Strategic Information System: Coles Supermarket

Organizational Background of Coles Supermarket

Discuss About The Strategic Information System: Coles Supermarket.

The collection of guidelines that are used by various organizations to set their plans as well as strategies as per the principles is known as SIS or strategic information system. The most important goal of this information system is that it helps the entrepreneurs in assessing the environmental alterations and thus utilizing them for the beneficial features (Laudon and Laudon 2016). The strategic information system could be easily classified in three sections. They are financial part, operational part and strategic part. All these three parts are solely related to the kind of business they are being incorporated. With the help of this strategic information system, the process of decision making becomes easier and the objectives of the business are properly streamlined (Prasad and Green 2015). Additionally, the strategic information system is responsible for providing the enterprises with significant solutions, which enable the companies in setting and fulfilling the long term as well as short term objectives of the business. This system is utilized for helping the organizations in digging into important information in respect to production or promotion of the goods and services. This information system is utilized for incorporating the database of the company for saving the information and also the procedure to enhance the business procedures (Smith 2013). The specific kind of application software that is utilized for processing or even recording the accounting related transactions.

This review would be focusing on the accounting information system of Coles Supermarket. The structure, problems, strategies of the selected organization will be given here with subsequent details. Moreover, the suitable accounting software package for the company is provided in the review.

The Australian organization of Coles Supermarket Pty Ltd. that is trading as Coles provides consumer services as well as retail services to the customers (Coles Supermarkets. 2018). It is headquartered in Melbourne and the owner of this organization is Wesfarmers. This popular company was founded in 1914 by George Coles in Melbourne, Australia. Currently, this organization is operating in 801 different locations within Australia and its suburbs. Recently, the brands have been altered to BI-LO Supermarkets. The total number of employees in today’s world is over 100,000 (Coles Supermarkets. 2018). The most significant rival of this particular organization is Woolworths Supermarket and both of them are taking up the 80 percent of total market of Australia in groceries and other goods.

Current Organizational Structure of Coles Supermarket

Coles Supermarket also allows or enables online shopping for their consumers, known as the Coles Online. They provide click and collect ability and even home delivery in their business. Currently, the Managing Director of this organization is John Durkan. The total revenue of the supermarket is 33 billion dollars and the operating income in one year is approximately 1.9 billion (Coles Supermarkets. 2018). The shares of this organization are extremely higher than the rest of the organizations and thus most of the customers of this organization are happy with their products. The various products of this organization mainly include milk, fresh vegetables, fruits, deli platters, pantry basics and many more.

The organizational structure of any particular organization helps to define the procedure of activities or actions like coordination of task, allocation of responsibilities, supervision are eventually directed towards the successful achievement of the objectives and aims of the organization (Cassidy 2016). Each and every organization requires to be effective, flexible, scalable, innovative, and efficient for obtaining all the competitive advantages. The organizational structure is considered as the perspective through which each and every individual view the organization and its respective environment (Daoud and Triki 2013). The organization is structured in several ways on the basis of the objectives. The organizational structure determines all the modes by which they operate and perform. It allows the respective responsibility allocation for every process and function to the separate entity like department, individual and branch (Fitriati and Mulyani 2015). The organizational structure affects the action of organization in two methods like providing foundation about the procedures of operation and determination of participation of the decision making processes.

Figure 1: Organizational Structure of Coles Supermarket

(Source: Coles Supermarkets. 2018)

The above figure shows the complete organizational structure of Coles Supermarket. This structure is utilized for determining several managing bodies of the organization. The three levels of management are properly demonstrated here (Willcocks 2013). Each and every person involved in this organization has his or her respective responsibility or role for successfully executing the business processes or operations. Coles Supermarket has segregated the three management levels subsequently. The top management of this organization involves the Vice President, Executive Vice President, General Manager and the President. These top level management people are responsible for taking each and every decision or strategy of the organization (Prasad and Green 2015). Without their permission, no decision is being taken within the bank. They provide instructions to the next level of management. The next level of management is the middle level management. The manager of the information technology, secretary, pricing coordinator is the main parts of this particular middle level. They follow the instructions of the top level management and checks for the next level of management. The next level of management is the lower level management (Hall 2014). The various salesperson, assistant operations manager, technicians, graphics designer are important parts of this particular level.  

