Utilizing Information Technology In Retail Industry: A Case Study Of Panda Retail Company

Utilizing Information Technology in Retail Industry

The information technology implies a large group of interconnected digital technologies, such as networking, Database management, Computer operation, Communication server, Software, Web development, software Automation, Virtual storage system, cloud computing and other advanced technologies that help to exchange and process information while connecting the clients across the globe. Current Information Technology is used for both internal operations like logistics, production cycle, file handling as well as for external operation like consumer relation, market research, partnership and other operations (Baden-Fuller and Haefliger 2013). In business intelligence, the utilisation of various softwares is becoming very common to make the business operations easy, less time consuming and accurate. In business intelligence applications like Business Process Management or BPM, Enterprise Resource Planning or ERP, Warehouse Management  System or WMS and others are gaining more and more popularity. Utilising these software applications is making the business operations more accurate, efficient, productive, profitable and low time and cost consuming.

With the rising amount of competition in the retail market, the retail companies in terms of local, national and international level companies are increasing the use of Information Technology. The retail business emphasises the sequential business activities involving collecting the products from the suppliers or manufacturer and distributing them among the consumers. Therefore, communication is the most impotent tools of any retail industry that allows communicating with both the consumers as well as the suppliers. Therefore, throughout this procedure the retail industry needs a huge amount of IT support because of their requirement of effective communication (Chae, Koh and Prybutok 2014). In this research the chosen company is Panda Retail Company. Panda Retail Company is one of the most largest retail chain in Saudi Arabian grocery industry. Panda is the second biggest industrial sector in Saudi Arabia. Currently Panda Retail Company is spreading across the Middle East and northern African retail and grocery market. Nowadays, Panda Retail Company has large number hypermarket, supermarket and convenience stores throughout Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Egypt.

The problem that has been identified is a present issue as information technology is a very recent subject and the impact of information technology in all the field of a retail organization cannot be ignored. Many researches have been already conducted in this particular field of information technology and its influence upon the internal and external business organizations considering the further prospects considering technologies like, digital marketing, cloud computing, big data, Information system, Data Base Management System, Artificial Intelligence and others. However, there are very few papers that measures the influences of IT particularly on retail sector. However, most of these studies are helpful to identify its conceptual interaction with business. Most of these studies are unable to deliver practical and implementation based information.  It can be identified as a research gap in the study of strategic business and technology. Henceforth, this particular topic has been selected for study to get an in-depth understanding regarding the topic.

The Chosen Company: Panda Retail Company

This research has been conducted to present the existing scope of utilizing Information Technology in retail industry and the further prospect of utilization in order to gain better competitive advantage over the competitors of the same industry by understanding better implementation of IT in the organisation structure and operations. Apart from that, after analysing the existing dilemmas in the organisation named Panda Retail Company, appropriate recommendation can be developed. Through this analysis and recommendation, the management of Panda Retail Company can have enough information and implementation guideline through which they can actively plan for significant performance and efficiency improvement. Apart from that, it will also help the company to reduce operational cost and waste to gain more return on investment in short period.

The aim of this research is to examine the impact of Information technology on the internal and external business procedure of the retail sector while considering the Panda Retail Company as a case study. The primary focus of this research will be the utilisation of IT in the business procedure of Panda Retail Company while analysing the scope of improvement in future. At the same time, the secondary aim of this research is to found how the investment on information technology could be beneficial for any local, national and international retail industry as a whole. The purpose of this research is to analyse the scope of development through Information Technology and to recommend accordingly.  

As per the research aims, the research objectives have been formulated or this study and have been presented below:

• To understand the Information technology affects upon the retail stores.
• To determine the impact of Information Technology on Quality of Service.
• To provide a recommendation in order to improve the IT technology of Panda retail Company.
• To Judge the taken hypothesis

In the hypothetical assumption of this paper two variables have been considered namely Information Technology and Performance of the organisation. The Independent variable of this assumption is Information Technology and the dependent variable is the performance of the organisation. The parameters of dependency of two variables are the investment and the impact of performance. The taken null-hypothesis and hypothesis for this research has been presented respectively in the following section:

H0: Investing in Information Technology has no impact in performance of the organization.

