Strengthen Unilever-Jerónimo Martins’ position in the traditional supermarkets

Field lab: Entrepreneurial and innovative ventures

The survival of the retail market is based on ‘customer centricity’ and traditional supermarkets are specialist in this client focus business model. Moreover, traditional retailers still presented positive results in the last years despite the decreasing stores number. Therefore, Unilever-Jerónimo Martins is reinforcing the relationship with those through a direct approach in terms of marketing and sales channels management, avoiding the involvement of the cash and carries. This bypass strategy aims to increase traditional supermarkets potential using merchandising and point of sale activity. In the interior of the country, especially in Alentejo, traditional supermarkets value in their suppliers price just as customer service, based on trust and past relationship success, and store delivery. Regardless of cash and carries’ threats, cash and carries have a strong position in the value chain of the traditional supermarkets and there is potential to enrich this target via a three parties’ partnership model. Concluding, the present work project evaluates the efficacy and effectiveness of the Unilever-Jerónimo Martins’ direct approach to traditional supermarkets in the interior of Portugal, providing gap analysis, drawing risk assessment and recommending the best approach in strategic, tactics and implementation levels.