Formulating A Research Proposal For Woolworths: Business-Related Problem

Research Context

The report presented here is a follow up to the assignment 1 which dealt with the issues that are being currently faced by the management of the organization while implementing the strategic objectives of Woolworths Private Limited in an organized manner. The beginning of the assignment provides a round up to the main problem where the company stands on a slippery ground due to the sudden departure of Tony Phillips, the Chief Marketing Officer of the organization. The departure was thus followed by a number of similar high profile cases in the next few months (woolworths.com, 2018). The result of the decline in sales figures and the absence of a true frontline leader were thus quite normal.

The marketing experts in Australia predict a bleak future of the organization unless and until some drastic reforms are not executed. This sudden issue is cited as the main cause to undertake the research. The research is thus aimed at providing a strategic solution to the organization for overcoming the sudden situation (Albrecht, Bakker, Gruman, Macey, & Saks, 2015). The sudden change in the situation of Woolworths has resulted in a sharp decline of sales and loss of valuable retail market share to competitors such as Coles and Aldi. T he management of the company has dropped off hints in a press statement on a similar fall of sales growth of the retail organization. This will thus lead to a superficial loss for the organization in the Australian market and a huge profit for its competitors on the other hand.

The problems of the company have grown from single fold to multiple fold as the inexperienced management, in the absence of strong marketing experts have failed to read the situation and has mixed up the top priorities of the of the business (woolworths.com, 2018). This has resulted into the loss of strategic vision and less priority over the products sold by the organization. Therefore a strategic decision can change the current situation and make the organization turn their attention towards their business so that they are able to secure the right value for the business and secure a competitive advantage in the retail market of Australia (Albrecht, Bakker, Gruman, Macey, & Saks, 2015).

The research question thus can be easily identified as it will deal on the problems that are currently being faced by Woolworths. In the first assignment a validation statement has been provided for each of the questions to make the research more reliable in nature. The valid statements that have been used to identify the questions of the research will thus play an active part in order to construct the literary review of the topic selected for the assignment. Another most important question in the following research is the reasons behind the growth of Aldi and Coles in Australia. Therefore the objectives of conducting the research have been to identify the problems and the cause of the problems faced by Woolworths and also to find out the perceptions and the trends of the consumers in the modern days.

Business Oriented

The research has also suggested in reforming the current branding and promotion techniques practiced by the retail giants and apply some new methods to move away from the same old techniques and usher in new changes in the organization (Burt, 2017). The research also proposes to formulate substitute strategies to easily adapt with new changes to the trends of the modern customers.  

As mentioned earlier, there are a number of different problems that have been bothering Woolworths. The sudden departure of the Chief Marketing Officer along with other top level executives has been the major problem behind the unexpected downfall of the organization. The high scale departure turned out to be one of the major problems for the organization. There was another major problem concerning the industry which was the absence of any serious promotional campaigns that could have made the store more attractive in nature (Hansen & Taylor, 2017). Comparing the following development with the others it was seen that Coles have developed a highly successful marketing campaign in the name of “Coles Fresh Campaign”.  The campaign was surely a doom to the growth of Woolworths and given the current situation it will be tough task for the present management to bring back the organization in the line of success.

The very first reason behind the failure of the company was only themselves and their strategy. The “Cheap-Cheap Campaign” of the organization had a rough outing in the market as it was believed to be a flawed strategy that was executed in a bad manner (woolworths.com, 2018). The marketing department of Woolworths failed to read the minds of the modern customers and the modern market where the trends changes every now and then. Apart from this the failure to predict the market share sensitivity across the Australian retailers also did not helped the cause of the organization (woolworths.com, 2018). This led to a crisis in Woolworths. The absence of sticking to its main strength of building a strong brand proposition around fresh food hurt them the most. This reasons thus led to the decline of the market share in the Australian Retail market.

