Study On Competitive Strategy Of Vietnamese Retailers

As an important element of the economy, retailing has a crucial effect on national economy and social development, the development of a national retailing and retailers competitiveness relates to the development trend of a country. Since joining World Trade Organization, Vietnam has promoted the process of economic globalization. According to the Global Retail Development Index 2008 by American consulting company AT Kearney, Vietnam considered as the most attractive retail market in the world . The retail market of the country has expanded rapidly over the past few years, and retail sales has reached the highest growth rate in all industries of Vietnam in 2009. Vietnamese Government has officially opened its market for fully foreign invested retailers at the beginning of 2009 on the back of World Trade Organization accession in 2007, this has made the domestic retailers enter to a new period. Vietnamese retailers have to face with the challenge from strong and experienced foreign retailers, how to maintain the status of domestic retailers and improve its competitiveness has been a concerning problem.This paper takes Michael E. Porter's competitive strategy theory as an analysis basis, by analyzing typical characteristics of Vietnamese retail industry in general, then analyzing the macroeconomic environment and competitive environment of retail industry in detail. Taking Vietnam's largest retailers Saigon Co.op Mart as a case study to find its external and internal environment with PEST method then use the SWOT model and Michael E. Porter's three generic strategy to determine its competitive strategy.Finally, this paper also base on the above research, sum up the differences between Vietnamese retailers and foreign invested retailers, Vietnamese retailing company's competitive advantage compared with foreigner retailers, draw on the experience of foreign retailers, making some suggestions on the implementation of the strategy.