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Whole Foods Market Study

In: Business and Management

Submitted By nikejack
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1. Whole Foods Market’s strategy for success in the marketplace seems to be product leadership. Evidence of this can be seen throughout the documents on the company web site. The first core value listed on the first page of the Annual Stakeholders Report is “Selling the Highest Quality Natural & Organic Products Available”. That shows that the company prides itself on not only having high quality products, but on having as high or higher quality than any other supermarket. Throughout the Stakeholders Report, phrases like “our emphasis on the highest quality perishable items” and “we adhere to the highest quality standards” reinforce that concept of product leadership. Further evidence of the product leadership CPV can be found in the company’s Declaration of Interdependence, which states “Our goal is to sell the highest quality products that also offer high value for our customers”. It could also be argued, of course, that the company focuses on the customer intimacy CPV, based on the second core value of “Satisfying and Delighting Our Customers”. The website frequently references the unique shopping atmosphere WFM wants to create for customers, and WFM seems to have a particular niche in its market, much like Starbucks, which the text lists as a business that relies on the customer intimacy CPV. However, the Starbucks mission statement has the following as a guiding principle: “Develop enthusiastically satisfied customers all of the time”. Starbucks seems to have a much stronger statement about its core value of pleasing customers, while WFM’s bland core value seems to be a more basic statement that should be included on any company’s core values. Therefore, customer intimacy is NOT the main CPV for Whole Foods Market.
Operational excellence is not the main CPV of Whole Foods Market either. The only place where price is mentioned is in the

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