Strategic Planning And Management In Woolworths Supermarket

Organizational Background of Woolworths Supermarket

Discuss About The Strategic Planning And Management CRC Press.

Information systems can be defined as the organized system to properly collect, organize, store as well as communicate any type of information or data. Any type of data operation is very simple and easy with this information system (Arvidsson, Holmström and Lyytinen 2014). Information system helps to produce information whenever required. Strategic information system is one of the most important types of information systems that mainly deal with the strategies of any specific organization. It can be easily defined as the particular kind of information system which are used for the successful completion and accomplishment of organizational goals and objectives (Laudon and Laudon 2016). Competitive advantages are easily gained with particular type of information system. Most of the organizations in today’s world have acquired the strategic information system for their business. The services or products that the organization produces are delivered with low costs and with better efficiencies. Any specific segment of the market is focused with the strategic information system (Boonstra 2013). The most salient characteristic of the information system or information technology is the strategic information system.

This literature review substantially discusses regarding the strategic information and accounting information system of the most popular supermarket, Woolworths Supermarket. It is located in Australia and is extremely famous. The complete organizational structure and the various operational problems would be provided here. Moreover, the relevant and appropriate system acquisition method and the flowchart of system would be provided in the review. There are various control problems of Woolworths as well as the frauds in the system and they are mentioned here. The second part of the literature review focuses on the accounting software package of the organization with proper and relevant details. Furthermore, the leaders of the market and the major competitors of the supermarket are also mentioned here. The literature review will be completed with an appropriate conclusion.

The most popular grocery store in Australia is known as Woolworths Supermarket. It provides various goods and services for its customers and thus it is widely accepted in the entire Australia and suburbs (Woolworthsgroup.com.au. 2018). Started in 1924, this particular organization with another supermarket, Coles is responsible for forming a near duopoly of the all the accounting of Australian supermarkets. They take about more than 80% of the entire grocery market of Australia. The speciality of Woolworths Supermarket is to deliver and sell groceries (Woolworthsgroup.com.au. 2018). The main groceries that they sell are all types of fruits, vegetables or packaged food. Moreover, apart from all these, they even sell baby food, pet food and other stationery items. There are one thousand stores or branches of this Supermarket within Australia and New Zealand. Amongst these one thousand stores, nine hundred and sixty eight are supermarkets and other nineteen are convenience stores. All of these are under the brand name of Woolworths. The shares of this supermarket have always been on the higher side. However, recently, it has been observed to have a sharp downfall in this (Woolworthsgroup.com.au. 2018). There are various reasons for this downfall. The details are provided in the following paragraphs.

Organizational Structure of Woolworths Supermarket

The organizational structure of any organization can be defined the procedures of various activities of any organization like allocation of tasks, supervision or coordination being directed to the proper achievement of the objectives of that organization (Galliers and Leidner 2014). The organizations are absolutely effective, flexible and efficient for successfully achieving the competitive advantages. The organizational structure is even considered as the perspective by which all the individuals have an overview of the organization and the environment. The structure could be created in various ways and it helps to determine the modes from where the operations and the performance are done (Al-Hiyari, AL-Mashre and Mat 2013). This structure is even responsible for enabling the responsibility allocation of the employees of the organization. Following are the two parts of organizational structures of Woolworths Supermarket.

Figure 1: Management Structure of Woolworths Supermarket

(Source: Woolworthsgroup.com.au. 2018)

Figure 2: Corporate Structure of Woolworths Supermarket

(Source: Woolworthsgroup.com.au. 2018)

The above figures have properly demonstrated the management and the corporate structure of Woolworths Supermarket of Australia (Dandago and Rufai 2014). The various management bodies of the organization constitute the management structure and thus the organization has become successful in its terms.

