Smartmart's Ceo Case

As part of the AGES leadership rotational program, you have been assigned to spend time with SmartMart advising them on their strategy and some important decisions they face going forward. SmartMart is a retail grocer that has been very successful particularly through emphasizing organic products and getting buy-in to their mission throughout the value chain. There are many moving pieces within their competitive space suggesting the need for them to re-examine their business model and how they will succeed in the next 5-10 years. There are also a number of internal imperatives and dynamics that may well shake up their current position in the market.

SmartMart’s CEO, Liam Van de Laye, will be giving you some important background and asking for your advice about some specific decisions facing the company. While SmartMart has made its name in the grocery business, they are opening up the question of what their value-added in the marketplace is and how they can use their distinctive capabilities to compete. Taking this perspective creates some interesting possibilities for how they can reshape their business and possibly extend their reach to take on whole new product lines and compete with a whole new set of rivals. At the same time, your read on the strategic landscape may well lead SmartMart to scale back and re-focus its operations as well as how it competes.

One key driver in these discussions is the environment and the focus on organic products. Mr. Van de Laye is passionate about the environment as part of his business and has worked hard to create a product line (and a shopping experience) that highlights organics and minimizing harm to the planet. At the same time, Mr. Van de Laye is passionate about his business and believes that he can run a business that weds his entrepreneurial mindset with his environmental passion. Figuring out how these impulses can be linked and create a virtuous cycle, rather than operating as competing priorities, is