Overview of Woolworths Supermarket
The potential of a business organisation is measured with its usefulness of various Information Systems in the market. The Information system is integrated with the strategic invocation of the business organization.
Thos literature review describes about the strategic event of the Woolworths Supermarkets, Australia. The overview of the company structure and operation management has been properly reviewed in the report. The current market analysis of the company has been focussed in the report.
This report outlines the use of the accounting software in the company and its problems. The market leaders for the company have been reflected properly to analyse the competition in the market. The gaps and challenges in the current accounting software have been resolved by using various strategies are discussed in the report.
Woolworths Supermarket is a retain market chain in the Australia founded in 1924. It has grown up to a huge retail market chain all over the world. There are over 1000 stores in Australia and 968 supermarkets. It mainly receives its revenue from food and groceries stores. Woolworth group had a turnover of $27.9 billion in FY2004 in which food and liquor contributed $22 billion (Woolworths.com.au, 2017).
Figure 1: Corporate structure of Woolworths Supermarket
(Source: Woolworths.com.au, 2017)
Figure 2: Management Structure of Woolworths Supermarket
(Source: Woolworths.com.au, 2017)
The above figures show about the organisational structure of the Woolworths Supermarket. The group of the companies have their managing director at the top of the structure.
Over the years, the company have seen a drastic change in the market share. The strategies of the company in the market have gone wrong due to the changes in the market trend. The involvement of the competition in the market has changed the scenario of the company (Galliers and Leidner 2014). The company could not meet up the requirement of the customers in the market. This has caused a huge degradation in the market share of the company in the market. The increase in the prices of the products available in the store of the company has lost sight of the customers.
Figure 3: Reduce in sales of Woolworths Supermarket
(Source: Peppard and Ward 2016)
The inefficiency of the company meets up the needs and expectation of the customers has led to loss in the market. The customers are moving apart from the company due to the increase in the price of the products. The organisational structure of the company has hugely influenced this, as the managing director of the company is not aware with this situation of the company. The mission and vision statements of the company have gone wrong in the modern world. The marketing department of the company did not work to advertise the products in the market (Peppard and Ward 2016). This causes a distraction of the customers from the company in coming years.
Market Analysis of Woolworths Supermarket
Figure 4: Strategies of Woolworth Supermarket
(Source: Peppard and Ward 2016)
The system acquisition method used by the Woolworths Company is the ERP model. The figure 4 describes about the new model initiated by the CEO of the company. The SAP of the company has been reinitiated in a new form that helps in providing stability to the company (Pearlson, Saunders and Galletta 2016). The new ERP system of the company has helped in channelizing the relationship with the customers in the market. The ERP system has focused in the retailers of the company stores in the market and providing products at a low price than other competitors of the company. The database of the company has been properly arranged with the help of the SAP system. The business analyst of the company has a keen look over the marketing team of the company to increase the sales of products and services in the market.
Figure 5: System Flowchart of sales procedures of Woolworth Supermarket
(Source: Nguyen, Nguyen and Bosch 2017)
System Flowchart of the sales procedure is a pictorial view of the sales process of the company. It helps in visualising the sales process and highlights the issues and gaps in the sales process of the company (Coviello and Tanev 2017). The above flow chart is about the sales procedure of the Woolworth Supermarket in Australia.
The flowchart shows that the customer submits the post order (PO) on the online website. After that the process is further executed and the processed by the portal. The concerning agent of the company tries to review the order provided by the customer (Cassidy 2016). The agent meets the standard terms, conditions of the products, and approves the order. In the case that the order is under terms and conditions, the agent request for the approval of the order from the customer. After the approval of the order, the payment process is initiated for the customers. The customer makes the payment with the help of the payment gateway. There are some changes in the product asked by the company and the customer makes changes according to their choice.
If changes are nit made by the customer, the order is ready for the delivery. The customer can also cancel the order in meanwhile (Nguyen, Nguyen and Bosch 2017). Then the sales process is reversed back to the initial stage and if the customer makes any transaction, it is revert to them. On successful transaction, the order is shipped for delivery and send to the local dealer of the order nearby. After that, the delivery person successfully delivers the order to the customer.
