Discuss about the Strategic Information System for Woolworths Supermarket.
Strategic information system or simply SIS can be eventually defined as the specific set of guidelines that are utilized by various organizations for setting their various strategies or plans as per the existing principles (Peppard and Ward 2016). The alignment of information systems or IS and the streamlining of the business objectives are much easier with this particular system. Strategic information system even gives the organization to excel and fulfil their short term as well as long term goals. Accounting information systems are the exclusive part of a strategic information system. AIS is the structure utilized by any business for the proper or significant financial data operation and are utilized by the chief financial officers, managers, accountants, auditors, consultants, tax agencies and business analysts (Cassidy 2016). There are various accounting software packages that help in using the AIS in any specific organization.
This literature review will substantially outline the detailed description on the accounting information system of the most popular and renowned supermarket of Australia, namely, Woolworths Supermarket. The current organizational structure with all the operational problems will be well defined here. This literature review will also provide relevant details about the system acquisition method and a system flowchart on the sales procedure of Woolworths. The several control problems and frauds will also be provided here. The second part of the literature review focuses on the accounting software package that is suitable for the organization. The market size, market leaders and the competitors of Woolworths Supermarket with proper recommendations for the challenges will be given here.
Woolworths Supermarket or simply Woolworths is the most and significant grocery store or supermarket in Australia that is run as well as owned by the Woolworths Limited (Woolworthsgroup.com.au. 2018). This particular grocery store or supermarket was founded in the year of 1924 and is responsible for taking up the 80% shares of the total Australian market. The specialty of this supermarket is selling various groceries like meat, vegetables, packaged foods and fruits. Moreover, they also sell other products like beauty and health products, magazines, supplies for pets or babies, DVDs and several stationery items.
Currently, Woolworths is operating more than 1000 stores in Australia, extra 19 convenience stores and 968 supermarkets. Woolworths Online is called as the HomeShop and provides an amazing service of home shopping delivery (Woolworthsgroup.com.au. 2018). The first name of this popular supermarket was Wallworths Bazaar Ltd. Later it was changed to Woolworths Limited. This particular organization has raised their dividends from 5% to almost 50%.
The organizational structure of the popular and famous grocery store of Australia, Woolworths Supermarket contains two main structures (Pearlson, Saunders and Galletta 2016). They are the management and the corporate structures. Both the structures contain the details of the products of the organization and the relevant management bodies of Woolworths Limited.
The above figure has depicted a clear view of the management structure of the organization of Woolworths Supermarket with all important and significant members of the supermarket (Appelbaum et al. 2017).
The corporate structure of the Woolworths Supermarket helps to understand the various types of goods and services provided by the organization for their business (Kavanagh and Johnson 2017). Moreover, the prices of all these items are also provided in the corporate structure.
Woolworths Supermarket is the leading supermarket in Australia that provides various goods as well as services to its customers. In spite of providing important and significant advantages to its clients and being popular for all the customers in Australia, Woolworths Supermarket does face some of the most significant and vital operational problems within its system (Galliers and Leidner 2014). The most important reason for these types of problems mainly includes the absolute wrong strategies undertaken by them. The main area of their downfall is in the share market. The shares of this particular organization of Woolworths Supermarket are falling down drastically and they are not being able to cope up with this properly (Hill, Jones and Schilling 2014). The approaches that they have taken to maintain to stay in the top position of the market have completely back fired them and the strategies have become problematic. This type of problem has mainly occurred due to the reason for regular change within the trends of the market. Woolworths Supermarket is one of the major competitors for any of the supermarkets in Australia and thus their rise in share market is extremely important (Nguyen, Nguyen and Bosch 2017). Since, various other supermarkets has come into account in recent days, Woolworths is not being able to fulfil the requirements or needs of their customers. The supply of their products is much less than the demands of their customers. Moreover, the cost of the products and services of this particular supermarket is much higher than the rest of the supermarkets. Thus, people are avoiding the Woolworths Supermarket (Haux et al. 2013). The customers are going to other supermarkets and thus the sales growth is degrading exponentially.
