Sustainable Supply Chain Management Practices: Strategies For Slices Organization In UAE

Current Strategies Assessment

Dsicuss about the Sustainable Supply Chain Management Practices.

In today’s competitive business environment, it is very important for the companies to analyze its strategies and make required changes time-to-time. It can assist the organization in leading the industry over its competitors (Hill, Jones & Schilling, 2014). The management of the company needs to give effective strategic direction to its operations so that it can stay competitive and successful in its sector.

This report is the continuation of the assessment 1 that included environmental analysis and strategic change recommendations in context of Slices Organization in United Arab Emirates (UAE). This report includes the discussion about the current and new strategies of Slices. Furthermore, it states the benefits of the proposed strategies in the future of organization. At the end, recommendations are given for enhancing the operations of company.

From the first assessment, it can be stated that Slices is not very much popular in the UAE and worldwide. Slices is home grown food organization that is aimed at changing the eating habits across the UAE by offering nutritious and wholesome meals (Slices 2015). First part of the assessment provided a detailed analysis about the business operations of this food and beverage company in UAE. External analysis i.e. PESTLE analysis presents both favorable and unfavorable conditions of UAE which have both positive and adverse effects on organization. The political factors in the country may have positive impact on Slices as it is a government entity so it can get advantage from government (Hitt, et al, 2017). As a food and beverage industry, it needs to comply with food and safety regulations of UAE government.

Moreover, the economy of UAE has a strong economic presence so organizations operating business in the country do not face any issue with the changes in the economic factors like interest rates, currency fluctuations, inflation rates, GDP etc. These factors can assist Slices because it is new and investment made by organization on its stakeholders has an optimistic impact. Increased purchasing power of people may have positive impact on the sales of Slices in UAE. However, there are various people in the country who have health issues like obesity that affects the consumption of fast food products (Ohri-Vachaspati, et al, 2015). But still, the company is able to generate significant revenue in the first that shows interest of people in fast food and beverages. Technological factors are the most important factors which have positive effect on the growth and success of Slices in UAE. Technology advancement is very high in the country and firms are using modern technology to enhance their operations. Additionally, the organization needs to comply with different rules and regulations imposed by government in the country.

New strategies

After analyzing the external environment, industry and competitive environment of Slices is analyzed by using Porter’s five forces. The competition threat is very high in UAE food and beverage sector as there are various well-established players. The customers are very loyal towards competing brands so it can affect the growth of Slices adversely. The analysis shows that threat of new entrants is low for the Slices as new entrants need to take the approval and authorization from UAE government. Moreover, the bargaining power of suppliers is low to this firm as there are many suppliers like Raw Coffee, Abu Dhabi Organics, Milk and Honey Organic, Jam etc. Few of the food companies are using organic raw materials in their food products (Yilmaz, Varnali and Kasnakoglu, 2016). Moreover, buyers have a higher extent of power as all the organizations in food industry set the menu considering the needs and preferences of customers.

By looking at the market conditions and their impact on the organization, Slices has developed its core competencies so that it can deliver its products and services effectively. Core competencies of Slices are such as physical assets like machinery and equipment. The organization has hired the employees with effective skills and knowledge. The core competencies of Slices provide various benefits to the business (Untaru & Ispas, 2013). It provides the food by analyzing the taste and preferences of customers. These core competencies can assist the organization to gain sustainable competitive advantage against its competing brands. It indicates that company has the opportunities and potential to increase its customer base by expanding business in international market.

Thus, the analysis from first part indicates that currently Slices is engaged in the domestic market but it can have future opportunities to expand the business operations in international market. There are various issues which are currently faced by the organization in UAE food and beverage industry. Considering them, there are some changes which are recommended in the first part like it needs to adopt some effective strategies to establish a strong brand image in the market. Furthermore, it needs to engage in corporate social responsibility that can assist the firm to gain effective future growth in UAE (Yu, et al, 2016). Offering food with the healthy and organic ingredients can assist the organization to attain sustainable competitive edge over major players like McDonalds and Pizza Hut.

The current positioning of the company shows that the Slices are confronting some issues in UAE food and beverage industry. It needs to make some changes which can improve the performance and position of Slices in the nation (Grönroos, 2007). This section includes the new strategies which Slices should practice to gain competitive edge in its business environment:

Slices is a new organization that does not have more brand recognition in UAE and international market. To implement the above strategic changes, Slices should expand its product range. The company can enhance its customer base by offering a wide range of products to its customers. Currently, Slices offers organic and healthy food products to the students but now it should start offering fast food that is made of healthy ingredients. Through this new food segment, it can attract students and youngsters as they love to eat delicious food. In addition to this, it should invent its products and cooking processes so that it can attract more customers. It should offer the products with great value and great quality (McElheran, 2015).