H1: Investing in Information technology has a huge positive impact in performance of the organization.

Method outline refers the overall structure of the research from the beginning of the planning, though data collection, analysis to implementation. Therefore, for this research the research outline consists of the selected research philosophy, appropriate selection of the research approach, chosen research design, data collection and analysis method (Taylor, Bogdan and DeVault 2015). The outline of this research can be represented in form of research onion that includes all the previously described section of the method.  In the representation of research onion the outer most layer represents the initial stage of the method, that is research philosophy, where the core of the onion emphasise the data analysis and findings. The internal layers represent the step by step research methods respectively from outer to inner part of the research.

Research philosophy and justification 

Research Objectives

Research philosophy emphasises the perspective of conducting and selecting strategic tools for the research. Three types of research philosophies are available including Positivism philosophy, Interpretivism philosophy and Realism philosophy (Lewis 2015). The Positivism philosophy allows the research to collect data from real time environment with appropriate tools. On the other hand, the Interpretivism philosophy allows the research to collect previously published data and findings from another resource. The realism philosophy is the mix of both positivism and Interpretivism philosophy. For this research both real time data collection and secondary data collection have been needed. Therefore, in this research the realism research philosophy has been taken.

The term ‘Research Approach’ refers the approach of utilising the strategic tools for the research and the way of presentation and interpreting results. Two types of research approach can be followed by a research namely Inductive Approach and Deductive Approach. In inductive approach the research does not have any initial assumption or consideration. Inductive approach allows the research to explore the study field to come up with authentic findings. However, this research followed the deductive approach that allowed the research to declare hypothesis with two interrelated variables initially and to conduct a cause and effect analysis to prove the authenticity and practicality of the hypothesis.    

The research design emphasise the foundation of the research that indicates the processes and their sequences. It defines the overall developmental structure of the research comprising the every necessary phases of the research with their implementation method. Three types of research design a research can follow namely Exploratory design, Explanatory Design, Descriptive design (Flick 2015). Exploratory design is suitable for the research with no assumption or hypothesis. The Descriptive design however allows the research to describe and evaluate a particular topic. This research based on a hypothesis and examining the authenticity of the hypothesis is one of the major objectives. Therefore, in order to prove the hypothesis this research method has been design by Explanatory research design.

Research strategy refers the strategic choice of various tools to conduct the research and collect required data. The research strategy defines the practical operation of the data collection and data analysis section. In this research the real time data collection is mandatory. In order to collect the real time data, a survey has been conducted on stipulated number of consumer of Panda Retail Company. The questionnaires have been distributed online through the official web page as well as in the online purchasing page of the company. On the other hand , for secondary data collection this research collected data from various previous reports, research article on retail industry, the online and offline portfolio of  Panda Retail Company and the theoretical books on the strategic investment on Information technology in business. For numerical and statistical data analysis various tool SPSS, graphs and charts have been used to formulate the findings, interpretations and conclusion. For the data collection part both survey questionnaire and interview questions have been developed. The survey questionnaire has been developed for larger respondents sample while the face to face interview sessions have been conducted on limited and small sample size. For Face to Face interview, semi-structured interview format has been followed.

Hypotheses

Data collection is a procedure through which the evidence, operands and the operatior of the research topic are collected. The data collection procedure is one of the crucial methods if any research. In this research, both Primary Data collection and Secondary Data collection has been utilised in order to collect both real time data and data from previous studies and published reports. The Primary data collection has been conducted with the help of survey an interview. The survey has been conducted on a stipulated number of Consumer of the Panda Retail Company. On the other hand, the Interview has been conducted among managers from various departments on the Panda Retail Company through face to face semi structure interview format. For Survey 10 questionnaires were developed in a structured MCQ format considering the Likert Scale 5 optional choices including ‘Strongly Agree’, ‘Agree’, ‘Neutral’, ‘Disagree’ and ‘Strongly Disagree’.