The above figure has clearly depicted the drastic downfall of the shares of Woolworths Supermarket. The graph shows the downfall of shares for the year of 2015 and 2016 (Li, Cui and Lu 2017). It was more than 30 in the month of April in 2015; however, it has gone down to 23, in the month of February in 2016. A clear image is given in the graph that Woolworths Supermarket is incapable in holding the existing clients. Now, since the existing customers are not happy, the new customers have also chosen to avoid this particular organization. The high cost of the products is the sole reason for this (Abraham and Dao 2017). The customers are getting the same products with lower price in other supermarkets and thus they are avoiding Woolworths Supermarket. These customers have the tendency of buying best quality of goods and services with extremely less prices. Since, Woolworths Supermarket is not being capable to provide so, the customers are moving away and they are losing their customers. Marketing strategy is yet another reason for their operational problems. Advertisement of their products and organization is extremely less and the new customers are not getting the details of the supermarket (Coviello and Tanev 2017). They should hire a well marketing expert for solving their particular operational problem and thus they would be able to cope up with their problems and finally can rise again to the top position.
Woolworths Supermarket has undertaken six major components as their strategies. The first and the foremost strategy of this organization is the solid and efficient business foundations. The second strategy is good prices and in right range (Laudon and Laudon 2016). The next strategy of Woolworths Supermarket is to provide great services to the customers and serve the best and fresh products. Step change store renewal program is the next important step in their strategies. The customer satisfaction and their culture is the most important strategy of Woolworths Supermarket.
Woolworths Supermarket of Australia is solely following the basic ERP model or the Enterprise Resource Planning model for their system acquisition method (Bryson 2017). System acquisition method is the specific technique that various organizations use for the successfully obtaining and gaining the various goals and objectives of their organization. The erroneous strategies are the most important problems in the system.
The above figure depicts the Enterprise Resource Planning model of the Woolworths Supermarket. They utilize the ERP model of SAP for their business and thus try to reduce their operational problems with this model (Arvidsson, Holmström and Lyytinen 2014). The ERP model of the Woolworths Supermarket comprises of five components. They are the human resource management or HRM, manufacturing resource management MRM, supply chain management or SCM, customer relationship management or CRM and financial management or FM. The shares and the sales of the Woolworths Supermarket are trying to be brought to a better position by the renewal of their existing SAP model (Konsynski and Karimi 2013). Moreover, the logistics partners and the manufacturers of this organization are being altered so that there is no delay in the supply of their products.
The above figure demonstrates a clear view of the sales flowchart of the Woolworths Supermarket. The entire process of sales is depicted within the figure with relevant details (Ogiela 2015). This particular flowchart helps to understand the various loopholes within the system and how those loopholes could be mitigated.
The first and the foremost step in the sales flowchart starts with the customer submitting his or her process order. Later on after various steps in the sales section, contracts sections, legal sections, the process comes to the fulfilment of the order (Hill, Jones and Schilling 2014). When the order the fulfilled by maintaining all terms and conditions, the customer gets his order. Else the entire process is repeated.
The problems or the issues that are being faced by the Woolworths Supermarket have occurred due to the constant alterations in the market trends. The growth or development of any organization solely is dependent on the customers, shareholders, owners, logistics partners, marketing team, finance department and manufacturers (Palvia and Palvia 2013). The brand name of the popular supermarket of Woolworths Supermarket is getting affected due to all these problems within the system. These problems are required to be mitigated as soon as possible; else the organization would be in grave danger. The first and the most important step to retain the position is the involvement of all types of workers (Pearlson, Saunders and Galletta 2016). Service process could be best answer in this type of problem. Moreover, all the workers should interact with the customers and for that Woolworths Supermarket should involve more workers. Self checkouts can be another option for these problems. The customer relationship management is yet another important answer to the problems of Woolworths Supermarket (Nguyen, Nguyen and Bosch 2017). This type of management helps to retain a good relationship with the customers of the supermarket properly and without any problem.