Woolworths Supermarket is absolutely successful in the market of groceries. In spite of being successful and accepted by its customer, they cannot avoid various operational problems within its system (Smith 2013). The several operational problems in Woolworths Supermarket are as follows:

1. i) Employee Issues: The most significant problem within Woolworths Supermarket is the employee issues. There are conflicts within the employees, the issues of supervisors and the personal trauma of the employees (Bryson 2018). These problems have solely shaken the structure of the overall organization and hence the problems with the employees have solely increased.
2. ii) Team Problems: For the higher performance of the organization of Woolworths Supermarket, the teams or the departments of the company should be properly functioning and thus the organizational success would be enhanced (Cassidy 2016). However, the scenario is not similar in Woolworths. Since the organization is almost 100 years older, many departments have become non functional and the organization is having problems in mitigating those issues.

iii) Older Technology: The third important operational problem is the older technology or the problem in acquiring new technologies within the business (Short et al. 2013). They still follow the traditional methods of technology and often face major competition with the rest of the supermarkets in Australia.

1. iv) Wrong Strategies: The next important operational problem in Woolworths Supermarket is the wrong strategies (Haines 2016). The strategies that they have developed do not bring or fulfil the long term goals and objectives of the organization and thus they suffer through several losses within the business.
2. v) Communication: This is another significant operational problem of Woolworths Supermarket. There is a huge communication gap between the organization and the customers and the customers, who are new does not wish to communicate with the organization (Dibrell, Craig and Neubaum 2014). Moreover, the strategies are not shared with the employees and thus it leads to a specific gap of communication within the staffs and a major lack of cooperation within the organizational divisions.
3. vi) Lack of Resources: The supply of the raw materials or resources is not equal to the demand of the products of the customers and thus the customers are not happy with this particular grocery store (Channon and Jalland 2016). They are opting for other supermarkets.

Woolworths Supermarket has undertaken the model of enterprise resource planning or ERP within their business (Leon 2014). ERP is the category of business managing software, which helps in integrating all the applications of the business properly, without any type of complexity. The organization can easily collect, store, manage as well as interpret the data or information from the business activities. The most important business activities like customer relationship management or CRM, procurement management, financial management, human resource management, production management, logistics management and many more are solely integrated with this enterprise resource planning (Shaul and Tauber 2013). Moreover, the business processes of any organizations are updated and integrated with databases and this database is maintained and managed by the enterprise resource planning. Woolworths Supermarket has to deal with various business processes and activities in its regular days. ERP has been a major help to this organization. Although, this specific method of system acquisition is much tough to maintain and is extremely costly, Woolworths still have utilized this software in their business because of its vast benefits (Hoch and Dulebohn 2013). The processes of Woolworths Supermarket have been properly streamlined with enterprise resource planning and productivity is improved by increasing the efficiencies.

Operational Problems in Woolworths Supermarket

Figure 3: Benefits of Enterprise Resource Planning in Woolworths Supermarket

(Source: Woolworthsgroup.com.au. 2018)

The figure provided above has provided the clear view of all the benefits of enterprise resource planning that this organization is enjoying in its business (Nofal and Yusof 2013). All the above mentioned business processes are being substantially and eventually integrated with ERP.

The flowchart of sales in any organization refers to the processes of the sales of that organization. It shows all the steps of the sales process and all the individuals involved in the processes (Haines 2016). The particular outcome that is to be gained by the processes is close to the organizational goals and objectives. Following is the sales flowchart of Woolworths Supermarket with relevant details.

Figure 4: Flowchart of Sales Procedure in Woolworths Supermarket

(Source: Woolworthsgroup.com.au. 2018)

The figure provided above has clearly defined all the processes and steps of sales flowchart of Woolworths Supermarket. Five steps or processes are involved here. The first process is the customer. The customer books the product or service, and then comes the sales process (Cassidy 2016). The third process is the contracts where the agents of the organization review the orders and request for approval. The fourth process is the legal, where it is checked whether the order is legal or not and finally the last step is fulfilment, where the order is fulfilled.

The control problems of Woolworths with their solutions are as follows:

1. i) Quality of Product:  The first problem is with the quality of their products and services. They should focus on the product quality and thus their problem would be solved (Smith 2013). They should balance the quality and the quantity of the products.
2. ii) CRM: The next problem is the maintenance of customer relationship management. A proper strategy should be maintained for maintaining their customer relationship management.

iii) Retaining Good Employees: They are not focusing on retaining of their employees. The good employees of the organization should be maintained and retained.

1. iv) High Price: The price of the products of this organization is explicitly higher than grocery stores (Hoch and Dulebohn 2013).