Australian Supermarkets are one of the most largest in the globe and most fiercely competitive. According to, Kumar & Pansari (2016) the huge competition of the industry has led to its dense concentration across the length and breadth of the country. Woolworths and Coles are two of the supermarkets in Australia that enjoy almost 80% of the market shares and thus have a huge power in the retail industry of the country. However, the recent problems in the management of Woolworths have been utilized in a proper business sense by Coles and Aldi. To be more precise ALDI’s rapid growth has been the main talking point for the last few years since its introduction in the country.  

According to the study of Podsakoff, MacKenzie & Podsakoff (2016) the providence of specially branded private level products has changed the total complexion of the industry. Such products have been an instant hit amongst the consumers who have opted for the following products in such a large scale that even the management of both Woolworth and Coles has decided to introduce such products in their supply line. Therefore the new trend of the Australian supermarkets is innovation and change management (Landers & Behrend, 2015). The innovative measures bring uniqueness to the organization and help to attract customers. Apart from Aldi new stores like Lidl and Kaufland are promoting aggressive price discounts which have been challenging the strategies adopted by others in the market.

Reasons behind the growth of Aldi and Coles in Australia

The study of Wagner III & Hollenbeck (2014) has highlighted that the rise of new companies offering large range of products has changed the trends of the consumers. Companies like Aldi and Coles have arranged themselves in such a manner that they seem to cater to the specific needs of a number of different niche customers who prefer selective brands. The new trend in Australia is this to search for new and specific products. On the other hand the study of (Landy & Conte 2016) has shown the growing trend of the online shopping in Australia. The companies have their own dedicated online presence where they offer different varities of products for the customers to buy from. As published in pwc.com.au (2018) the retail and consumer market insight of Australia has shown that retail still occupies the major part of the consumer shopping. However, there has been a small shift in the trend as more and more customers have been using online and mobile marketing. 71% of the shoppers spent the same or more in the last month of the last year. On the other hand at least 72% of the peole shopped from physical stores in Australia. There are 74% people who follow social media to keep date with new and innovative products.

The reason that has made Aldi, a successful Australian retailer has been discussed in detail in the above section. The growth of Aldi has been attributed mainly to the supply of personalized branded private level products to the end users or the consumers. The personalized branded products are totally a new concept to the Australian retail customers and thus have attracted their attention on a large scale. On the other hand, an organized selection of the most scientific strategies to gather the market shares has been the success story of Coles. The introduction of the “Coles Fresh Campaign” in the market was a strategic booster for the organization as because they were able to give an idea to the customers of creation of a brand proposition concerning fresh food. This meant that the management of Coles was able to snatch away the reputation of a food supermarket from Woolworths and promote themselves as one of them (Landers & Behrend, 2015). Therefore such reasons helped Coles and Aldi to have a good volume of shares in the Australian market.

The study of Landy & Conte (2016) has shown that the supermarket and the grocery industry have evolved into one of the most profitable and largest industry in the island continent of Australia. As said earlier, the supermarket and the grocery industry is one of the most competitive in the Australian food and beverage industry. Large scale competition from a number of Companies especially Woolworths and Coles determine the business of the organization. The recent trends in the market has been the growth of more and more low cost retailers that are offering quality products at a much cheaper as well as highly competitive price (Smith, Lawrence, MacMahon, Muller & Brady, 2016).

Problems bothering Woolworths

However, the role of technology has been the main reason behind the growth of the industry. The management of the companies has been using Artificial Intelligence to manage the buying and selling of the products in the supermarket (Rose, 2017). Robotic kiosks have been introduced in a number of shopping stores to ease pressure off the manual kiosks and make the most of the organization. “SMARTCARTS” have been introduced in most of the stores which helps to scan the luggage and charge for the shopping automatically (Luthans, Luthans & Luthans, 2015). Apart from this there are more such technologies being currently used to manage the stores.

The most important thing for the stakeholders of Woolworths will be to arrange an urgent meeting and resolve the crisis through mutual decisions. One of the main highlights of these meeting will be to ensure the selection of a top level Marketing officer and marketing consultants who will be assigned with the immediate duty to bring back the organization on track of improvement. The selection must be done on a temporary basis and a team will be created from among the marketing experts to judge the performance of the new recruits and submit the report to the stakeholders.