The accounting software packages help any organization to gain utmost popularity and make the business activities and actions extremely effective and easy (Ismail and King 2014). Moreover, the complexities of the business operations are solely reduced with this particular software. There are various types of threats and issues in any business. These issues and problems get lowered with the accounting software package. Various types of accounting software packages are available in the market (Abraham and Dao 2017). Amongst all of these, Woolworths Supermarket has not opted for the modern and advanced technologies. Rather, they have opted to renew their SAP model. The most significant advantage of this SAP model is that they do not increase the cost of the operations and rather decrease the costs (Peppard and Ward 2016). Furthermore, these SAP models are utilized for improving the productivity and incrementing the efficiencies within the system.
The market position of the Woolworths Supermarket is clearly provided in the above figure. During January, the share prices were more than 15, however, in November; it has come down to below 5.
Although, Woolworths Supermarket is one of the leading supermarkets in Australia, there are few more in the long run. Aldi, Coles and IGA are the three most significant competitors of the organization (Arvidsson, Holmström and Lyytinen 2014). High prices of products are the similar issue for all four. However, since Woolworths Supermarket has larger investments, the chances of winning the competition are higher in Woolworths.
The above figure provides a clear illustration on the competition of Woolworths Supermarket and all other supermarkets (Laudon and Laudon 2016). It depicts that Woolworths and Coles Group are the market leaders in supermarkets as they are taking away the maximum shares. Woolworths Supermarket is in the winning position. IGA is in the third position and has taken only 9.80% total market shares (Palvia and Palvia 2013). Hence, Woolworths Supermarket is getting the competitive advantages in comparison to others.
Woolworths Supermarket is facing various problems within their business or system. The most important problem amongst all of them is the downfall of sales of the organization. The market shares have gone down and people are avoiding this particular supermarket. High price products are the sole reason for this problem. The first and the foremost recommendation for the Woolworths Supermarket is to reduce the prices of the goods and services as soon as possible. Id the prices would be lowered, the customers would again be back to the supermarket and thus the sales would be on a better position. The second problem is the lack of employees or workers. They should hire more employees for their organization, so that they are able to interact with the customers perfectly. These recommendations are supposed to bring more success to the organization by mitigating the problems.
Conclusion
Therefore, from the above literature review, conclusion can be drawn that the most significant objective or goal of the incorporation of a strategic information system is that this type of system allows all the entrepreneurs in assessing several alterations in the organizational environment and finally uses as the beneficial and advantageous characteristic. There are specifically three types of strategic information system. They are the financial, strategic and operational types. It completely depends on the type of the business they are being incorporated. The process of decision making becomes very easy with this strategic information system. This alignment or streamlining is done with the strategies of business. Strategic information systems are even used for digging the latest information system with respect to the production, market and promotion of the services and products that are good for the business strategies. This type of information system also helps the organizations in underlining the procedures of data collection and helping in various marketing opportunities. Accounting software packages are specific software that is utilized by various organizations to perform any accounting operations as well as manage or control the accounts. Various types of accounting software packages are available in the market. The most significant amongst them are the Xero, Myob, QuickBooks, FreeAgent, Hiveage and many more. The above literature review has provided a brief description on the strategic information system of Woolworths Supermarket, Australia. The various details of the organization with organizational structure, operational problems, system acquisition method, and system flowchart are provided here. Moreover, the suitable accounting software package, the market size, market leaders and suitable recommendations for their gaps and challenges are also provided in the literature review.
References
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Arvidsson, V., Holmström, J. and Lyytinen, K., 2014. Information systems use as strategy practice: A multi-dimensional view of strategic information system implementation and use. The Journal of Strategic Information Systems, 23(1), pp.45-61.
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Cassidy, A., 2016. A practical guide to information systems strategic planning. CRC press.
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Woolworthsgroup.com.au. 2018. Woolworths Supermarkets – Woolworths Group. [online] Available at: https://www.woolworthsgroup.com.au/page/about-us/our-brands/supermarkets/Woolworths [Accessed 14 Apr. 2018].
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