Overview of Woolworths
In this new world of technology, ICT (Information and Communication Technology) is playing a very vital role in enhancing the performance of the organization. Information security is the greatest concern for any organization implementing ICT within the organizational structure. The purpose of this report is to put emphasis on the competitive environment of an organization and relative measures to overcome such issues and reach top of the organization. For this Woolworths has been the chosen organization on which the research has been progressed and relative data and information has been presented. Woolworths is and Australian retail company that is one of the oldest retailers, which is playing important role in enhancing the way of living standards of the organization. This report explains an overview of the Woolworths and relative competitive environment for the organization. This report also focuses on the methods that could be helpful for the organization in coping up with such competitive market. ICT and information security are the major objects that are being covered in this report.
The very first store was opened in 1924 in Sydney as a bargain basement outlet and till now it has become one of the largest supermarket chains in Australia through the expansion and acquisition with 31% market share (Rose 2017). Major brands those are being operated under Woolworths ltd. are Dick Smith Electronics, Big W, Woolworths/Safeway supermarket, Tandy, Dick Smith Powerhouse, Dan Murphys’ and many others. It is one of the largest retailers among the Australian supermarkets in terms of related to the number of supermarkets, sales revenue, and geographic area coverage. Across all over NewZeland and Australia, there are almost 3,200 stores with approximately more than 840 supermarkets within Australia. It has been reported in 2016 that Woolworths made a full-year profit of $ 1.53 billion and estimated a growth of 3.6 percent (Urwin, Dwyer, and Carr 2016). Metcash Limited, Aldi GmbH & Co.KG Essen, and Wesfarmers Limited are the strongest competitors of the Woolworths.
The competition for the Woolworths seems to be increasing day by day as more groceries and food stores are being establishing stores in Australia and as mentioned above, Spar, Shoprite/Checkers, and Pick n Pay are the most dominating competitor in the market. It has been borne out through the research on the market of Woolworths that indicated that larger the customer proportion in LSM 9 and 10 and majority of the groceries and food stores of the Woolworths related revenue, shop at Checkers and Pick n Pay than this organization (Bariacto and Nunzio 2014). It is not possible for the Woolworths to compete these large retail chains on the topics related to the prices and discounts because of the differences in scales. It can be recommended that Woolworths should seek to give competition to these competitors through a complete and differentiated product offering and should focus on innovation, brand, and location of the product offerings (Lawley, Brich and Craig 2016).
Competitive Environment of Woolworths
Better late than never, Woolworths after a long time appointed CISO (Chief Information Security Officer) in 2025 in manner to empower the information security of the organization. Peter Cooper had been appointed as the IT risk manager. The CISO has the responsibility to maintain following objectives of the Woolworths (Ploesser 2013): directing and organizing the availability, planning, confidentiality of the organization’s IT networks, procedures and systems in manner to led down the objectives and met them with the perspective of commercial and secure manner (Riemer et al. 2017). Cyber securities are being provided high concern within the system of the information exchange between the stakeholders.
ICT plays a very important role in the retailer sector. The information gathered by the retailers helps them a lot in taking important decisions(Piotrowicz and Cuthbertson 2014). For example, if we consider a customer in a store takes some goods and moves on to the billing department. The attendant at the billing desk scans the data and checks whether the customer is a part of the “store’s loyalty program” or not. When it is confirmed that that the customer is a part of the customer loyalty program after the customer provides the store card. After paying the bill the customer leaves the store. For the customer it was a routine purchase but the retailer gained a lot of information from that transaction. The advantages that the retailer gets from any type of purchase are listed below by the implementation of ICT.
The bought item provides the information of the goods that has been purchased from the retailer thereby resulting in analysis and decision making for the ordering the item again and make a plan for the merchandise.in case if the information is passed to the manufacturer then it will help the manufacturer to decrease the time for production of the items(Mishra 2014). Technology helps a lot in the collection of the data and the transmit the information. Analysis of the sales can be done very easily. The difficult situations like running out of stock can be avoided easily by the use of technology and regular making of the products.