Sampling refers the strategic choice of area from which the core elements of the information are collected in order to make authentic, effective and appropriate data analysis (BNS and HV 2013). This research has collected both primary and secondary data within a stipulated sample size. So conduct the survey within the 100 consumers random sampling has been considered with no specific constrains of inclination. The consumers have been selected as sample to collect information form consumer’s perspective on the service quality of Panda Retail Company. The perspective of consumers can be also helpful to identify the essential factors in development procedure. For the face to face semi structured interview the sample size was 4 managers from individual department of the Panda Retail Company. The mangers of Panda Retail Company has been chosen from different department including the finance, operation, Human Resource, Logistics and Administration. It is very helpful to develop the clear picture about the internal condition of the organisation while pointing out the operational dilemmas.

Data analysis is a procedure that allow the research to calibrate the collected data by numerical or non-numerical rational analysis for developing the appropriate findings. Data analysis is the second most essential procedure after data collection. Two types of data analysis can be conducted in a research namely qualitative data analysis and quantitative data analysis. Quantitative data analysis represents the statistical and the mathematical analysis of numerical data. On the other hand, in qualitative data analysis the research examine the collected information from secondary sources or interview through thematic analysis, case study analysis, narrative analysis and other strategy. Both Qualitative analysis and Quantitative analysis have been used to formulate the findings and interpretation of this research. The qualitative analysis has been done by considering the collected data from various previous reports, research article on retail industry, the online and offline portfolio of Panda Retail Company and the theoretical books on the strategic investment on Information technology in business and the interview report of the target sample size.

Methodology

 The qualitative data analysis has been presented in thematic analysis. On the other hand, for quantitative the data from survey report  has been analysed by utilising various tool such  SPSS, graphs and charts to formulate the findings, interpretations and conclusion. In structured survey questionnaire, Likert Scale 5 optional choices are included that comprises ‘Strongly Agree’, ‘Agree’, ‘Neutral’, ‘Disagree’ and ‘Strongly Disagree’. Depending on the question, each of the options has specific weight value for calculation purpose. In quantitative data analysis section the SPSS statistical analysis has been used. For SPSS data analysis exploratory frequency analysis has been made including Mean, Median, Mode and Standard Deviation.

Ethical consideration is crucial for any research that ensures the authenticity and credibility of the method of research. The compliance of the research comprises the terms, conditions, rules and regulations that supports the ethical issues of the research while making the study viable. This research considered both secondary and primary data collection through implementing various strategic tools under the compliance of ethical issues and consideration (Panneerselvam 2014). The method of survey ensured that it would not make any harm to any person mental and would not use any confidential data in other purpose except this research abiding by the Data Protection Act. Before conducting the interview and survey the participants had been informed about the purpose of the research in order to ensure their willingness to the participation. The participants were free to quit the interview or survey anytime they wanted. For secondary data collection the research ensured that the secondary information, statistics, data would be collected from authentic resource and literature while acknowledging the resources in the reference section.   

Activities	Start date	Duration (days)
Selection of Topic	04-Jul	5
Constructing the Research Layout	9-Jul	5
Selection of research methods	14-Jul	10
Literature Review	22-Jul	20
Data Collection from Secondary Resources	5-Aug	10
Data Collection from Primary Collection	10-Aug	20
Analysis and Interpretation of Collected Data	1-Sep	15
Formulating Conclusion	16-Sep	7
Development to Draft	20-Sep	5
Final Work Submission	26-Sep	5

The literature review section allows the research to present the collected secondary data in a structured format. The purpose of this literature review is to explore the concept and implementation of information technology in retail sector or any other business operation from multiple aspects. The selection of the literature is based on the objectives that have been selected initially. The aim of this literature review is analyse the cause and effect relationship of various components of the business intelligence and the scope of betterment. Through this literature review the significant amount of secondary data can be collected and formulated for appropriate data analysis and discussion. In this research, the literature review has served the major role because it is the major way to collect secondary data for this research.

