Coco “Superstore” is an extremely famous outlet located in the capital city of Perth. Its location is the reason behind its popularity. Situated just a few miles away from the university, see amass of students and professors surrounding the store. Coco superstore commenced its operations in the year 2015, and it quickly became popular name in and around the university area. The founders of the coco superstore graduated from the same university.
Founders had a tough time going out for grocery shopping, or the items essential for their day to day activities in and around the campus. They had to travel a long distance to get general items, also during exam time there was no store or local delivery solution to keep the students fill up their appetite. This was the lacunae which they observed and thought of coming up with their own superstore, which will cater to students need round the clock throughout the year. Founders were very sharp and in no time realized the fruits of digital age and came up with mobile app for the store, where students can easily navigate the application and order items for themselves from their respective campuses.
In the report further, it will be told how the business is growing, what is the target market, the future envision, the services it provides, how the store deals with organization challenges and motivation of its employees. It will also be mentioned about what kind of organisation structure is followed by coco superstore, its employee strength and decision making dynamics. It is extremely essential for a sound business to be confident about its organizational value, culture, business goals & objectives, focussing on power, communication and handling conflict. Employees are the pillars of success for any organisation, how the management handles the employees in keeping them on their feet all the time will be a lesson to learn.
As Founders graduated from their college, they had big dreams in their eyes, aspirations to make it big and a plan which they wanted to implement & execute with a careful strategy. They were sure of the business idea, opening of a giant superstore, a store which would cater to the needs of the students and locales and provide them with plethora of services they require while putting their minds to good use. It took them nearly three years to implement what was just a thought to begin with at the point in time.
Currently, Coco superstore is spread across 4000 Sq. ft. of land, with two storeys and a basement. The store operates from morning 9 till late 3 at night. The store has almost 100 employees, which are divided into, delivery, procurement, Human resource, customer relationship management, cash counter, in store assistance etc. The superstore has all the technologies required to make it one of the best in the nearby areas. The basement is kept for heavy household items and is kind of a store area for the store. The ground floor has amenities like general household stuff, books, eatables etc. The first floor has fresh vegetables, fruits, and a bakery. It also embodies in itself a coffee house, which the student can utilize when they are tired from studying in the campus. The USP of coco superstore is its extremely fresh products. Almost 60 % of the goods at the superstore are fresh. The hygiene factor is taken care by an outsourced vendor, who takes care of all the cleanliness and the necessary requirement for the same. The store has used RFID to fasten its billing process, as they have understood, waiting customers in the queue are a source of negative feedback.
The staff is highly efficient at the superstore , with prior experience in the retail store. The staffs has been given uniform which they have to wear at all times with the badge on them, it helps the customers in calling them by name, thus initiating a process of customer relationship building. The manager follows SERVQUAL as a parameter for their services and use RATER model to evaluate the services. (Ali & Raza, 2017). At the checkout counter, there is a machine which takes customer’s feedback and a bell hanging at the counter, to be rung when the customer is delighted with the service. Founders have put all their learning in college to good use, as is evident once somebody enters the superstore. Coco superstore faces competition from Metcash & Wesfarmrs, but it has an advantage over them, as they are situated far away from the university and also they don’t provide delivery services, neither have an application. At the same time Target audience for these superstores are locales and hence their prices are at the higher end in comparison to coco that does its pricing according to the students. The delivery boys at the store are well trained with relevant experience, which understand the business model and have strong belief in the concept of great customer service. The time taken for the delivery is also monitored by the operations team, and an accuracy of 90% is maintained in delivering the shopping items to the students.
