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From its origins in 1914 as a small business, Innova Ltd has grown into one of Australia’s largest listed companies. Some of its acquisitions include the home improvement retailer Handyman Warehouse in 1994, the Coronado coal mine in 2000, and Nozti Gas in 2007. Innova Ltd also sold a number of its business units, such as the rural business Beacon in 2003, the Railway Group in 2006, and Antelope Coal in 2011. With headquarters in South Australia, its diverse business operations cover: supermarkets, liquor, hotels and convenience stores; home improvement; office supplies; department stores; and an industrials division with businesses in chemicals, energy and fertilisers, industrial and safety products and coal. Innova Ltd is one of Australia’s largest private sector employers with around 220,000 employees and has a shareholder base of approximately 530,000.

Innova Ltd acquired Colewin in 2007 for $19.3 billion, in one of Australia’s biggest corporate takeovers. Colewin operates in Australia’s highly dynamic and evolving food, grocery, liquor and convenience sector. It is one of Australia’s largest retailers with more than 21 million customer transactions, on average, each week through the national store network and online platforms. It has an extensive store network of 801 supermarkets, 883 liquor stores, 89 hotels and 702 convenience outlets across the nation, from as far west as Geraldton in Western Australia to as far east as Ocean Shores in the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales.

Required:

(a) Identify the corporate-level strategies used by Innova Ltd. Ensure you identify the specific option in the strategy type. Provide evidence from the case facts to support your answer.

(b)Using the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) Matrix, classify the Colewin business into one of the 4 categories of business conditions and justify your choice using evidence from the case facts. Given your classification, suggest the most appropriate corporate-level strategy that Innova Ltd should pursue for this business.