Research Philosophy

In this literature review the cloud computing, big data advanced DBMS, AI, RFID and other business intelligence have been taken into consideration. Business Intelligence is an umbrella of application, infrastructure and tools with the best practice that enable a business organisation to analyse information, improve and optimise their decision, performance and profitability. The existing utilisations of these information technologies have been examined along with the potential scope of improved implementation and development. The history of Information technology and the affectivity of business intelligence have been presented with appropriate evidences and case studies. The purpose of this literature review is to collect adequate data and information regarding the technological advantage of Information technology in the business environment.

In business intelligence, the utilisation of various software applications is becoming very common to make the business operations easy, less time consuming and accurate. It is an umbrella of application, infrastructure and tools with the best practice that enable a business organisation to analyse information, improve and optimise their decision, performance and profitability.  In 2005 to 2015 the utilisation of business intelligence has increased by 60% to 70% over the previous utilisations. Today, more than 53% of local, national and global business operations depend on the Information Technologies that gave the birth of third party IT service provider industry (I??K, Jones and Sidorova 2013).  

The Business Process Management or BPM is a group of business related softwares that allow the business to plan their business operation in a way that can bring the most possible profit margin. BPM and its automated applications allow the managers to develop most profitable and efficient business operational plans comprised with repetitive and cyclic procedures of Designing, Modelling, Execution, Monitoring, Optimising and re-engineering. The Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) is closely related to BPM and management information technology that helps to improve the performance of the business operation by analysing their individual business operations and develop solutions (Wixom et al. 2014). ERP can help the business organisation in scheduling, resource allocation, financial controls and even consumer relationship management. Apart from that, Warehouse Management System or WMS is gaining enough popularity in the logistic operation. WMS allows the business organisation to maintain their inbound as well as outbound supply chain management under an advanced, accurate and automatic data operation program. WMS has a group of systematic data  flow algorithm that is advanced enough to handle every aspect of logistic operation, pre-cycle and post-cycle management.

Research Approach

Cloud computing is a information technology that allows virtual connection within more than one system to handle any particular task simultaneously from anywhere in globe. The term cloud refer the groups of online servers or hosts that are responsible for data processing, storing and transferring the data in a real time information interchange environment. The advantage of the cloud computing is it allows a large number of operational interface to work on a particular file and dataset. This technology is often recognised by the virtual teamwork. Cloud computing opened a new horizon that enable real time data surveillance system, which allow the business organisation to track several operations like logistics, finance, production cycle in a real time environment. In most of the cases the 3^rd party service providers are involved to facilitate any organisation with cloud service (Deng and Chi 2012).

About 4 types of Cloud service can be found in business operation, namely In-house or private cloud system, Infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS) and Software as a service (SaaS). Iaas and PaaS are also known as hybrid cloud, because both provider and the administrator can access the cloud computing operation. At the same time, community cloud is also is a widely popular system that enables the host to develop and maintain a cloud service within a particular community. A private cloud refers to cloud computing resources used exclusively by a single business or organisation (I??K, Jones and Sidorova 2013). A private cloud can be physically located on the company’s on-site data centre. Hybrid clouds join together the public and private clouds, collaborating by technology that allows data and applications to be shared between all the parties under certain encryption from the administration. 

Big data is a expression that describes the large volume of both structured and unstructured data that inundates a business on a regular basis. However, it is not the amount of data, which is important for the infrastructure of the organisation. The operation and the range of dynamical data point within the organisation’s operational limit only matters. Big data can be analyzed for insights that lead to better decisions and strategic business moves. Big data is a virtual storage system with huge storage capacity that does not consume any physical space to store or operate the large amount of records. The technology of storing a huge amount of data in terms of big data and accessing the huge pool of information in very less amount of time has been introduced after the advancement of Internet of things and cloud storage system (Wu, Chen and Olson, 2014). Nowadays, cloud storage system of big data is often used to store internal data, operational structure, essential details, reusable information, market research report, consumer report, legal compliance and many other data and information.

