In 2015, U.K.-based Ocado was the world's largest pure player in the online home-delivery grocery business and was gaining a growing share of the highly competitive U.K. grocery market. Ocado had made heavy investments in technology, including a highly automated warehouse operation, intelligent software for efficient order delivery, and a customer-friendly online interface. Ocado's customer base had expanded beyond the wealthy to include middle-income consumers; even with a delivery charge, grocery shopping through Ocado was, in many cases, as affordable as shopping in a retail store. In 2015 the company was developing a strategy for its Smart Platform, a model in which Ocado would lease its software, hardware, and integration services to brick-and-mortar grocery retailers seeking to build online businesses. Ocado's management believed the Smart Platform, which they planned to market internationally, had the potential to disrupt the global grocery retail market.
Keywords: Ocado; grocery; retail; online grocery; supermarket; supply chain; delivery models; service models; United Kingdom; competition; technology; operations management; Market Platforms; Competition; Online Technology; Service Operations; Service Delivery; Supply Chain; Marketing; Retail Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; United Kingdom;
Citation:
Alvarez, José, David E. Bell, and Damien McLoughlin. "Ocado." Harvard Business School Case 516-059, December 2015. (Revised February 2016.) View Details