Challenges Faced by Woolworths Supermarket
The operational body of the Woolworth Supermarket have some principles that have affected the customers and shareholders in the market (Wu et al. 2015). The retail operations of the company have been affected by the external factors including environmental influences on the company. There are several control problems in the system that has affected the brad image of the company in the market.
The retail market is a combination of gods and services that are tangible to the new of the customers. The service process needs the participation of customers that helps in maintaining the engagement of the employee in the company (Li, Cui and Lu 2017). Services offered by the Woolworth have degraded consecutively losing the interest of the customers on the company in the market. The company has not changed the organisational structure based in the current market trends (Ismail and King 2014). The customer interaction has changes from a time being that have caused loss to the company. The self-checkouts facility is not present in the outlets of the company. The staffs available at the check out point are not properly behaving with the customers at the outlets.
The managers of the outlets are responsible for the development of the outlets in the local area. Forecasting deals with foresee the future strategies to develop the outlets in the local area. The store manager maintains the quality of the products available in the local outlet. The store manager of the company is responsible developing appropriate methodology for the researching the outlets (Kavanagh and Johnson 2017). The manager is depended on the qualitative approach including historical data and statistics. Therefore, the manager is unaware of the recent trends of the market. This has caused no change in the product detail in the outlet causing loss in interest of the customers in the company.
The supply chain refers to the process of providing the materials form the dealer to the wholesalers (Hatton et al. 2017). The chain consists of the retailers to the customers. The management of this supply chain is necessary to maintain. It is the integration of the activities for procuring materials and services to transform into intermediate products. Woolworth has faced many challenges including not meeting the demands of the customers in the market (Abraham and Dao 2017). The staffs of the Woolworths fail to provide the quality of goods and services to its customer due to the ineffective inventory management systems and control.
Solution: Accounting Software Packages
Various frauds can prevail in this system. The delivery of wrong product as ordered by the customer, asking for extra charges in the marked price, providing poor quality of products is some fraud cases in this system (Madhavaram and Hunt 2017). The customer does not get the same product that has been ordered. The dealer used to change the product in the meantime and deliver wrong product to the customers.
The challenges faced by the Woolworth Supermarket have thrown light on the gaps and loopholes in the system of the company n the market (Appelbaum et al. 2017). Therefore, the company have to focus n the solution of the challenges by introducing accounting software packages in the company. The company has followed the B2B connections that helps in maintaining a proper connection with the other brands included in the company. The B2B solution facilitates a series of third party technology providers that helps in solving the technical complexity of the company in the market.
Figure 6: Message flow in the accounting software packages
(Source: Cassidy 2016)
Therefore, the B2B software has been successfully implemented in the company to reduce the detected challenges of the company in the market. The B2B solution provides technical messaging solutions to exchange a wide range of information flows in the organisation.
The market size of the Woolworth Supermarket has been always at top of the companies in the Australia. The strategies of the company have able to maintain the top position in the market share. The company has able to satisfy the needs of the customers in the market.
Figure 7: Market growth of Woolworth Supermarket
(Source: Cassidy 2016)
The market of the company has been rising continuously in the market with increasing number of customers. In the recent years, the market share of the company has shown decrement. In September 2016, there is a loss of $825 million in the market for the company (Sun et al. 2017).
Figure 8: Market share of the Woolworth and its competitors
(Source: McKnight et al. 2017)
The recent market trend has shown drastic changes with incoming of different companies for competition. Coles has provided a tough competition to the Woolworth Supermarket. The Coles has able to capture a huge amount of market share and competition with Woolworth in Australia. The strategies of the Coles are different from the Woolworth that is providing an edge to the company (McKnight et al. 2017). The Coles has able to provide new trends products to the customers with high price range. The Woolworth has invested around 41 billion in lowering the prices of the products in the market to provide a competitive advantage to the Coles.