Research Design

In Retail industry, this technology is also used to store 3PL or third party logistics base information in order to improve the Warehouse Management System. In case of temporary or permanent reallocation of branch, outlet, the Big data allow the administration to store the vast volume of data in cloud storage and to re-download the data and information when required. Recently, the big data technology is being used to store and use the consumer behaviour related information. The consumer details with consumer details, name, phone number, email address, consumer interest, potential expense and premium are stored in the Big data system which can be used in further promotional and market based activities.

DBMS or Database Management System is a widely used tool for maintain the data and record with more efficient and accurate way through digital computing platform. SQL, Excel, Access are some of the mostly used DBMS software. In the Data Base Management System or DBMS operation, the most essential and complex process is record handling and normalisation of various sets of relations which creates considerable amount of time and space redundancy (Laudon and Laudon 2016). In Advance DBMS the records are stored in more efficient format with more reliable indexing method that allows any organisation to store, alter and fetch any record by spending minimum amount of time. In recent years the Artificial intelligence is also incorporated in this system in order to increase the auto generated storage computability and problem solving capacity.

In the Advanced DBMS service, the database server can control the ongoing traffic of data packages to reduce the data transmission delay and latency time. Apart from that, the advanced DBMS comprises the efficient file handling system that stores the data in lowest amount of space while comprehensively accessing the data with high speed. With these advancement the market data, external information, organisational information, HRM data, financial details and other can be stored and operated with better efficiency (Chan 2013). Moreover the Advanced DBMS can provide the operational organisation several add-on facilities including Data Warehousing And Mining, Query Processing and Optimization, Distributed and Parallel Database, Relational Database Design & Normalization, Object Oriented and Object Relational Database and XML.

Artificial intelligence is widely recognisable in Robotics industry as an automatic problem solving system or platform. In traditional concept of computing is executing a coded operation comprised with operator on a set of data in order to generate the required result. However, Artificial Intelligence allows to dynamically automatic configuration of the core operation in order to solve unknown problem. In Information Technology the Artificial Intelligence has made revolution (Bajdor and Grabara 2014). This allows more efficient operation of business intelligence in complex and dynamic environment.  Apart from that AI can be also helpful to improve accuracy during the project development and planning. The automation can also increase the speed of work process by reducing operational time requirements. At the same time, an organisation can use automated mechanics in their Warehouse Management System, through which they can reduce the total investment in workforce maintenance and compliances.

Research Strategy

One of the most common example of the modern software automation is CPOS or Computer based Point On Sell system. In this system the each and every electrical and electronics devices related to cash exchange are connected together. A in build interconnected software controls the cash related data from various cash machine and calculate the present number of notes and coins in a real time environment to avoid any kind of physical monitory transaction or exchange delay (Demir and Krajewski 2013). The automation system is also used for Information system as well, where the company can manage their promotional activities in accordance with the consumer interest, potential expense and premium details. The information system store the detailed information of the customer including the phone number and email Id and generates and sends the most appropriate promotional massage with upcoming offer details and details product information automatically.

Nowadays, networking system is the most crucial part of any business operation for both internal and external operation including communication, data transfer, information gathering, business intelligence, internet of things and other advanced utilisation (Pantano 2014). The wireless network connectivity opened a new era of digitalisation in business operation that has made the internet of things more competent and accurate. The intervention of the 5Generation wireless connectivity however has started a new era in terms of data transfer speed, network flexibility, transfer accuracy and transfer capacity. With the help of advanced multi duplex functionality the 5G wireless network has already made a huge success in the world of network based business operation and communication (Lee and Yu 2012). The more recent 3GPP standard includes any network using the NR New Radio software. 5G New Radio can include lower frequencies, from 600 MHz to 6 GHz. As per the gross estimation the 5G wireless network technology is 20% to 50% faster over the 4G network system.

Although 5G is not expected to reach the British market until 2020, several companies have already started investing to prepare ahead for the new wireless mobile standard, and trial 5G networks are already being set up in other corners of the world. In last two years, the server based business operation or virtual business intelligence has made significant improvement that enables the company to connect their all employee in a particular encrypted information system in a worldwide virtual platform. This kind of operation is also known as virtual team management or virtual business operation. At the same time, with the more advanced mobile devices like Smartphone, tablets, Laptop, even smart watch 5G networking system can increase the operational performance significantly that can change the efficiency of business intelligence.

