Staples Inc. SWOT and PESTLE Analysis

Strength

1. Omni channel Offering: Staples has a wide range of products from chairs to stationary supplies. Staples has physical retail stores in close to 3,856 locations. The website also has a “Find a store near you” functionality that helps the customer locate a Staples store. Staples has a strong digital presence through mobile app, website and social media to provide ease of access and a superior customer experience. Staples made almost $500 Million of sales through in-store, staples.com, kiosks and click and collect features like Buy Online and Pick up in Store.

2. Strong customer retention/loyalty initiatives: Staples has initiatives to retain customers and foster customer loyalty. Staples offers daily deals and other business discount programs as a way of incentivising the customers. In addition to this there are reward programs that help maintain customer loyalty.

3. Additional Services: Staples offers additional services in addition to its broad portfolio of product offering. Some of these services are as follows: Print Services, Marketing Services, Shipping Services,Technological Services, Financing services and Office Services.

4. Simple return, exchange and refund policies: A company is known for its after sales service and a return policy is an important aspect of it. Staples has simple, transparent, easy to understand return policies.

Weakness

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Opportunity

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Threat

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Political

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Economic

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Social

1. Decline in population of Japan translates to lower revenue in Japan: Panasonic and other homegrown Japanese companies such as Sony, Sharp, Toshiba and other have seen a decline in their business on their own home turf, a reason that contributes to this decline in business is that Japan is suffering a cultural malaise where in the major population of Japan has aversion to human contact in a society dominated by technology, this leads to an extremely low birth rates in Japan because of which Japan is experiencing an irreversible decline in its population, Japan’s population peaked in 2010 at 128 million and since then it has been on a steady decline, Japan is also one of the very few countries to have a negative population growth (-0.1%). Because of this declining population the growth of Panasonic has stagnated severely in their own home country which contributes a significant portion of their international revenues.

2. High average age of Japanese population and high labor cost: Besides the issue of declining population, the average age of Japanese citizen is around 48 years one of the highest in the world whereas average age of India’s population is expected to reach around 29 years by the year 2020. Because of such high average age of population, Japan is seeing a decline in overall expenditure, Last year Japan’s GDP growth rate was around 1% and to make matters worse the labor costs in the country are extremely high which makes it worrisome for companies like Panasonic to increase their revenues within the country and also the high operational cost that the company has to bear due to high labor cost to operate in Japan. Over the years Panasonic has seen decrease in the percentage of the revenues that their Japan’s operations contribute compared to their global revenues.

Technological

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Legal

1. Regulations impacting ability to compete with non-traditional players: Nontraditional competitors such as Amazon are giving tough competition to traditional players across industries. The Federal Trade Commission in the United States has blocked several mergers on the basis of the need to preserve sufficient competition. However such regulatory measures are impacting the competitiveness of the players. The federal government also blocked the proposed merger of Staples-Office Depot in 2016 which impacted the business expansion plans for Staples.

2. Strong compliance standards for suppliers: A socially and legally responsible corporation needs to implement strong compliance standards for suppliers, so that there are no legal, ethical or social violations. Supplier Code of Conduct is a critical pillar of Staples supplier accountability programs and it covers policies such as protection against child labor, forced labor, discrimination, fair wages and healthy workplace. Staples suppliers are located globally and particularly concentrated in China and South Asia region which has a poor record for compliance standards. The suppliers are mandated to follow the same and the company conducts random audits to ensure proper implementation.

Environmental

1. Initiatives for sustainable and eco-conscious products: Environmental and consumer sustainability with regards to usage of raw materials is critical for consumer-centric organizations such as Staples. From activities such as product sourcing to its internal operations to the recycling services Staples offers its customers, environmental initiatives help in sustainability. Staples also has Environmental Paper Procurement Policy through which it ensures that its sourcing actions have minimal impact and strives to promote forest conservation efforts. The company also leverages media to raise awareness of environmental issues and encourage its stakeholders to conserve resources by making small changes in their daily actions.