Location and Distribution

Location and Distribution

Austria has extensive road networks between surrounding countries and has established open borders with all eight neighboring nations. Austria has 124,508 kilometres of roadways, all of which is paved. This includes 1,719 km of expressways across the nation. 6,400 kilometres of commercial and industrial railways also exist within the country. Austria also boasts 58 airports, 24 of which are paved.[CIA13] This provides a well-established air network that transports people and cargo internationally. The largest airport, The Vienna International Airport, handled over 22 million passengers in 2011.[Vie12] For a landlocked country, Austria boasts a remarkably well-established marine transport system on the Danube River, which connects Austria to ten Central and Eastern European cities and provides Austria indirect access to international ports and ocean transport.[CIA13]

When expanding operations into Austria, RONA will be able to retain much of its supply network, as it operates with an international system of 2,500 suppliers that operate in areas all over the world. Much of the supply network can be routed into Austria quite easily, via EU transportation systems and overland transport. In some cases, new supplier relationships may be formed in order to take advantage of EU manufacturers and suppliers to decrease transportation and distribution costs. Transportation and related supply costs may in fact be lower than domestic operations based on product supply routes and distance from the manufacturer to the market.

In terms of retail locations, RONA must identify and select six existing retail locations for rebranding and restructuring. Other than the top two retail competitors, Hornbach and bauMax, the home improvement market within Austria is highly fragmented, with many smaller chains and individual retail outlets operating in the market. RONA must identify key market locations and then select outlets that the company can potentially acquire and rebrand. The focus of acquisitions will be on retail outlets in good market locations that may financially benefit from the sale of an outlet location.