According to, Smith, Lawrence, MacMahon, Muller & Brady (2016) the team can also help out the new recruits with valuable inputs to help out the organization and recover their lost stand in the Australian Retail market. The organization must also ensure that they employ the latest strategies and implement them gradually to bring a unique proposition for the consumers. It will be important for the business organization to present new and innovative products to bring back the customers from other stores. The success of the organization will thus depend on the capability of the current management to usher in a scientific business improvement action plan that will help change the course of action in Australian retail supermarket (Kumar & Pansari 2016).

1. Timeliness-The preparation of the time schedule is equally important for the organization as the time schedule will help to maintain the quality and the productivity of the research.
2. Biasness-The literature review has praised as well as criticized the management of the company which   states the unbiased nature of the organization. It is important for the organization to stay unbiased.  Staying unbiased helps to formulate the research  in the  best possible manner.

Though, the study has taken a number of different researches as examples related to the source, there have been a number of small yet noticeable gaps in the selection and the presentation of the research. The most important gap being the absence of any strong information related to the other stores like Coles and Aldi. The failure to provide a detailed demographic analysis of the companies in Australia has been the negative point of the organization. Apart from this the absence of proper time and lack of proper funding have affected the quality of the following study. The inclusion of the above mentioned points could have heightened the level of the study and made it more presentable. However, the inclusion of the main details within such limitations has been the main success for the following study.

Research Questions	Explanation	Gaps in the Knowledge
What are the negative factors that lead to the decline of Woolworths?	The negative factors tend to downgrade the business of Woolworths and make it strategically weak to stay sustainable as well as profitable in the market.	The failure to provide a detailed demographic analysis of the companies in Australia has been the negative point in this case
What are the factors that lead to the growth of Coles and Aldi in Australia?	There are different positive factors like large scale investment, strategic decision making power and many more as such that helps in the development of the organization	The most important gap being the absence of any strong information related to the other stores like Coles and Aldi
How can the management of Woolworths overcome its current problems and continue to be the largest retailer of Australia?	The management of Woolworths must take strategically wise decisions and implement modern and technologically advanced systems to ensure success in the market	No gaps in knowledge

The methodology section of the following chapter provides the details of the methods and the processes which have been implemented to complete the following study (Mackey & Gass, 2015). It forms a crucial element of a study as the readers or the future researchers can get a basic idea on how to create a research by applying the best method.

Competition in the Australian Supermarkets

The objective of the research is to identify the strengths of the other stores like Coles and Aldi that challenges the organization and to provide detailed information on such. The objective in this particular case will be;

1. To determine the problems of Woolworths
2. To identify the factors behind the problem of Woolworths
3. To determine the success of Coles and Aldi
4. To identify the areas of development for Woolworths

In general there are two different kinds of research approach that are chosen by the researchers to complete the researches. The formal is the deductive research approach while the latter one is the inductive research approach. The deductive research approach and the inductive research approach are separated by the process they are used in the research (Taylor, Bogdan & DeVault, 2015). The deductive Research Approach is mainly used in the researches that use old theories and models in their research. On the other hand, inductive Research approaches are used by the researcher’s ion researches where new theories and models are formulated. Both these concepts are supposedly the only means of approaching different research topics in a proper and efficient manner.

For the particular research, the researcher has selected the use of the deductive method because it will be constructed using the existing theories and models that will be derived from the secondary sources of information regarding the Australian Supermarket and recent trends in such market.

There are generally three different kinds of research designs that are applied by the researchers; this includes descriptive, exploratory and explanatory research designs. The descriptive design is capable of providing the researcher with the various types of approaches that helps to explore the research in a detailed and descriptive manner. The exploratory design is capable of conducting the initial stages of the study based on the hypothesis made by the researcher. Lastly, the explanatory helps to develop the relationship between the two existing variables of the research study.

For getting specific and detailed information on the selected research topic on the problems of Australian supermarket, Woolworths and resolving them scientifically, it is always preferable to select the descriptive design mode because of the choice of the researcher. The following research moreover will also help in gathering the most accurate and detailed information based on the research. The other two methods have been not selected by the researcher as because the following methods will not provide a detailed approach to the research topic.

