Overview of the Vitamin and Dietary Supplement Industry in Australia

The vitamin and dietary supplementary industry in Australia is expected to grow at a rate of 2% at the constant prices of the year 2016. In addition to growing demand for vitamin and dietary supplements among Australian, the industry receives considerable support from growing demand nutritional product in the overseas market. Overseas demand mainly derived from Consumers in China and New Zealand. Free-trade Zones and spread through e-commerce business provides a significant stimulus to growth of the industry. The global demand for such products are growing following changing insight towards a healthy lifestyle and associated demand for complementary products. This allows the industry players to push their products in supermarket chain like dominant grocery retailers such as Woolworths and Coles (Golley et al. 2015). The industry however recently faces a hurdle in their business expansion due to strict regulation imposed by Therapeutic Good Administration. The objective of such regulation is to prevent over consumption of these supplementary items through misleading label guidance.

Blackmores Limited is one of leading brand in Australian health supplementary industry. The founder of the company is Maurice Blackmore. Founded in 1930, the company the opened up its food shop in Brisbane and Queensland region of Australia. At presents, it is a ASX 200 listed company having a market capital valued $2 billion. The company currently employs 843 people and engage in producing a wide variety of products in Vitamin, mineral and herbal (blackmores.com.au 2018). The country also operates in the international market with operation mainly based on New Zealand and Asian market. China is a crucial destination of company’s product and hence, is a major driver of revenue and sales.

The vitamin and dietary supplement industry in Australia is dominated by three big player- Swisse, Blackmores and Nature’s Own. Among these Swisse holds the leading position. Blackmores ranks second in the industry. Blackmores and its competitors compete through developing new expansion strategies. Acquisition with China’s strategic leader is a part of competing strategy of the company (Kent et al. 2015).  The report attempts to make an overall analysis of the concerned industry with particular focus has been given on Blackmores Limited. The report first considers impact of macroeconomic factors on operation of the company. Macroeconomic factors of Australia, China, New Zealand along with global macroeconomic scenario is taken into consideration. After considering the macroeconomic factors, the paper attempts to make an industry analysis through Porter’s five forces model. Finally, business strategy of the company is discussed in terms of key success and key risk factors.

Blackmores Limited – Company Profile

Economic factors play an important role in business operation. Business needs to consider both micro and macroeconomics factors while conducting business. Macroeconomics variables such as aggregate income, inflation, interest rate, foreign exchange rate and business cycle fluctuation affect aggregate demand and investment (Adekola and Sergi 2016). For Blackmores limited, the important macroeconomic factors include income, inflation, interest rate, population growth and consumer demand. Blackmore limited though mostly operate in Australia but it slowly expands its business in New Zealand and some of the Asian nations.

Blackmore is one of the Australia’s leading company for natural health product. The company offers a wide range of quality product including vitamins, herbals, minerals, nutritional supplement and other health care products (annualreports.com 2018). Internal economic environment of Australia thus has an important role in business and sales expansion of Blackmore.

 

Figure 1: GDP of Australia

(Source: tradingeconomics.com 2018)

In 2017, Australian GDP is recorded as 1323.42 USD billion. GDP has shown an improvement in this year as compared to that in the previous year. Australia being one of leading developed nation in world presents 2.13 percent of GDP of world economy. Average GDP of Australia between 1960 and 2017 is 417.40 USD billion. The highest GDP was recorded in 2013 with recorded GDP being 1573.70 USD billion.

 

Figure 2: Inflation rate in Australia

(Source: tradingeconomics.com 2018)

The overall trend of inflation in Australia in the last ten years though have recorded a gradual decline but recently inflation rose slightly. Year on year inflation rate in second quarter of 2018 rose to 2.1 percent from 1.9 percent in the last quarter. For health care products inflation has declined from 4.2 percent to 3.4 percent. Lower price in this category help to promote demand for these items making people more health conscious (tradingeconomics.com 2018). Blackmore being one leading brand of health care products thus can experience an increase in demand and hence, profit.

