Identifying And Addressing Slow Consumer Cycle And Reducing Growth In The Market: A Case Study Of The Woolworth Group

Business Issue Faced by Woolworth Group

The Woolworths Group owns a leading supermarket store in Australia comprising 80% of Australian market. The Group deals with food and liquor products. In the recent times the group is facing business issues which are creating bad impacts on the revenues of the Group. The main business issue of the Group is slow consumer cycle and reducing growth in the market. The customers are shifting to other supermarkets. This issue has risen due to the reason that organization has old strategies and styles which makes customers unsatisfied and also due to this the organization is facing a lot of competition. The Woolworth Group has to apply new strategies for attracting customers and creating demands. The management need to more creative and innovative and should plan things accordingly. Moreover, the issue will be solved by applying the different strategies and methods of promotion. With the help or promotional strategies the Group will be able to connect with more customers and will able to attract them (Jie, Parton, & Chan, 2015). 

In the following report there will be detailed discussion of the business issue Woolworth Group having and what techniques or methods are needed to address the issue.

The Woolworth supermarkets have high customers retention in its past year records. But at recent scenario the ratio of customer retention is getting down as customers are shifting themselves to other stores. The growth of Woolworth has reduced due to low demand of customers. Moreover, the Group is not able to focus on preference of customers and also not communicated with the stakeholders. The stock rate of the organization is getting low and there is no improvement in the rates. The issue has come due to gap of communication and advance technology as organization is not able to communicate with its targets customers and following old marketing strategies (Keith, 2012). 

The recent trends and current functions are also impacting Woolworth. The reduced consumer cycle of the Group is also due to the reason of its internal management. The internal management of organization was not working properly and there were hindrances between them. In the organization the interaction between employees and employers was not much fluent which leads to the huge issues. Furthermore, new employees are not familiar with their responsibilities and even there are no training or orientation programs for them which created lot of misunderstanding between employees. The main management of organization that is human resource department was not working properly due to which the internal management has to face issues. As there will be hindrances in internal management organization will not be able to concentrate on outside market and its customers. Moreover, there are also external factors which influenced the business issue and created a big impact. There are many external forces in the environment which affects the business growth. The external factors are as follows:

• Political factor: the political factor influences the issue most as the change in any policy of government or new trade regulations or any kind of benefit schemes for customers affects the growth of organization (Ibrahim, & Harrison, 2019).
• Legal Factor: it includes laws and regulations such as, employment law, consumer protection acts or any kind of law prescribed by government in favour of labours or consumers affects the revenue of organization (Prajogo, 2016).
• Environmental factor: it involved climatic conditions, unsuitable weather, laws relating to weather or pollution and air and water pollution regulations leads to heavy loss in the business. Changing of weather changes the taste and preference of customers and therefore, the demand of customer’s changes and this impacts the productivity of an organization (Devin, & Richards, 2018).

Underlying Reasons for the Issue

Moreover, the organization has to reduce its price shares due to the business issue and many other challenges are also raised due to which they have to shrink their division of liquor food. Also, with these issues there is high competition level in the market (Keith, 2012). 

With the increase of issues and challenges the organization planned and made some strategies to overcome the challenges. The issue of sloe consumer cycle must be addressed in a way that consumers come and raise demand. The Woolworth has to began with its promotional strategies and some motivational techniques to certain the conditions and solve the issue. There are some of the following motivational techniques which is to be used by the Group to maintain their internal management and aid human resource department such as:

• Make your environment pleasant and comfortable: For hours, nobody wants to be in a boring, dingy place. With a beautiful, well-lit, functional and fun space, work is much more enjoyable. The first move is to insure that it is well kept and that the machinery is upgraded. This means switching the computer from Cold War to your glacially smooth point of sale or anything that people may want to throw out of the window in frustration. It also ensures that items look tidy and good (Smit et al, 2017).
• Offer employees rewards: employees will retain in the organization if they have a reason for staying. Therefore, it is useful to begin an incentive program if organization wishes to keep their good people motivated. Maybe it is a four-month incentive. Perhaps it’s a stronger commission than rivalry framework. So it gives the charge for additional qualifications. Or maybe your company even shares profit (Zhang et al, 2016).
• Share positive feedback: It’s great to get your work accomplished. It is indeed one of the main factors for job satisfaction. Satisfaction with your job will come from several different ways – from discovering how to create the ideal cup of coffee to protecting a house with the removal of a damaging tree. And if your clients like certain stuff, make sure to give your workers this input. Square Input is particularly easy to do (De Vito et al, 2018).

There are some of the following promotional strategies such as:

• Point of Sale Promotion and End Cap Marketing: Marketing at points of sale and end-cap are places to market and to support goods in shops. Convenience and motivation lay behind this advertising approach. At the end of all the aisles of the food stores, the end cap contains products that a store wants to promote or move rapidly. This company is designed to make it convenient for the consumer to navigate. Point of sale is a means of motivating a retailer to push different goods or items. The products are placed near the check-out and often purchased with impetus by consumers waiting to be checked (Tripathi, & SGI, 2018).
• Causes and Charity: Praise of your products in support of a cause can be an effective promotional strategy. It provides a win / win scenario for consumers to know like they are part of something bigger, just by buying items they will afford. You have the consumers and the socially conscious image; consumers have a product that they can use and a sense of support. One way to do this is to make your company’s commitment to help with a percentage of product profit (Sowers et al, 2019).
• Customer Appreciation Events: Customers would be drawn to the shop during a consumer loyalty celebration with complimentary food and door prizes. Focusing on the appreciation side is an efficient way to draw not only current customers but also prospective customers through the Door, without buying anything required. Pizza, hot dogs and drinks are cheap snacks that make the case more appealing (Chhabra, 2020).

Conclusion

The above report states that Woolworth Group was facing big business issue due to both internal and external factors. Their issue of slow consumer cycle and update technologies was the huge one but also it is the easiest one to solve. Therefore, organization just keeps calmed and with full strength and strategies addressed the issue. The main external factor is consumer and there is high requirement to address this therefore, the Group sort some motivational techniques and promotional strategies to stable the situation and increase the growth of the organization. They also managed their internal workforce with different methods and motivated them to get connect with customers and attract them with their services.

Woolworths require that the management focus on the adoption of the innovative and advanced technological changes within the organisation so that the customers can be attracted and a competitive position can be achieved. As today’s scenario requires that the organisation focus on being dynamic and flexible so that they can effectively adapt the required changes and ensure effectiveness.

Also, Woolworths can focus on effectively adapting promotional strategies through which the customers can be communicated about the latest product offerings and can attract them towards their stores through creating effective product campaigns and creating publicity within the industry.

References

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Sowers, M. F., Colby, S., Kavanagh, K., & Zhou, W. (2019). Testing product, pricing, and promotional strategies for vending machine interventions with a college population. Journal of Foodservice Business Research, 22(4), 303-325.

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