Nature and Scope of the Project Whole Foods Market is a grocery store that caters to a very niche group of customers by selling only natural and organic products Customers of whole foods are made up of the environmentally conscious and the health conscious alike Whole Foods is still a fairly young company but it has been very successful in its expansion and growth efforts due to the void that it has been able to fill in the market To this day Whole Foods is very strong and continues to grow and expand Much of the firm s success can be attributed to its strong management practices all the way from the bottom up to the CEO John Mackey Mackey has been able to maintain a very strong and competitive company while keeping the company s core values at the forefront Although the future looks positive for Whole Foods Market and founder John Mackey there are many issues to keep in mind in our ever changing economy Some of these issues include globalization and expansion recruiting top talent new competitors entering the market finances and logistics among others To gather much of the information in depth research had to be conducted by our team Much of our information was gathered through doing research on the internet using sources such as scholarly news articles business journals and other publications To supplement our internet research some members of our team visited the nearest Whole Foods Market in Silver Spring Maryland to gain a better feel and perspective of what the store workers and products are like Background In 1980 a group of individuals had a vision a vision to not only meet the needs of an untapped market but a vision to change the way the world viewed natural food grocers With the merger of Safer Foods Natural Foods and Clarksville Natural Grocery in 1980i Whole Foods 1 Market was born This birth provided the natural foods market its first ever superstore and demand for its products would rapidly increase as the company rapidly expanded in the early 80 s Sales doubled every year for the first four years and by the end of the decade Whole Foods Market expanded out of the southeast to the west coast to Palo Alto Californiaii The first Whole Foods Market store opened its doors to the citizens of Austin Texas in 1980 At the time less than half a dozen natural foods supermarkets existed in the United Statesiii and Whole Foods was greeted with open arms by the granola community The founders of Whole Foods John Mackey and Renee Hardy of Safer Way Natural Foods and Craig Weller and Mark Skiles of Clarksville Natural Grocery all had a common goal when they created the first Whole Foods Market to be a grocery store featuring good wholesome food not a health food store filled with pills and potionsiv This is what people had been waiting for and by turn of the millennium the Whole Foods Market was comprised of 17 different establishments and existed in three different countries on two continents Whole Foods Market is a strong value based organization and all aspects of its operation function around these values Whole Food s motto is Whole Foods Whole People Whole Planet and is a very good summation of how the company runsv Everything about Whole Foods from the products harvested to the people who sell those products everything is done with the consumers and the planet in mind The company s mission statement The Declaration of Interdependence touches on the ways in which Whole Foods accomplishes its motto through its everyday operations The methods range from donating 5 of after tax profits to non profits to the use of environmentally friendly store maintenance processesvi With the customer s happiness always on its mind they constantly seek to provide the products desired and this is represented by one of their core values which is to sell the highest quality products in terms of 2 ingredients freshness taste nutritive value safety and or appearance that also offer this high value at a competitive price for our customersvii Strengths Whole Foods Market has set the bar in regards to supermarket management systems Their process has changed but has only become stronger over the years they have been in business With the advent of the team system Whole Foods has led the pack during both recession and economic expansion Whole Foods motto is Whole Foods Whole People Whole Planet Located in the center of their motto is prominently Whole People which holds their company together They define their people as Our people are our company They are passionate about healthy food and a healthy planet They take full advantage of our decentralized self directed team culture and create a respectful workplace where people are treated fairly and are highly motivated to succeed This quote sheds a small amount of light to the strength of Whole Foods which is its team mentality Within the core values of Whole Foods are customer service and an inviting store environment and there is no more important facet to this than the workers The team formula starts with around eight teams per store with roughly eight teams per store divided by department such as seafood produce and checkout The workers all start off with roughly the same base pay while the team leader earns slightly more With everyone in the team having an equal shot of being promoted and Whole Foods Market only hiring from within the company only the low paying high effort jobs will lead to store regional and corporate 3 management The teams consist of seven members and a group leader all the way up through management at their headquarters Team members here consist of accountants financiers and marketers The success of this company is partly due to the incredible ability to quickly adapt to a changing market Whole Foods Market has been so successful not only because of management but due to the timely acquisitions of other companies as well as being strategically positioned in the market to take advantage of changing times Over the years Whole Foods has made an astounding fifteen acquisitions after the merger of the first two companies Saferway and Clarksville Natural Grocery The valuation of the prospective new companies has been unparalleled among other supermarkets other industries but especially among its competitors such as Trader Joe s John Mackey then the Chief executive officer and chairman stated that the acquisition of wild oats was one of the biggest gambles of his life and it definitely paid off This lead to the fervent expansions of all
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