 

Figure 3: Interest rate in Australia

(Source: tradingeconomics.com 2018)

Cash rate in Australia has been left unchanged at the recorded low level of 1.5 percent. it is since two years that cash rate has remained in such a low level. Bank forecasts the economy is expected to record a growth rate above 3 percent. The low interest rate creates a positive environment for business. The relatively low cash rate supports the Australian economy through boosting investment.

For healthcare industry, population growth especially portion of ageing population plays an important role. An ageing population and an expected increase in patients are among the factors that move the company towards a great success.

Competition in the Industry

Figure 4: Australian population of age 65 and over

(Source: aihw.gov.au 2018)

Older people in Australia make up a significant portion of total population. In 2016, among every 7 people there were 1 people aged 65 and over. There were approximately 3.7 million people aged 65 and above in 2016 accounting 15% of total population. Among the older people 57% were aged between 65 and 74, with one third aging 74-84 and 13% had an age of 85 and over (aihw.gov.au 2018). The growing share of ageing population considerably increases heath concerns. The expected increase in number of sellers’ further boost sales and profitability of the company.

Blackmores limited enjoys a dominant position in the Nutraceuticals market in Australia. One primary factor driving the demand of nutraceutical products is increasing prevalence of several chronic diseases in the nation. As recorded in 2014, approximately 24 percent adults Australians were suffering from different chronic diseases and were dependent on nutritional supplement products (Kent et al. 2015). The prevalent diseases include arthritis, diabetes, depression, cancer, osteoporosis, muscular and other disease. Growing concern for these diseases increase demand for nutritional supplements and therefore, raises demand for Blackmores product.

The macroeconomic factors of New Zealand that might affect business operation include the following.

Figure 5: GDP of New Zealand

(Source: tradingeconomics.com 2018)

In 2017, New Zealand has recorded a Gross Domestic Product of 205.85 billion USD. GDP of New Zealand is considerably lower than that of China and Australia. GDP of New Zealand represents only 0.33 percent of world GDP. The average GDP from 1960 to 2017 is 60.04 USD billion (tradingeconomics.com 2018).

 

Figure 6: Inflation in New Zealand

(Source: tradingeconomics.com 2018)

Consumer price inflation in New Zealand has increase to 1.5 percent as compared to 1.1 percent in the last quarter. The higher inflation is mainly contributed from increase in the cost of food, transport, alcoholic beverages and tobacco, and miscellaneous goods and services.

 

Figure 7: Interest rate in New Zealand

(Source: tradingeconomics.com 2018)

Cash rate in New Zealand has been left unchanged at the low level of 1.75 percent. The objective is to maintain a moderate inflation rate to provide stimulus to the economic growth. Gaining support from stimulatory monetary policy, the nation is moving towards achieving a higher growth as shown from a higher GDP in 2017 in comparison to previous two years.

 

Figure 8: Ageing population in New Zealand

Economic Factors Affecting Blackmores Operation

(Source: stats.govt.nz 2018)

Like Australia and China, New Zealand is also facing the problem of ageing population. Problems faced by the nation include an increasing size of older population and associated increase in share of elderly population in total population. Other problems include increase in average age of population, aging labor force and decrease in proportion of Children in total population (nih.gov 2018).

After experiencing steady growth in global and local market, the company considered to expand business in the New Zealand market. Total sales of Blackmore in Australia and New Zealand market accounted to be 372 billion in 2017. Sales has declined by 23% mainly due to change in buying patterns of China’s exporters and tourists (supermarketnews.co.nz 2018).

China is one of the main drivers of sales growth of Blackmore. The increasing demand from the biggest emerging nation in world helps Blackmore to have most expensive stocks in ASX. Australia’s image as a clean and green nation is one of the great appeal to China. The channel through which Blackmore is expanding in China is the grey market. China’s market uplifted the company’s fiscal revenue by $70 million in 2015 (businessinsider.com.au 2018). Because of growing market share in China, economic environment of China has played an important role in Blackmore’s expansion.

 

Figure 9: Gross Domestic Product in China

(Source: tradingeconomics.com 2018)

China being one of the fastest growing nations in world has recorded a continuous increase in GDP. The last recorded GDP is 12237.7 USD billion. Increasing GDP trend is beneficial for Blackmore’s profitability and sales growth.