As mentioned above, Slices should expand its product or service range in the domestic market. Considering the tangible and intangible competencies, it can be stated that organization is planning to expand its business operations in international market. It can place itself in other developed nations like Australia, United States etc. Slices is facing intense competition in the United Arab Emirates so this business expansion can assist the organization to fight with this industry rivalry. Slices have lack of presence in both domestic and global markets and people are not very much aware about its product and services (Ahearne, Lam and Kraus, 2014). By adopting this new strategy, the organization will be able to increase its brand awareness worldwide.

Nowadays, this is the era of food porn and social media platforms so Slices can use online platforms to increase its presence among a large population of UAE. It should implement a strategic change by developing its business through online sales. Through its business operations, Slices aims to enhance the eating habit of youngsters so it should offer its healthy and organic products online. It will have positive impact on the business of Slices in the country. By adopting this strategy, the company will be able to enhance its brand presence and to increase the customer base from targeted population (Sheth, Sinha and Shah, 2016). Through online mode, the firm will be able to promote its products and services on social media networking sites like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Youtube etc. Online sales will assist Slices to generate more revenues and profits in competitive food sector in UAE.

In addition to above strategies, Slices can implement an effective competitive strategy. It is one of the most significant strategic changes which company should implement in its business operations. Slices will implement a competitive strategy that will be working as its long term plan to gain competitive edge over the competitors in the industry. The organization can aim to create a defensive position in the industry and generate an excellent return on investment. The organization needs to use tangible and intangible resources which assist it to improve the quality of products. Slices should adopt a competitive strategy which cuts the intense competition from the industry and reduces the related risks and issues (Lebovka, Chemat and Vorobiev, 2016). Under this strategy, the company should categorize its products in different segments like healthy and organic food, fast food, beverages etc. It will enable it to enhance its business operations and activities. The pricing of the products should be reasonable so that it can attract lower and medium income level people.

Considering the above issues, the company should make the changes by the implementation of above strategies. These strategies will provide various benefits to Slices and it will grow in UAE as a leading player in food industry.

The implementation of above strategies and strategic changes will be very beneficial to the company and its customers as well. These benefits may be related to the tangible and intangible resources of the company. To overcome the issues, Slices is planning to adopt different strategic changes and strategies like product diversification, competitive strategy, market expansion and enhancement of social and online presence. By using product diversification strategy, the organization will be able to increase the variety of product offering to the customers. It will enable the company to target a large population for its new products that eventually has positive impact on the growth of Slices’ business. It should target the people who are living in UAE for the purpose of education and employment. It will assist the organization to enhance its market capabilities and increase the sales by 15% in the timeframe of next three years (Thompson and Amoroso, 2014).

In addition to this, it can establish more stores in the strategic locations of UAE so that it can increase the awareness of Slices (Kiss and Barr, 2015). By this, it will be able to increase its sales in next three years. The strategies of the company shows that most of the customers will prefer to purchase the products of Slices because its offers organic and healthy products to its customers in UAE market. It will offer benefits to customers as they will be able to overcome the health issues of obesity.

Market expansion strategy will be the most beneficial strategy for Slices as it will assist it to increase its revenues by 20% in next three years. By expanding the business in international market, the organization will be able to establish a strong global image. It will allow the firm to create its goodwill in global food industry. For effective market expansion, the organization can use Greenfield investment strategies (Watson et al, 2017). Moreover, enhancement of online and social presence will assist the organization to gain different intangible benefits like increase in the customer base, capture large market share, enhance brand awareness etc. With the assistance of e-business strategies, Slices can increase its brand presence by satisfying the needs and demands of customers effectively (Charlesworth, 2018). The students will be able to order the food online through online website and mobile application of Slices. By using effective supply chain, the company will able to improve its operations. In this way, the strategic changes and new strategies will offer benefits to both customers and company.

It is hereby recommended to Slices Organization that it should re-create its business model by using Business Model Canvas. This business model canvas will assist the organization to create value among students in UAE (Jabeen, Zamber and Khan, 2015). The recommended business model canvas for Slices is given below:

The above business model canvas presents different capabilities and resources of Slices which it should use to attain competitive edge among its targeted audiences. It is recommended to the organization that it should use this model to establish its business in moderate business environment of UAE (Beske, Land and Seuring, 2014). It can implement this business model through an implementation plan. It should be implemented through an action plan of 12 months. With the help of this, the organization will be able to get growth and success in global food industry.