The major frauds or errors that are possible in Woolworths are given below:

1. i) Payroll Frauds: There is always a high chance of payroll frauds in the organization of Woolworths Supermarket.
2. ii) Double Check Fraud: This type of fraud is possible in the accounting sector of the organization and hence can reduce the revenues of the business.

iii) Lack of Supply Frauds: The supply of the raw materials is not sufficient for the amount of demand in the organization and hence these types of frauds are available (Simkin, Norman and Rose 2014).

The accounting software packages are responsible for bringing simplicity to the business and hence the business processes are substantially maintained and integrated with these packages. However, Woolworths Supermarket does not believe in modern technologies and have not taken any accounting software package in their business (Simkin, Norman and Rose 2014). Rather they have taken the SAP or Systems Accounting and Processes model in their business. SAP is the core part of enterprise resource planning. The most significant advantages of SAP include decreasing extra costs, streamlining processes, increasing efficiencies, improving productivity and many others.

System Acquisition Method in Woolworths Supermarket

Figure 5: SAP Hosting Services in Woolworths Supermarket

(Source: Woolworthsgroup.com.au. 2018)

The above figure shows the various hosting services that Woolworths Supermarket like data centre management, service desk services, system management services, network access management and SAP basis operations and database services.

The market size of Woolworths Supermarket demonstrates the position of the market.

Figure 6: Market Size of Woolworths Supermarket

(Source: Woolworthsgroup.com.au. 2018)

The shares have gone to 5 from 15 and the business is suffering through major problems.

The main competitors of Woolworths Supermarket are IGA, Aldi and Coles.

Figure 7: Main Competitors of Woolworths Supermarket

(Source: Created by the Author in MS Doc)

The graph provided has shown the market shares of all the competitors of Woolworths Supermarket and thus showing that Woolworths is still the market leader in the sector of grocery stores (Fosgerau and de Palma 2015). They have the maximum sales of 36.30% and is maximum amongst all others.

The problems of Woolworths Supermarket are dangerous for the business and hence they would be in grave danger. The various problems with suitable recommendations for the organization of Woolworths Supermarket are given below:

1. i) Shares Downfall: The main problem is the downfall of shares. The recommendation for this problem is to make new strategies.
2. ii) Higher Price: The second problem is the higher price of products and services. The prices of the products are very high and thus the customers are not choosing them. The recommendation is to reduce the price of the products by maintaining the product quality.

iii) Lack of CRM: The third problem is the lack of customer relationship management. The recommendation is that they should focus on their CRM for mitigating the problems.

Conclusion

Therefore, from the above literature review, conclusion could be drawn that a strategic information system helps the organizations alter the business strategies or structure. It is eventually utilized for properly speeding up of the time of reaction to all the environmental alterations and thus aiding it to achieve various competitive advantages for that particular organization. The most significant characteristics of this strategic information system or SIS mainly include enabling decision support systems for the successful development of strategic approaches for aligning the information system with all the strategies of the organizations. The next characteristic is to integrate all the processes of business for meeting the objectives and goals of business and also in making the best uses of database systems for the purpose of production, marketing and promotion. A rapid response of the maintenance of information system is also done by the strategic information system. Accounting information system can be defined as the appropriate storage, processing or collection of any type of accounting and financial data that are being utilized by the internal users for explicitly reporting to the investors of the company. The accounting software packages are utilized for the accounting information systems in any organization. This literature review has focused on the popular supermarket of Australia, Woolworths Supermarket. This particular organization comprises of an organizational structure and that organizational structure is divided into two parts. One is the management structure and the other is the corporate structure. Both of these organizational structures are provided here. There are various operational problems as well for this organization and those problems are also given here. These operational problems often become major problems for the growth and development of the organization. The system acquisition method of Woolworths Supermarket is Enterprise Resource Planning and it is properly explained here. The complete and the exclusive flowchart of the sales procedure is also given here. Moreover, the various control problems and various errors and frauds are also mentioned here. The various accounting software packages help any organization to become successful and the most suitable software for Woolworths Supermarket is SAP of ERP. Appropriate recommendations that would help the organization are eventually provided in the literature review.

References

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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 21 Apr. 2018].