The use of technology helps a lot in collection of the data. Various data about the customers are collected like the purchase data and many more. This type of data collected helps a lot in the identification of the customers who shop at the retailer store thereby helping the store to give rewards to the customers who shop frequently(Mithas Krishnan and Fornell 2013). For example, the data collected by the retail stores can help a lot in identifying the customer’s preferences about brands and many more.
Methods for Coping with Competitive Market
The functioning of the various departments in retail store is dependent on the ways in which the information technology is used. The cost increases when the retail store decides to use the technology for the purpose of continuing the business. There are many advantages of information technology in the retail sector. The time required for doing any type of work decreases when the process becomes fully automated by the use of certain technologies(Luo Fan and Zhang 2012). This can be better understood by the use of an example, like when an attendant is doing billing manually then it will take much more time than just scanning the items code in an automated system.
The use of certain applications can help a lot in the betterment of the communication system of the retail store. Much software like the “Lotus Notes” and many more are used for this purpose. By application of software’s the retail store can communicate with each other or communicate with the warehouse at any time (Keller and Heiko 2014). The use of “Electronic Data Interchange” or EID will help a lot in communicating with the suppliers and vendors of the retail store. The size of the organization is the main factor responsible for understanding the needs by the retail stores. The collection of information’s helps a lot in tackling the difficulties arising due to increased number of stores thereby helping in giving the right information to the right person.
“Good corporate Governance” is followed by the “Woolworth’s limited” so as follow an approach that leads to the enhancement of the long term shareholder value. This implies that the employees and the Directors of the company will act ethically and should be responsible at every time. The statement of the “Corporate Governance plan” helps to describe the key policies of the “corporate governance”. Each of the recommendations of the ASX Corporate Governance Principles and Recommendations has been followed by the Woolworths group. Survey conducted on the ways to eliminate resistances to change states two third of the employees in an organization thinks that the people on the top of the organization is responsible for the change management whereas one-third of the employee thinks that the peoples in the top of the organization should be in charge of the change management(Lozano 2013). The common methods of overcoming the resistance to change are listed below;
- Distribution of the team members with proper responsibilities and roles so as to use the skills of the employees for the purpose of giving more advantage to the organization.
- The goals and the targets should be determined properly. The steps should be broken into certain steps for better achievement of the goals.
- The problems should be resolved more quickly and in an effective manner by the use of “seven methods of care-fronting”.
- Communication should be used properly for the purpose of increasing belief in the future. By seeing the leaders changing according to the situation the employees also get adopted to the changes more quickly with changed behavior and more dedication towards the work(Cummings and Worley 2014).
- The leader must encourage the employees more and more and should focus on the opportunities. Sharing of the experiences so as to attract more attention and focus according to the changes.
- Proper ways should be done for the purpose of getting feedbacks and to remain flexible according to the changes. Adopting to the changes and to find new ways of solving the problems should be done along with encouraging peoples to be more creative.
- The changes are uncertain so as to adopt easily according to the changes support of a leader is needed who will inspire them more and more. The leader should have free thoughts, communication should be honest and should be creative. The employees expect that their leaders to have the capability of tackling the changes (Pieterse Caniëls and Homan 2012).
Conclusion
Based on the above report it can be concluded that Woolworth is dominating retail industry in Australia and can face certain competitive environment despite of the lowest price and better services. These services could be enhanced and improved through implementing ICT within the organizational structure of the organization. Woolworths’ competitors are also implementing or already implemented ICT within their organizational structure however the advantages described in this report can help the organization in being ahead of all the organization in their competitive market. Implementation of Cloud computing and using cloud hosted application for the services can be recommended for the organization in manner to increase the output and enhance the performance of the organization. This report is a presented after thoroughly researching on the Woolworths and completely relative to the competitive environment of it. Woolworths can practice the objectives mentioned in this report in mmanner to advance the operational activities and enhance the performance of the organization.
References:
Bariacto, N. and Di Nunzio, J., 2014. Market power in the Australian food system. Future.
Cummings, T.G. and Worley, C.G., 2014. Organization development and change. Cengage learning.
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