 

Figure 10: Inflation rate in China

(Source: tradingeconomics.com 2018)

The last recorded inflation in China is 2.1 percent. Price level hit the highest in category of food. For non-food items also price increases. The average inflation rate between 1986 and 2018 is 5.23 percent. So far as healthcare product is concerned, prices have increased from 4.6 percent to 5 percent (tradingeconomics.com 2018). This increases profitability of Blackmore in China.

 

Figure 11: Interest rate in China

(Source: tradingeconomics.com 2018)

China’s benchmark interest rate in 2018 is recorded as 4.35 percent. Central Bank has cut the interest rate by 25 basis point in 2015. Interest rate in the economy has been left to open market operation by People’s Bank of China. Cut in the interest rate is supportive to business investment. China’s prosperity in turn help sales’ growth of the company (Brown-Paul 2016).

Macroeconomic Factors in Australia, China, and New Zealand

Figure 12: Percent of ageing population in China

(Source: Wang and Chen 2014)

As shown from the above graph, the percentage of ageing population in China is growing at a faster rate. This though is problematic for heath of the China’s economy but is beneficial for the company as it increases demand for medical product that China imports from Australia (Mai, Peng and Chen 2013)

In the last few years’ stock prices of Blackmores has been increasing at a faster rate. Demand base from China is one significant factor behind rising share prices of the company. Fish oil, magnesium tablets, primrose oil and other supplementary products flooded the shelves of pharmacies in Australia. These stocks are stripped bare not by Australian alone but by Chinese tourists and students. They buy these supplement from Australian market and then ship those products to China. After several food scandals China has a tendency to shift to a clean and green product. Sales in the grey market in China especially in the free trade zones provides a stimulus to overseas sales of Blackmores.

Figure 13: Stock price of Blackmores

(Source: asx.com.au 2018)

Gross Domestic Product

 

Figure 14: Gross Domestic Product

(Source: worldbank.org 2018)

Globally, Gross Domestic Product has shown an increasing trend. GDP though has declined slightly in 2015, it however recovered since 2016 and moved on the rising path. GDP of the three chosen nation is significantly lower than world’s average GDP. Among them, China has the highest GDP and lowest GDP is accounted by New Zealand. This shows why China seems to be the most profitable market for the company.

Figure 15: Inflation rate

(Source: worldbank.org 2018)

The inflation trend of Australia, New Zealand and China is almost same as global price trend. Price level in China is slightly up than that of New Zealand and Australia. Stability in price level is supportive to business growth as it helps to keep cost in control while also influences demand.

 

Figure 16: Young and older population in total population

(Source: who.int 2018)

Like Australia, New Zealand and China, ageing population has become a problem at the global scale. Older population in world is growing rapidly. Percent of population aged 65 and above in the world population stands as 8.5 percent who.int 2018). A greater share of older population possesses severe health challenges to leading to a growing expenditure on health. This benefits the health care industry especially those operate at a global scale.

Business Strategy of Blackmores

Worldwide Vitamin and Dietary Supplementary market experiences an increasing trend primarily due to increasing demand for traditional medicines. The growing consumption demand for direct herbal supplementary pulls up demand of global dietary and vitamin supplements. In 2017, more than half of Blackmores sales were driven by foreign consumers. The company experienced a strong growth in sales in China and overseas markets. During this year net profit of the company increased to $15.4 million recording a 28 percent increase as compared to 9 percent increase in the previous years (Gray, 2018). The data revealed that strong customer demand worldwide is a significant drivers of Blackmores profit.

Porter’s five forces analysis 

The analysis of porter’s five forces is a useful tool to analyze overall structure of business beyond analysis of just competitive position. According to this framework, five forces that shape strategy of a business are – threats of new entrants, bargaining power of the suppliers, bargaining power of the buyers, potential threats from substitute products and extent of rivalry among existing players in the industry (Dobbs 2014). 