Thus, the above action plan will assist Slices to implement new strategies to the issues which it faces in the business environment of UAE. The company will establish different activities and timeframe for each and every activity (Stadler, et al, 2018). This plan will assist to include all the processes which are needed to implement strategic changes and recommendations to the identified issues. It will enable the organization to enhance its brand awareness in UAE and gain more popularity in food and beverage industry. All the responsibilities will be allocated to the different departments and persons who will play their role under the supervision of top management. In this way, the company will be able to attain its growth objectives in competitive food industry.

Conclusion

From the above analysis, it can be concluded that Slices need adopt effective marketing competitive strategies so that it can deal with the issues in its business environment. It can be stated that it can attain more growth and success by using the above business model canvas that includes all the important components of business. By effective utilization of resources and capabilities, Slices will be able to attain its predetermined objectives in highly competitive food industry. Thus, it can be founded that it is very important for a firm to analyze the market and implement the strategies and tactics accordingly.

References

Ahearne, M., Lam, S.K. and Kraus, F., 2014. Performance impact of middle managers’ adaptive strategy implementation: The role of social capital. Strategic Management Journal, 35(1), pp.68-87.

Beske, P., Land, A. and Seuring, S., 2014. Sustainable supply chain management practices and dynamic capabilities in the food industry: A critical analysis of the literature. International Journal of Production Economics, 152, pp.131-143.

Charlesworth, A., 2018. Digital marketing: A practical approach. UK: Routledge.

Grönroos, C., 2007. Service management and marketing: customer management in service competition, US: John Wiley & Sons.

Hill, C. W., Jones, G. R., & Schilling, M. A, 2014, Strategic management: theory: an integrated approach. UK: Cengage Learning.

Hitt, M.A., Jackson, S.E., Carmona, S., Bierman, L., Shalley, C.E. and Wright, D.M., 2017. The Future of Strategy Implementation. In The Oxford Handbook of Strategy Implementation.

Jabeen, F., Zamber, S. and Khan, K 2015, Slices: what is next? Emerald Emerging Markets Case Studies, 5(4), 1-9

Kiss, A.N. and Barr, P.S., 2015. New venture strategic adaptation: The interplay of belief structures and industry context. Strategic Management Journal, 36(8), pp.1245-1263.

Lebovka, N., Chemat, F. and Vorobiev, E., 2016. Enhancing extraction processes in the food industry. US: CRC Press.

McElheran, K., 2015. Do market leaders lead in business process innovation? The case (s) of e-business adoption. Management Science, 61(6), pp.1197-1216.

Ohri-Vachaspati, P., Isgor, Z., Rimkus, L., Powell, L.M., Barker, D.C. and Chaloupka, F.J., 2015. Child-directed marketing inside and on the exterior of fast food restaurants. American journal of preventive medicine, 48(1), pp.22-30.

Sheth, J.N., Sinha, M. and Shah, R., 2016. Breakout strategies for emerging markets: Business and marketing tactics for achieving growth. FT Press.

Slices 2015, Healthy and Fresh Food for Student, Slice, Available from https://slices.ae/ [Accessed on 12 May 2018].

Slices, 2018, About Us New: Slices, Available from https://slices.ae/about-us-2/ [Accessed from 12 May 2018].

Stadler, C., Mayer, M.C., Hautz, J. and Matzler, K., 2018. International and product diversification: Which strategy suits family managers?. Global Strategy Journal, 8(1), pp.184-207.

Thompson, B. and Amoroso, L. eds., 2014. Improving diets and nutrition: food-based approaches. CABI.

Untaru, E., & Ispas, A., 2013, Why do young people prefer fast-food restaurants? An exploratory study: Journal of Tourism, (15), 27-34.

Watson IV, G.F., Weaven, S., Perkins, H., Sardana, D. and Palmatier, R.W., 2017. International Market Entry Strategies: Relational, Digital, and Hybrid Approaches. Journal of International Marketing.

Yilmaz, C., Varnali, K. and Kasnakoglu, B.T., 2016. How do firms benefit from customer complaints?. Journal of Business Research, 69(2), pp.944-955.

Yu, Y., Wang, X., Zhong, R.Y. and Huang, G.Q., 2016. E-commerce logistics in supply chain management: Practice perspective. Procedia CIRP, 52, pp.179-185.

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