It can be understood as a system of shared values, assumptions, beliefs and norms that are embodied in the organization and unite its members. It is also employee’s views about how things are done in the organisation. In the light of organizational culture, there are predominantly 4 types of cultures (Jones & George, 2015)
In this type of culture, the environment of the organization is a friendly one. The manager’s acts more like of father figure rather than the bosses. People working in this type of environment have more in common and have a shared belief. Success is defined with the framework of addressing the client’s needs, handling objections with due diligence and care for the people. This type of organisation promotes team work, participation and work with consensus. The leaders are more like a facilitator, or a mentor or a team builder. The values which drive this kind of culture are commitment, communication and development (Kim, 2014)
This can be seen as the most formalized and a structured work environment, where procedures and processes define, and decide what an employee has to do. It is based on efficiency based coordination and organization. Keeping the functioning of the organization is most pivotal in this type of culture. The long terms goals for such kind of culture are stability and result oriented. Trustful delivery, smooth planning and low cost defines the success parameters for organization using hierarchical culture. The leader can be seen more of a coordinator, monitor or the one who organizes things. Efficiency, timelines, consistency and uniformity defines the value of the organization. Definitely an effective culture used in organizations which are more focussed on the results and deliverables (Duenes, 2017)
This can be understood as a result based organization which focuses on finishing the work in the deadline and getting things done. People in this type of organizational culture are more focussed on goals rather than anything. The organization is just focussed on winning, and winning is the pedestal against which all the parameters are measured. The leaders in such type of cultures are very hard, goal oriented, tough taskmasters who have very high expectations from the employees. Reputation and efficiency is what runs in the blood flow of such an organization culture. Increase in market share, profitability & achieving goals are the values that drive the organisation (Bakshi, 2017)
This is the most dynamic and creative working environment. In this type of organization cultures, employees are risk takers and the leaders are innovators. Experiments, brainstorming & bonding forms the core of this organization. The long term goal for the organisation is to grow and create more and more resources. The development and availability of new product and services is seen as success parameters. The leader can be understood as an innovator, visionary, the value which drives this kind of culture are transformation, agility in the system and innovative outputs (Wells & Lower, 2016)
Coco superstore, which is just 2 year old entity, follows clan culture within its organization. Founders both act like mentor to the employees and their primary goal is to keep their employees happy, they believe in the notion that “ if you take care of your employees, they in turn will take care of your customers”. They focus on team building rather than any other parameter and empowering their employees, they also consult their employees in decision making; this makes their employees really happy and content and hence serves the customers with utmost sincerity and dedication.
In an organization, a group of people come together to work towards the same goals and objectives, which predominantly are, success of the organisation .Power is a concept inherent in the organisation, which can be understood as the people having authority, capability of decision making and are the ones who take control of the organization .Power can be of the following types in an organization
Legitimate Power: This is the kind of power which comes from the designation and which is being accepted by the members of the organisation. This kind of power is agreed upon by the members, and they have to carry out certain function and role in their individual capacity (Betty, 2016)
Rewards Power: It is the capability to reward or fulfil some ones interest. This can also be understood as the capacity someone has to do appraisal, reward an employee on his performance, and give him a week off or something on these lines. This is one of the most important concepts of power vested in the hands of the managers (Nosenzo & Sefton, 2014)
Coercive power: As the name suggest this can be understood as the ability to punish someone. This type of power is required to maintain proper work flow and maintain discipline in the organization. Examples of this kind of power are fine, demotion, over time etc.
Expert Power: This is the kind of power which is expertise on the basis of influence or the knowledge. The team looks up to such people in the organisation because of the vast experience they have and also the knowledge on the topic (Chimhundu, 2016)
Referent Power: It can be referred to the interpersonal relationship or the image of a person among the people. This can be derived in the form of respect, love, affection etc. This type of power usually develops slowly and helps to portrait ones image in front others (Petress, 2013)
No power can be absolute in existence, it always have to be in combination or a collateral effect of 2 or more powers. In case of Coco superstore, the power exercised is a combination of reward, expert and legitimate power. Coco superstore empowers it employees and give them substantial power in their hand to manage the business operations.
Communication is extremely essential in all forms of organisation, irrespective of its business functions and industry, it plays the pivotal role. Communication helps in knowing the colleagues, understanding managers, and building connect with them, creating a space of harmonious relation amongst each other. Communication can be understood as the building block of any relationship. It also helps in doing away with any kind of cultural barriers, because as workforce diversity is increasing these days, barriers are prone to happen, and the only way to deal with it is having communication (Rosalez, 2017). Communication can be categorized in two parts namely internal & external communication.