Data Collection

Radio frequency Identification is a widely used technology in this era that assist and even control the logistical operation with more accuracy and speed. In traditional logistic operation the Barcode identification system is used. However, by utilising electromagnetic fields, this new technology can identify the particular object with more detailed information. In RFID system, an electronic tag is attached with the object, which can contain more than 2KB of data about the object details. The AIDC or Automatic Identification and Data Capture device emit a particular radiofrequency that is detected and responds with derailed stored information that is captured by the AIDC receptor for identification details. The distance of detection and range of stored information depends on the installed technology in the tag (Knabke and Olbrich 2013).  Depending on the ability of the RFID Tag the RFID system can be further subdivided into two types namely active RFID and passive RFID. In active RFID a battery with small charge is connected with the tag that helps to generate radio frequency even when the detector is unable to transmit identification ping. On the other hand, the passive RFID tag does not have the ability, only in presence of detector and radio frequency emission it can resent the captured ping with response to the AIDC system for verification.

Depending on the data reflection and data generation, Passive RFID and Active RFID are used in Logistics operation. In modern business Logistic operation the RFID system have initiated a new era of Automatic Identification system. With this system the user company can locate the position of the object and even the physical condition of the object. RFID enables any logistic service to detect any tagged object from very long distance (Bobak et al. 2013). Recently, the RFID technology is being remodelled to reduce waste of the valuable tag and to make the tag reusable. In modern logistic development utilisation of RFID tag has made another dilemma due to its ‘use and throw’ principle. It increases the waste and operational cost of the logistic operation. However, some companies are coming up with advance RFID tag that can be reused multiple times. It can reduce the overall operational cost by effective waste management. It is an environmental friendly approach as well.

From the literature review it can be concluded that Business Intelligence is an umbrella of application, infrastructure and tools with the best practice that enable a business organisation to analyse information, improve and optimise their decision, performance and profitability.  BPM, ERP are two of the most commonly used business Information Technology based operations. Cloud computing and Storage opened a new horizon that enable real time data surveillance system, which allow the business organisation to track several operations like logistics, finance, production cycle in a real time environment. Warehouse Management System or WMS allows the business organisation to maintain their inbound as well as outbound supply chain management under an advanced, accurate and automatic data operation program.

Data Analysis

With Advanced DBMS, the market data, external information, organisational information, HRM data, financial details and other can be stored and operated with better efficiency. From that above discussion, it can be said that CPOS and Consumer based Information System are some of the most commonly used automated AI technology in business. The intervention of the 5Generation wireless connectivity however has started a new era in terms of data transfer speed, network flexibility, transfer accuracy and transfer capacity. 5G wireless network has already made a huge success in the world of network based business operation and communication. RFID system is becoming more popular in used because of its huge data operations and efficient as well as long distance identification facilities.

In this literature review the cloud computing, big data advanced DBMS, AI, RFID, 5G wireless connectivity, Internet of Things and business intelligence have been taken into consideration. This literature review has explored the concept and implementation of information technology in retail sector or any other business operation from multiple aspects. The literature review was based on the collected data from various secondary resources including the article, published industry reports, Journals of technology and others. The major limitation of this literature review is, it does not present the statistical data of application of utilisation of various business intelligence tools and technologies. Apart from that the chosen resources were also based on secondary data collection that reduce the practicality and attainability of the presented information.

The collected data from survey can be subdivided into 2 sections namely demographical report and non-demographical report. For the statistical analysis this research has implemented exploratory frequency analysis considering the mean median, mode and Standard Deviation. For this data analysis part, the SPSS software has been used.

age
	Frequency	Percent	Valid Percent	Cumulative Percent
Valid	15 to 25	24	24.0	24.0	24.0
26 to 40	41	41.0	41.0	65.0
41 to 60	30	30.0	30.0	95.0
more than 60	5	5.0	5.0	100.0
Total	100	100.0	100.0

Table 1: Age group

As per the report the respondents are divided into 4 age group where 15 is considered as lowest age group and 60 has been considered as the highest age group. 71% respondents belong to the age range of 26 to 60. Very few respondents are more than 60 years old. Therefore the mostly 26 to 60 years old respondents have been contributed to develop the quantitative findings.

