The critical study of food retailers versus wholesalers. Opportunities of digitization in the international market

Master's Thesis from the year 2019 in the subject Business economics - Miscellaneous, grade: 1.3, Fresenius University of Applied Sciences Köln, course: The critical study of food retailers vs. wholesalers, language: English, abstract: Various companies are working to manage digitization and its effects, and it is essential that they find the right way of thinking about this. However, many do not understand even the most basic steps of the process, which leads to development problems. To drive development, it is necessary to change one’s way of approaching this issue. The aim of this research was to identify the weaknesses, strengths, dangers, and trends in the market and those measures, potentials, and steps to changing one’s way of thinking to advance digitization in Germany. With this in mind, the following research question was posed: to what extent do the weaknesses, strengths, dangers, fears, potentials and trends in backward digitization in Germany depend on one another? To answer the research question, personal interviews were conducted, alongside original research and interviews with renowned companies. The interviewees were divided into three groups: manufacturers, wholesalers, and food retailers. The interview partners were sought from throughout Germany. Each group had an adapted questionnaire. The questions were divided into three categories: weaknesses; potential dangers, fears; and potentials, strengths and trends. Problems were clearly identified in all three categories that can be traced back to the greatest weakness in Germany at the moment: mindset. All three groups are evidently influenced by this weakness, with progress in digitization increasingly falling behind. On this basis, the findings of this study indicate that it is advisable to hire younger employees, purchase entire teams, support start-up promotions in the company, and renew the own views of the entire topic. Further research could consider renewal of the own views of the individual components.