B2B Connections in Woolworths Supermarket
Figure 9: Shopping share market
(Source: McKnight et al. 2017)
The above figure explains that the Woolworth have maintained the top position in the market having a competitive advantage. The other competitors including Coles and Aldi have a decent market share and providing competition to the Woolworth.
The Woolworth has been using the B2C strategy in the market for gaining the competitive advantage (Hallikainen et al. 2017). The company has not able to meet the demands of the customers in the market. The changes in the market demand have failed the strategies of the company. Therefore, it is recommended that the company needs to use the B2B software package that allows technical information of solutions to the company. The company needs to open new outlets to implement the B2B solution package in the market. The company needs to contact directly to the client to implement the B2B solution sin the operation management. This will create new opportunities for the company in the market and the market share of the company will increase n the future.
Conclusion
It is concluded that the Woolworth Supermarket has been maintaining top position in the market. The organisational structure has been discussed and the main reason for the decrement in the market share of the company. The sales flow chart maps all the process of the sales in the company and the delivery process of the company in the retail sector. The B2B accounting software packages helps in maintaining the solutions of the challenges faced by the company in the market.
References
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Appelbaum, D., Kogan, A., Vasarhelyi, M. and Yan, Z., 2017. Impact of business analytics and enterprise systems on managerial accounting. International Journal of Accounting Information Systems, 25, pp.29-44.
Cassidy, A., 2016. A practical guide to information systems strategic planning. CRC press.
Coviello, N. and Tanev, S., 2017. Initiating a New Research Phase in the Field of International Entrepreneurship: An Interview with Professor Nicole Coviello. Technology Innovation Management Review, 7(5).
Galliers, R.D. and Leidner, D.E. eds., 2014. Strategic information management: challenges and strategies in managing information systems. Routledge.
Hallikainen, H., Paesbrugghe, B., Laukkanen, T., Rangarajan, D. and Gabrielsson, M., 2017, January. How Individual Technology Propensities and Organizational Culture Influence B2B Customer’s Behavioral Intention to Use Digital Services at Work?. In Proceedings of the 50th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.
Hatton, C., Hatton, C., Kolk, M., Kolk, M., Eikelenboom, M., Eikelenboom, M., Beaumont, M. and Beaumont, M., 2017. Four approaches for staffing and structuring a product development team to identify the crucial unmet needs of B2B customers. Strategy & Leadership, 45(2), pp.25-32.
Ismail, N.A. and King, M., 2014. Factors influencing the alignment of accounting information systems in small and medium sized Malaysian manufacturing firms. Journal of Information Systems and Small Business, 1(1-2), pp.1-20.
Kavanagh, M.J. and Johnson, R.D. eds., 2017. Human resource information systems: Basics, applications, and future directions. Sage Publications.
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Madhavaram, S. and Hunt, S.D., 2017. Customizing business-to-business (B2B) professional services: The role of intellectual capital and internal social capital. Journal of Business Research, 74, pp.38-46.
McKnight, D.H., Lankton, N.K., Nicolaou, A. and Price, J., 2017. Distinguishing the effects of B2B information quality, system quality, and service outcome quality on trust and distrust. The Journal of Strategic Information Systems, 26(2), pp.118-141.
Nguyen, T.V., Nguyen, N.C. and Bosch, O.J., 2017. Enhancing the competitive advantages of Vietnamese coffee through the exploration of causal loop modelling in the supply chain. International Journal of Logistics Systems and Management, 26(1), pp.17-33.
Pearlson, K.E., Saunders, C.S. and Galletta, D.F., 2016. Managing and Using Information Systems, Binder Ready Version: A Strategic Approach. John Wiley & Sons.
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Sun, Z., Strang, K. and Firmin, S., 2017. Business Analytics-Based Enterprise Information Systems. Journal of Computer Information Systems, 57(2), pp.169-178.
Woolworths.com.au. (2017). {{metaController.metaData.title}}. [online] Available at: https://www.woolworths.com.au/ [Accessed 11 Aug. 2017].
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