Figure 17: Model of Porter’s five forces

(Source: Burns and Dewhurst 2016)

Entry of new competitors in the industry brings innovation and gives new challenges to existing players. This puts pressure on Blackmore Limited in terms of lowering price, cutting down costs and offering proposition of a mew vale to the customers to maintain its market share. The company needs to manages all the pressures and challenges and creates effective barriers to the new players in the industry and protect its competitive edge in the industry. There are several strategies used by the company that helps it overcome the threat of new entrants. Through innovation of new product, it only attracts new customers but also encourages old customers to stick their choice on its product. To enjoy a cost advantage over the new entrants the company builds economies of scales that helps it to reduce fixed cost. Another way to counter new entrants is its focus on development of capacities and invest in research and development.

More or less every company in the industry buy their needed raw materials from various suppliers. The dominant position of suppliers’ can significantly reduce profitability of Blackmore Limited in the industry. The higher bargaining power of suppliers indicates an overall lower profitability in the industry. In order to reduce bargaining power of suppliers (Anwar and Hasnu 2016). Blackmore builds an efficient supply change with numerous suppliers. This strategy prevents any single sellers to have a dominant role in the industry and hence, impacts on profitability. Another way to combat bargaining power of the suppliers is to experiment development of products using alternative raw materials. This allows the company to substitute any raw materials in case there is a rise in material cost. The company develops supply chain relation with those that solely depend on business of the company. This strategy helps to significantly reduce bargaining power of the suppliers.

Porter’s Five Forces Analysis of the Industry

In Australia, bargaining power of customers is low to moderate based on the availability of available substitutes that affordability of buyers to switch to product of other brands. In order to reach to the customers purchasing a lower volume, Blackmore uses three channels of distribution – Grocery stores, Chemists shops and health care stores (Brown-Paul 2016). Blackmores focuses of differentiating its products in terms of quality unlike its competitors having primary focus on costs. The strategy of differentiation allows Blackmore to develop a brand royalty. This in turn help the company to charge a higher price in response to consumer demand.

Profitability of an industry gets interrupted due to the introduction of a new product that satisfy similar needs of customers but in a different manner. The threat of a substitute product is high when the substitute product offers a significantly higher value proposition as against existing products in the industry. In order to maintain its customer base, the company focuses on high quality of service rather than only product orientation. The company aims to understand particular needs of its customers and tries to serve customers in most satisfactory way. Blackmores also takes the strategy of increasing switching cost of its customers.

Australian retail supermarket industry is well known for its intense competition among the major players in the industry both in domestic and international market. This makes the market structure mostly oligopolistic in nature. One of the biggest competitors of Blackmores Limited is Swisse. Intense competition prevails between the two leading brand selling almost homogenous products. Blackmores operates in a highly fragmented market. Fierce competition is observed in the industry as product sold in the market can be easily developed by other competitors (Nagle and Müller 2017). In the East Asia, the company has a relatively small market share because of the presence of leading domestic and global sellers. The company can introduce a loyalty scheme in order to retain its customers all around the world.

Competitive focus of the company is mainly on ensuring a high quality of products and development of newer product to maintain is competitive position. In 2016, the company holds second position with 9% value share and 21% share in retail markets of Australian dietary and vitamin supplement industry. The company lost its leading position as against Swiss Wellness. The key success and key risk factors of the company in within the industry is discussed below

Product differentiation

Product differentiation is a marketing strategy that indicates difference among the various products sold by the company. The strategy of product differentiation is used to make a particular product more attractive along with unique quantities as compared to its competitors. Successful use of product differentiation strategy provides the company a competitive advantage over its rivals. One of the key success factor for Blackmore is development of a strong brand platform. This significantly differentiates the concerned company from its competitors (Banker, Mashruwala and Tripathy 2014). The Blackmore’s Scientific Researchers develop specific product. Production is controlled by Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA).  A wide variety of products are available at Blackmore stores and online. In order to increase product variety further, Blackmore has engaged in a joint venture with Bega Cheese. This allows them to provide a greater variety of nutritional and high-quality infant food. In addition to this, Blackmore has an acquisition with one of the Australian leading providers of China’s retail herbal medicine, Global Therapeutics through brand Fusion. Innovation is another route of differentiating product from others in the industry. The company focuses of adapting new technology with passes instead of taking large innovative projects.

Blackmore differentiates from its competitors in terms of its pricing strategies. The primary strategy here is to charge a premium price.