Internal communication: It can be understood as the communication which takes place in the organisation. It can be face to face or in different ways like mail exchanges, team meeting, team building, fax etc. This type of communication has its importance, as it’s the only way the employees are get to know of developments in the organisation and also what is expected out of them. At coco stores, both traditional and conventional forms of communication are used, which helps the employees in understanding the goals, objectives of the organisation, and the strategy being used to achieve such goals. The employees also get a fair understanding of their individual roles and contribution in the development of the organisation (Men, 2014)
External communication: It is the form of communication which happens between those in the organisation and outside the organisation. Recipient can be potential customers, existing customers, or the target audience and other stakeholders. Coco superstore is extremely smart with its communicative strategy with the external stakeholders. They on a continual base use the power of social media to communicate with the outer world. Facebook is one of the main channels of communication with the student. Students keep getting different discount offers, promotional schemes through Facebook and they utilize the same. Company also uses mailers to communicate with its audience, try to keep them updated on the new products and similar content. Feedback, another important aspect of any business entity is given a lot of heads to in coco superstore, a team of 4 customer relation manager is proactive on social media and other channels to address the grievance of the customers. Such beautifully designed communicative strategy helps coco store register their name in the head of customer (Ying, 2016)
This can be defined as the mental struggle resulting from incompatible or opposing needs, drive, wishes and external or internal demand. Conflict in an organisation is no surprise, where there are individuals conflict is bound to happen. The conflict can be classified as:
This is one of the most difficult types of conflict to handle within an organization, as this has remotely nothing to do with the organization. It is entirely depended on the person’s physiological viewpoint of things happening in his life, his perceptions and his views are a source of the conflict. This type of conflict which a person faces with himself is really tricky to handle, it may also lead to depression. At Coco superstore, there is a helpline service 24*7 for its employees who are facing such inner conflicts. This also helps the employee in developing faith in the organisation (Kumar, 2015)
This is the type of conflict which arises among individuals within the team. This type of conflict arises because of different personalities of team members and their vast and varied experience. Also this kind of conflict can happen because of difference of opinion. It is very common type of conflict clouding the organisation and can seriously affect the working of the organisation. Such conflicts have to be handled with due diligence by the mangers. It is responsibility of the manger to not take any one side and try to reason out the differences. The managers at coco superstores are ably equipped and have sufficient knowledge on how to handle this kind of conflict (Dickinson, 2017)
Interpersonal conflict: This is the type of conflict which happens between two individuals. The reasons can be numerous for this kind of conflict, like, disagreement of some problem and its solution, personal issues, comment, etc. It is also one of the most common types of conflict arising in the organisation .At coco stores, such kind of conflict can be resolved by the HR or the respective managers by listening out to the story of both sides and reaching an amicable solution.
Intergroup conflict is when misunderstanding happens between different teams in an organisation. For example marketing department having conflict with customer success team or sales team having conflict with the operations team. This type of conflict happens because of varied goals and objective. It is one of the most constructive types of conflict in an organisation. It helps the different teams to mingle with each other, understand and handle each team’s objections and helps in building positive synergies among the different teams (Watson , 2017)
Coco superstore uses one of the following methods to do a conflict resolution
These are some of the tried and trusted theories which organization have been using in the past and present. HR and mangers constructively use these theories to handle conflicts in the organisation
At coco superstore, the decision making is decentralized. The top management has invested the powers in the hands of team mangers and employers. They have been given autonomy to make decision or recommend changes in the organisational culture. Decisions making powers if given to employees they become more judicious on gaining this power, as it comes along with more responsibility and accountability. It also helps in improving team dynamics as all the employees brainstorm together and work collectively towards problem solving. Team dynamics is based on a simple logic, that team effort is better than the individual efforts. Hence, at coco superstore, management by empowering its employees are doing a terrific job.
