores.
Company has stores in Europe also which gives its brand a unique power.

Weaknesses

There are certain aspects of the brand which can be improved to take further its position. Certain attributes are there which the company is lacking and the competitors are taking benefits of them.

Brand switching is getting very high in the sector (Source 3)

Limited global penetration of the brand.

Opportunities

Opportunities can include the areas where the brand has yet to reap full potential of benefits like better communication, brand recognition, improvement in the product and service delivery.

Improved supply chain to convert it into a value chain to include other sectors also
Entering into the pharmaceutical sector
Entering into other products line on the same name of David Jones as the company has its oldest brand and trust among the people (Zekanovic-Korona & Grzunov, 2014, pp14).

Threats

The threats which can negatively impact the business opportunities and current operations.

Changing government policies and WTO norms for consumer product sections.

Increasing domestic competition as new brands keep coming constantly
Higher brand switching and low customer loyalty has been seen in the last few years.
Disruption in the industry
Digital divide

Primarily a company when facing such issues which is changing the market conditions and with the disrupting in the industry, the company has to eliminate its threats either in the form of switching, or adapting to those threats.

Oligopoly market structure for a firm

Due to the oligopoly market structure, cost cutting and making changes according to the change market needs without making fundamental changes is very hard as oligopoly market conditions do not give higher chances of adaptation due to rigid costing and pricing systems. A consumer products chain, or a fast-food international chain, this industry's oligopoly is far different than aviation oligopoly because consumption in the initial 2 is very frequent but in the aviation sector, the company has to work very hard to generate normal profits. Thus decrease in the market players in Indian aviation is not expected to give more market power to the remaining players. They will be trapped in a price range of products.

Evaluation

In this stage of opposite forces against the company, the company must offer an aggressive marketing strategy which can be financed by decreasing the physical stores to the most necessary dealings, as the cash flow of company is also ready high and healthy, it must consider two business repositioning strategies-

1. Realignment of business opportunities

The company has to realign its business by opening up new avenues of investments and sectors by inheriting the new technology and platforms which the consumer prefers today. The company has to get rid of the brick and mortar stores for all its business needs and must limit them to the needs which are most essential for them. For example, refrigerators and TVs are still being bought by people through visiting the stores. The company has to plan its new business operations in the form of transition. Schlossberg defined a transition as any event or any non-event which results from the person experiencing a change in relationship, routines, assumptions, and roles he/she may be or is currently playing. It must also be noted that perception (to which assumption is also important) plays a key role in transitions as an event or the non-event can only be met the definition of transition when it is experienced so by the individual experiencing it (Bonnani 2015).

Caporal expenditure and network design alternatives must be worked upon to make a newer supply chain which not only cater to the immediate needs of the company but also include sufficient supply chain management services for the local sector which is devoid of supply chain (Orji et al., 2020). For example, the company must hire the local manufacturers of shoes, and in turn provide supply chain for food growers at nominal cost which is a win-win situation for both the company and the food growers.

2. Data analytics and business intelligence unit establishment

Business intelligence includes a set of processes, architecture and technological setup which helps the business to take intelligent future based decisions to convert the raw data into useful information which becomes more relevant and important in today's time when digital technology has encompassed the worked businesses and every business is using or are going to use the business intelligence form digital services (Orji et al., 2020). This can be transforming for the business to use this technology into actionable knowledge and information. A business without real-time business intelligence and information will lag behind and will soon be a dumb organization as information is most relevant in today's time.

To make a working and intelligent business intelligence system, the company needs to set up such infrastructural resources and framework and perform the process as follows-

Raw data from the real-time information from own and other businesses is to be extracted. This data is then sent to multiple software to convert it into useful information.

The data is to be cleaned and transformed into another data house. The tables can be linked and data chunks for different information can be created.

By using the different BI systems, the company can track various queries which are made out of the current business and market needs.

Decision making matrix for David Jones

Effectiveness

Competitiveness

Stakeholder satisfaction

Realignment of business opportunities

The company will be able to sustain in the market with the same effectiveness because it requires adjusting to the new trend.

Higher cash flow will be used for active recruitment and training of the employees so as to adjust to the new normal.

This repositioning strategy wills essentially a change management project for the company which it has to handle as per the norms of change management.

Data analytics and business intelligence with the new market and business set up will provide enough strength to compete with the internet and e commerce market places like Amazon.

The customers are already loyal to David Jones for it is one of the oldest brands; a few changes in the strategies will align the consumer needs back with the company.

Increasing customer and employees satisfaction through data analytics

Staff training on regular basis and related CSR activities will make a positive image.

Data analytics and business intelligence unit establishment

Higher differentiation and preciseness to serve customers by correct inventory and stock management at particular geographies. Customer retaining and higher purchases are possible with this.

Data analytics and intelligence is most essential when competition is talked about. Each and every component of competent can be covered under the business intelligence and data analytics unit.

Efficient workload and high productivity will lead to employee satisfaction, and preciseness in stock and availability of products will lead to customer satisfaction.

Conclusion

David Jones should focus on adapting to the new needs of the market and changing market conditions which have been driven by the covid 19 pandemic, changing consumer preferences, changing habits of spending due to the increased cost of living. These factors are and have been temporary but are seen to make a permanent and longer term effect on the consumers and changing market systems of operations,

References

Best, R. (2014) Market-based management. 6th ed. Pearson Education Limited: Essex.

Bonanni, M., 2015. In transition: Examining students with learning disabilities' transition from high school to college through Schlossberg's transition theory.

Orji, I. J., Kusi-Sarpong, S., & Gupta, H. (2020). The critical success factors of using social media for supply chain social sustainability in the freight logistics industry. International Journal of Production Research, 58(5), 1522-1539.

Rhou, Y., & Singal, M. (2020). A review of the business case for CSR in the hospitality industry. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 84, 102330.

Supply chain Channel (2022). Navigating the Australian retail industry. Retrieved from https://supplychainchannel.co/navigating-the-australian-retail-industry-trends-challenges-and-opportunities/

The Story of David Jones. (2019). Retrieved 14 November 2019, from https://www.davidjones.com/about-us/the-story-of-david-jones

Zekanovic-Korona, L., & Grzunov, J. (2014). Evaluation of shared digital economy adoption: Case of Airbnb. In 2014 37th International Convention on Information and Communication Technology, Electronics and Microelectronics (MIPRO) (pp. 1574-1579). IEEE.

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