Trader Joe's Case

Introduction
Re-invention and targeted approach towards achieving competitive advantage were the key strategic actions taken to make Trader Joe’s (TJ) from a glorified regional convenience store to a nationwide specialty retailer, and that might just be the most important thing in the supermarket business. The footprint of this success lies in the efficient utilization of the company’s resources and their unique capacity to deploy its resource and capabilities(BB835). The result of such unique circumstances helped TJ to stay far ahead of its competitors in terms of customer satisfaction and brand loyalty. This TMA proposes that, through a company’s resources and capabilities TJ managed to imitate Key Success Factors (KSF) that created value,

Unfortunately to build the value chain we would need a more thorough investigation on the TJ’s processes and arrangements. In my opinion to make the proper investigation of the resources gaps and missed capabilities it is required to be very familiar with the company’s organizational aspects and business process. But due to the fact the company does not publish any investor reports and is has never gone public (Stock Exchange or Private equity funding). In my opinion the Porter’s tool such as Value chain analysis in this case has disadvantages comparing to Grant’s simple approach to resource management and strategic planning.
According to Barney (1991), a firm can be said to possess competitive advantage when it achieves superior performance over its competitors by implementing a value-creating strategy that is not simultaneously being implemented by a competitor. TJ is
Barney differentiates simple competitive advantage from sustainable competitive advantage, which is more durable because existing or future competitors cannot duplicate the benefits of the company’s strategy.
Recommendations and

Coulombe didn’t have a long term strategy in mind. According to the case study only after the arrival of John Shields TJ pursued the idea of expanding the markets and not playing the niche supermarket offering their tailored service in California. The previous sections already demonstrated how the internal resource, in this case the loyal customers insisted on the growth strategy and helped the management to open their eyes for better and more consistent strategies. The major stakeholders customers admired every opening of the New shop of TJ either creating fan pages and or by cueing for every newly opening