Blackmore is well-known for providing a satisfactory customer service. The company high quality products with its new and innovative technology. The two other competitors Swisse and Nature Way offers their product at a low and discounted price. Blackmore limited has been awarded as the most trusted brand in the category of Vitamin and Supplement Brand.

The strategy of cost leadership refers to the specific business strategy though which one company enjoys a competitive edge over other in terms of a lower cost of production. The cost leadership is achieved through efficiency, size, scale, cumulative experience and scope of the company. The company invests a significant amount of investment in the development of marketing process and cutting down its cost through reduction in transportation cost. Presence of external economies of scale in the industry provides Blackmore a considerable cost advantage (Kleef and Dagevos 2015).  This contributes to the growth of the company. Investment in Research and Development though increases fixed cost but the increase in revenue generated from new products in the internal and external market reduces long run average cost giving Blackmore a competitive cost advantage.

Despite a steady growth there are some areas that still remain a risk for the company in the pharmaceutical industry.

In order to survive in a pharmaceutical industry, company needs to make significant investment in Research and Development. At present, Blackmore’s investment in Research and development is lower than other players. Blackmore’s investment in this field though is higher than industry’s average but it is lower than leading competitors. The company still lags behind major players in the industry.

Figure 18: Research and Development Spending of Blackmore and leading competitors

(Source: Wilson et al. 2018)

The relatively lower spending of Blackmore works as one of key risk factor towards survival of the company. Development of newer product by the competitors may reduce market share of Blackmore in near future.

High profit margin attract various new firms in the industry intensifying competition among the players (Grantham et al. 2015). The increasing number of competitors not only reduces profitability of the company but also affects sales in the overseas market.

Blackmore faces another threat from the lack of availability of skilled workforce. Another associated problem is high rate of attrition among the workers. Blackmore suffers from a high attrition rate as compared to other in the industry (Stone and Stone 2013). As a result, the company needs to spend a high amount of training and development program of new workers. This affects profitability of the company.

Blackmore operates across various nation in the world. As a result, profitability of the company is extremely vulnerable to fluctuation in the exchange rate (Wilson et al. 2018). An appreciation of Australian dollar is a significant risk factor for the company as it reduces overseas sales by increasing import price.

Conclusion 

The report aims to analyze industry structure of Blackmores Limited. Before entering the industry, the macroeconomic environment of the three chosen nations are discussed. Besides Australia, Blackmores operation extends in the market of China and Australia. In context of macroeconomics factors, focus has been given on five key aspects- GDP, inflation, interest rate, population growth and customers’ demand. China, despite being an emerging nation has recorded a higher GDP as compared to Australia and New Zealand. The rising GDP trend makes China an attractive destination for health supplementary products of Blackmores. With the objective of supporting income growth today central banks prefer to keep the interest rate to a significantly low level. The interest rate in Australia and New Zealand is below or close to 2 percent. In China, the interest rate is slightly higher with interest rate lying between 4 and 4.5 percent. With targeted interest rate, inflation rate remained stable and within the targeted level. So far as population growth is concerned, older population now constitute a significantly large share in total population both globally and in individual countries. The ageing population represents a growing health concern and hence, a higher demand for dietary and Vitamin supplements. In Australia, demand for these items is growing due to a growing concern for chronic diseases and preference towards a healthy lifestyle. Products purchased by China’s tourists and students constitute a significant portion company’s sales. Sales is the overseas market is an important source of revenue of the company.

The Porter’s five forces analysis evaluates the effect of bargaining powers of sellers and buyers and potential threat from substitute product along with competition from existing as well as new entrants. The business strategy of the company identifies key areas of success and risk of the company. The main strategy behind success of the company includes strategies such as product differentiation, cost leadership, maintenance of high product quality and brand image and premium pricing strategy. The company differentiates its product from its competitors in terms of improving product and service quality. Blackmores has successfully established its brand image both in national and international market. Despite having a dominant position in the industry there are some risk factors that might interrupt long term growth of the company. The key areas where the company should focus are increasing spending for research and development, employment of skilled workers, focusing on reducing attrition rate and others.

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