Operational Problems in Coles Supermarket

The Australian supermarket, Coles is considered as one of the most successful businesses in the world that has been serving its customers for more than hundred years. They have been going through excellent tenure and have been fighting over the difficult situations over and over with their extra ordinary strategies and decisions (Richardson, Chang and Smith 2014). However, in spite of all these advantages, the Australian organization of Coles Supermarket is going through various insignificant and threatening problems within their business operations. The various operational problems within the business are given below:

1. i) Online Shopping: This is the most important problem within their business. They have provided the option for online shopping in their business. However, the online retail supply chain of this company helps to provide massive popularity for the organization and hence the consumers could get all the advantages from them (Galliers and Leidner 2014). It has been noticed that only 2 percentages of the total sales of the company is from the online sales and this very low in terms of sales. Apart from this, the products are to be delivered to the customers with free delivery. The organization is incapable of obtaining this huge amount of loss within the business sales.
2. ii) Lack of Products Availability: The second significant problem in the business operations of Coles Supermarket is the lack of goods and products availability. The organization is not being able to provide as much as products as needed for their customers (Lucia 2013). This lack of availability of products and services is making the customers extremely unhappy and they are shifting to other competitors or retail shops.

iii) Lack of Customer Relationship Management: The CRM or customer relationship management is not present within the business of Coles Supermarket. CRM helps a business to maintain a good relation with its customers and so that there is no problem for managing those customers. Coles Supermarket does have this CRM in their business.

The system acquisition method within any business is utilized for developing an application rapidly and hassle free (Simkin, Norman and Rose 2014). These are even used by the vendors of an organization, who require providing more customizable and generalized systems. Three typical types of system acquisition methods are present. They are the ERP, custom software and commercial software. Amongst these three, the organization of Coles Supermarket has acquired the software of ERP or enterprise resource planning in their business. ERP is used for integrating all the business process in a single one (Worrell, Wasko and Johnston 2013). There are various processes in the business of Coles Supermarket like finance, manufacturing, logistics, raw materials and many more. All of them are easily managed and controlled by the software of ERP.

Figure 2: Integration of Processes through ERP in Coles Supermarket

(Source: Coles Supermarkets. 2018)

System flowchart is the method to display of the procedure of data flow within any specific system (Cassidy 2016). This also displays the procedure of decisions for controlling the events. Various symbols are utilized for this purpose. The system flowchart of any organization could demonstrate any typical process or a group of processes. In this scenario, the system flowchart would be displaying the entire sales procedure of the organization of Coles Supermarket. Since, they are involved in the major process of buying and selling, the sales process is extremely important and significant for them (Trigo, Belfo and Estébanez 2014). The system flowchart of the sales procedure of the Coles Supermarket is given below:

Most Likely System Acquisition Method

Figure 3: Sales Procedure of Coles Supermarket

(Source: Coles Supermarkets. 2018)

The above flowchart of Coles Supermarket displays the entire sales procedure of this organization. The first step of this flowchart is the ordering of services. Then the purchase requisition form is completed (Collier 2015). If the form is rejected, the purchase requisition form is rejected and the customer again has to fill up the purchase requisition form. However, if the purchase requisition form is approved, the customer is being asked about the payment mode, i.e. whether the payment will be in cash or card. If the mode of cash payment is cash, the question is asked that whether it is from any independent contractor. If yes, the agreement of the independent contractor is to be filled out on file and if not, the purchase order from the customer is obtained and finally invoice purchase requisition purchase order is obtained and the product is handed over to the customer (Apostolou et al. 2014). However, if the payment mode is of credit card, the process is simpler. At first, the CCPR is to be filled out by the customer and the invoice purchase requisition CCPR is requested by the customer. Finally, the documents are made ready and the product is handed over to the customer. This entire sales procedure is extremely easy and simple and hence could be executed by all individuals.