The research strategy or technique is used to guide the research in the right path and ensure its success. The strategies of the research are large in numbers which includes case studies, focus groups, survey methods, interview procedures, questionnaires and many more similar as such (Brinkmann, 2014). Each of the different research techniques involves the application of specific methods. Survey and interview process stands out from the rest of the processes when data and other information based on research have to be collected from a large group of people. The following method is also reliable as because it collects the different views and the personal thinking of the customers as well as the managers (Lewis, 2015).  

As because the following research topic is based on the view point of the customers as well as the managers and supervisors of the Company, the survey and the interview methods will be appropriate. The particular research can be completed by taking an interview of the managers. The interview method is the most appropriate for the study as because, the new management can explain in detail about the plans for the future of the organization.

The population in the proposal refers to a set of respondents that will be selected for completing the research and has same characteristics. The following research will take respondents from the buyers who opt to buy different kind of products from Woolworths. 25 of the respondents will be the buyers of Woolworths, while the other 25 will be the buyers from both Coles and Aldi supermarkets in Australia. The sample size is quite adequate to to reduce the margin of committing an error in the survey research. The larger will be the sample size, the more time and data will be needed for the research to analyze. Therefore a small sample size has been taken to ensure specific and accurate calculation.

Both the probability and the Non-probability sampling techniques can be used to complete the research. The simple sampling technique can be used to gain a better understanding of the topic. For the same purpose, 50 samples survey have been conducted among the customers of Woolworths and 3 managers of the company have been interviewed by the researcher.

As said above, the data will be collected by means of both primary and secondary ways. The primary data will be collected from the managers of the organization and the customers who visit the organization (Flick, 2015). The primary data is important as it provides a practical view of the research. On the other hand the secondary data will be collected from the assignment 1 of the following study and the other sources that have been extremely used to complete the following parts of the assignment. Apart from that, the journals and magazines of the organization will also be a welcome boost for the study.

Data analysis has been done in a form of chart and tables for better understanding of the deduced figures.

To evaluate the quantitative data the numerical digits have been transformed into percentages and then they have been demonstrated in various charts, graphs and tables.

To evaluate the qualitative data, the transcript of the speech of the managers has been prepared and analyzed in a particular process. The “Thematic Analysis” has been completed based on the interview response of the managers of the organizations.

1. What can be the trends adapted by the management of Woolworths to ensure success?
2. How can the company change the strategies to ensure better communication with the customers?
3. Recommend a proper promotional strategy to ensure success for Woolworths?

Task Name	Duration	Start	Finish
Project New	74 days	Thu 11/29/18	Tue 3/12/19
Identify Target Customers	20 days	Thu 11/29/18	Wed 12/26/18
Develop Draft Questionnaire	10 days	Thu 12/27/18	Wed 1/9/19
Pilot Test Questionnaire	5 days	Thu 1/10/19	Wed 1/16/19
Review Comments and Finalize Questionnaire	5 days	Thu 1/17/19	Wed 1/23/19
Prepare Mailing Levels	5 days	Thu 1/24/19	Wed 1/30/19
Print Questionnaire	2 days	Thu 1/31/19	Fri 2/1/19
Select Interview questions	2 days	Mon 2/4/19	Tue 2/5/19
Select Interview Date	1 day	Wed 2/6/19	Wed 2/6/19
Conduct Interview	1 day	Thu 2/7/19	Thu 2/7/19
Provide Questionnaire	5 days	Fri 2/8/19	Thu 2/14/19
Receive Questionnaire Responses	4 days	Fri 2/15/19	Wed 2/20/19
Input Response Data	2 days	Thu 2/21/19	Fri 2/22/19
Analyze Data	10 days	Mon 2/25/19	Fri 3/8/19
Print Report	1 day	Mon 3/11/19	Mon 3/11/19
Submission of Report	1 day	Tue 3/12/19	Tue 3/12/19

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