Motivation is the urge behind an individual’s actions, desires & needs. It is what causes an individual to get up with strength every day and deliver what is expected out of him, or even exceed the expectations. Motivation is a very generic concept which is used in every sphere of life, may be it personal or professional. Motivation is a need, rather than being just a concept (Nuttin, 2014)
Content Theory: Content theory can be understood as “what” motivates people to individual needs which leads to their goals. They help in understanding the employee needs for job satisfaction, it helps to understand “what” is required by an employee to feel motivated, to feel energized and push himself up every day, a step closer to his goals. It focuses on the internal factors of the employees that energize and direct his behaviour towards his goals. It can also be called as need theory, as it focuses on the individual needs of an employee. This is one of the earliest theories to be rolled out, in organization it has a great impact, but in academic circles, they don’t have too much relevancy, as some of the theories are difficult to prove. Content theories are further categorized into:
Here it can be established that the content theories focus on an individual’s need, his desires and wants, which motivates him to excel and keep moving forward every day. By focussing on individual needs of employee managers tend to keep them motivated and thus in turn extract productivity from them.
Process Theory: Unlike the content theories which say “What” motivates individual, process theories says “How” the human behaviour is motivated. The theory is concerned with “how” the process of motivation occurs and what process can influence the motivation. For management implication, this can be understood as: How people make choices to work hard or not and these choices are based on their, individual preferences, available rewards & possible work outcomes. Understanding what motivates an individual is really important, only once we have got the clarity of the motivation process in general, then we can go about motivating an employee. (Brookhart, 2013) There are number of theories of motivation. Let’s see them in brief:
Therefore, the objectivity of the process theories can be understood by simply saying that understanding how human behaviour is motivated. Once we have assessed, how to motivate a human behaviour, we can go around with the different theories to motivate him towards his goals.
At coco superstore, emphasis is given to employee motivation. HR and the mangers use different theories as mentioned above to keep the employees motivated. Motivation is primary reason for an individual to work for the company. Once the employee feels motivated, there is no stopping to his contribution and productivity for the company. Managers thus keep on meeting team on a fortnight basis, understand their problems and work on the solution to the problems. It helps the employee to feel connected to the organisation and at the same time work towards organisational goals and objectives. Coco superstore therefore believes in empowering its employees and gives them a good say in organization decision making and policies. 360 degree feedback system is followed in the company, which helps in the overall development and evaluation of the employees, at the same time helps them to learn and grow.
Conclusion
In the light of the organisational theories discussed above, motivation theories, conflict handling & resolution theories, it can be concluded that Coco superstore is doing an extremely fantastic job by taking care of its employees and also its customers. The superstore is empowering its employees who in turn are doing whatever they can in their best capacity to keep their customers happy. Employees are managed by the managers and HR in a very systematic manner, their concerns are heard with a view of empathy and hence the company comes up with providing better solution to their problems. The delivery guys are one of the most important facets of the superstore, who are also being managed wonderfully by their respective team leaders. The service offering which the company is providing by serving the students even at late hours is creating a positive impact in their minds. Students are relying more and more on coco superstores, because the store has very well understood their concerns and is specifically catering to them. The solution and service parameters are all designed specific to the students and nearby locales. Coco superstore, at the same time is effectively managing its social pages and is listening to its customers, and innovating practices in order to serve the clients better. Promotions, discount coupons etc., something which every student is in need of are present in abundance on their social pages, which is also helping them in growing the business. Company on a daily basis keeps on updating its pages of Facebook, Pinterest to have a good engagement and drive conversation with its audience. Along with it, the company has been enjoying a good share of voice on its social pages because of its great services and prompt customer support. The employee turnover rate is extremely low in coco superstore, because of the efforts managers put in to hire, train, empower, motivate and take care of the employees. Different team building activities, monthly holiday trips are some of the ways in which employees are motivated.
A special mention is required for the team managing the delivery for coco superstore. The company focuses on delivering the products within 60 minutes to the university; the team understands the concern and situation of the student and hence are always upbeat on their delivery time. It can be concluded by saying that the coco superstore is on a dream run with its first business, as they have really understood what it takes to run a successful business.
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