There are several problems within the system of Coles Supermarket. The first problem is the high price of their products. The products as well as services are extremely expensive and this price is getting higher day by day. The second problem is the conflicts within three levels of management (Demski 2013). The instructions are not followed properly by the lower level and middle level management. Thus, conflicts are occurring. The third problem is the degradation in share prices. These problems are needed to be mitigated substantially do that there exists no problem within the business processes.

The frauds possible in the business of Coles Supermarket mainly include fake emails, fake SMSs, sniffing, phishing and erroneous transactions.

Accounting software can be defined as the application software that is utilized by any organization for successfully using the accounting information system and also dealing with various finance related transactions (Online Accounting Software Xero. 2018). The most popular accounting software are Myob, Xero and QuickBooks Online. All of them are extremely efficient and effective and provide various benefits to the organization. The organization of Coles Supermarket has developed and adopted the accounting software of Xero within the business processes. Since, it is a cloud based software; the organization is getting several advantages of cloud like cost effectiveness, less time consuming and many others (Online Accounting Software Xero. 2018).

Coles Supermarket is going through a tough situation for the last few years. Being the best supermarket for over hundred years it is not at all expected from them to degrade their position to a lower level (Trigo, Belfo and Estébanez 2014). The current position of Coles Supermarket in respect to others is given below:

Figure 4: Market Size of Coles Supermarket

(Source: Coles Supermarkets. 2018)

The above figure displays the current position of Coles Supermarket in the present world. Amongst the world’s best chains of supermarkets, Wesfarmers or Coles Supermarket is in fourth position after Woolworths Supermarket (Worrell, Wasko and Johnston 2013). The total turnover of this particular organization is slightly below 3.50%. They would have to effective in their strategies for going on top.

Following is the graph of market leaders and competitors of Coles Supermarket.

Figure 5: Market Leaders and Competitors

(Source: Coles Supermarkets. 2018)

The above graph displays the shares of all the popular Australian supermarkets in the last ten years. The top position in this graph is acquired by Woolworths Supermarket. In 2006, they were on the top and in present day, after ten years, they are still on the top with 38.9% shares (Lucia 2013). The second position in this graph is acquired by Coles Supermarket. The total shares are 31.9% and they are trying hard. The rest are quite low. Woolworths Supermarket is the market leader in this case.

The high cost of products is the first problem. They should reduce the prices to an affordable range so that it is afforded by all customers. Hence, the customers would return to them. The second problem or gap of Coles Supermarket is the lack of CRM. They should incorporate CRM within their business for maintaining good relation with customers.

Conclusion

Therefore, strategic information system is the basic requirement for any specific business or company. Any type of innovation within any company is possible only with extraordinary strategies. The presence of strategic information system makes the taking or making various strategies extremely easier in comparison to other business information systems. The innovation is for the success of the business. The support systems that help the organization in streamlining the business objectives and goals are implemented with the SIS. The information systems of any business are aligned properly with the strategies of the business. The most important part of innovation is creativity. The organization that has implemented the strategic information system could eventually foster as well as utilize the creativity for being innovative. The benefits of being innovative in any business are absolutely tangible and thus could be easily enjoyed by the organization. Moreover, the advancements within information technology such as machine learning, robotics or artificial intelligence are easily obtained with the help of innovation in business. Productivity and profit are another significant benefit for the business. The most significant benefits of SIS within any business mainly include having decision support system, management of database systems and implementation of real time information systems. All these are utilized in any particular business or company. The report has demonstrated a literature review about a supermarket in Australia, namely, Coles Supermarket. The various details regarding this Australian supermarket are being provided here. They are utilizing enterprise resource planning in their business and thus they are getting all the advantages of enterprise resource planning. They have implemented SAP within their organization. The sales procedure of this organization is much better than the rest and they have incorporated the accounting software Xero for their business operations.

References

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