This Reed Supermarket case study provides a SWOT analysis of the company, as well as explores its position mapping. It looks at the challenges faced by the business and offers some solutions. Case Briefing The case involves Reed Supermarkets Company, which constitutes a regional grocery store with a considerable market share of the local industry. The supermarket chain has 192 stores operating in two regional distribution centres in the same country. The centres have employed more than 20,000 individuals in the United States (Carlson and Quelch 1). However, the case is focused on the company’s target market in Ohio, specifically in Columbus, which makes its largest market (Carlson and Quelch 1). Despite considerable growth being observed in the Columbus market, the market share for Reed Supermarkets is reported to have decreased in this region over the last half a decade. The entry of new companies in the market has meant new competition for Reed with a stagnating the market share. Some of the factors in the market that have made the company underperform include changes in the customer preferences. Their customers have different preferences for value and quality from those that existed in the last few years. The company has not responded adequately to these fundamental changes. The chief executive officer has noted that the reason why Reed is stagnating is due to the poor strategies in place. Therefore, he has tasked the executives in the company to concoct a new strategy that will help the company achieve a revenue growth of 2% (Carlson and Quelch 1). Problem Statement The company and the individuals face a number of problems to which they must offer solutions. The challenge that these individuals face is how to increase the market share from the current 14% to 16% without making customers change the high brand image that they perceive of the company (Carlson and Quelch 1). However, the individuals who are tasked with increasing the market share for Reed Supermarkets will feel a number of challenges. The first thing is that the company faces significant competition from the existing and new market players. The market is also fragmented. It will be difficult for Reed Supermarkets to secure a fast increase in the market share under these conditions. Therefore, the executives must devise creative ways of achieving this goal. The other challenge that they face is in the operating margin. The operating margin is at 2.1%. This means that the strategies they employ must be effective enough to ensure that the company uses the least possible resources. The third constraint that the company faces is in the expansion plan. The poor strategies that have been employed in the past have been insufficient to allow the expansion of Reed Supermarkets. This applies for the financial year of 2010 (Carlson and Quelch 1). Despite the desire to increase the market share, the company has not set up an investment plan that will oversee the increase in the number of stores that it operates in the region and in the county in general (Carlson and Quelch 1). Therefore, the problem is to achieve the increase in market share for Reed Supermarkets with the limited resources and poor past strategies. SWOT Analysis Strengths Reed has several strengths that are i