	Frequency	Percent	Valid Percent	Cumulative Percent
Valid	Strongly disagree	4	4.0	4.0	4.0
Disagree	8	8.0	8.0	12.0
Neutral	28	28.0	28.0	40.0
Agree	41	41.0	41.0	81.0
Strongly Agree	19	19.0	19.0	100.0
Total	100	100.0	100.0

Table 2: Consumers are Influenced by Online Promotion

Among 100 participants more than 81% participants supported that they often are influenced by the online promotional activity before purchasing any new product. Only 12%  participants supported that the online promotions do not influence their purchasing behaviour and choice. 28% participants took a neutral stand without supporting or denying the fact.

	Frequency	Percent	Valid Percent	Cumulative Percent
Valid	Strongly disagree	3	3.0	3.0	3.0
Disagree	7	7.0	7.0	10.0
Neutral	16	16.0	16.0	26.0
Agree	40	40.0	40.0	66.0
Strongly Agree	34	34.0	34.0	100.0
Total	100	100.0	100.0

Conclusion

Table 3: Product availability in website

Among 100 participants, more than 74% participants supported that they like to visit Company’s website to see the product availability. Only 10% participants denied the fact by supporting that they do not like to visit company’s website to see product availability before going to the market. 16% participants took a neutral stand without supporting or denying the fact.

	Frequency	Percent	Valid Percent	Cumulative Percent
Valid	Strongly disagree	21	21.0	21.0	21.0
Disagree	46	46.0	46.0	67.0
Neutral	23	23.0	23.0	90.0
Agree	7	7.0	7.0	97.0
Strongly Agree	3	3.0	3.0	100.0
Total	100	100.0	100.0

Table 4: Get promotional message or email

Among 100 participants, more than 67% participants did not convey that they often get promotional message or email from the Panda Retail Company. Only 10% participants supported that they often received online promotional email or messages from Panda Retail Company. 23% participants took a neutral stand without supporting or denying the fact.

	Frequency	Percent	Valid Percent	Cumulative Percent
Valid	Strongly disagree	3	3.0	3.0	3.0
Disagree	5	5.0	5.0	8.0
Neutral	17	17.0	17.0	25.0
Agree	40	40.0	40.0	65.0
Strongly Agree	35	35.0	35.0	100.0
Total	100	100.0	100.0

Table 5: Online purchasing and delivery

Among 100 participants, more than 75% participants agreed that the Panda Retail Company should incorporate online purchasing facilities along with delivery services. However, only 8% participants did not agree upon this fact. 17% participants took a neutral stand without supporting or denying the fact.

	Frequency	Percent	Valid Percent	Cumulative Percent
Valid	Strongly disagree	4	4.0	4.0	4.0
Disagree	8	8.0	8.0	12.0
Neutral	27	27.0	27.0	39.0
Agree	42	42.0	42.0	81.0
Strongly Agree	19	19.0	19.0	100.0
Total	100	100.0	100.0

Table 6: Weak queuing management

Among 100 participants, more than 61% participants agreed that the Panda Retail Company does not have efficient queuing management for their cash counter in super and hypermarket. On the other hand, only 12% participants did not agree upon this fact that the Panda Retail supermarkets and hypermarkets have poor queue management system. 27% participants took a neutral stand without supporting or denying the fact.

	Frequency	Percent	Valid Percent	Cumulative Percent
Valid	Strongly disagree	2	2.0	2.0	2.0
Disagree	7	7.0	7.0	9.0
Neutral	23	23.0	23.0	32.0
Agree	40	40.0	40.0	72.0
Strongly Agree	28	28.0	28.0	100.0
Total	100	100.0	100.0

Table 7: Often ‘out of stock’ issue

Among 100 participants, more than 68% participants complained that they often experience ‘out of stock’ issue from Panda Retail Company supermarkets and hypermarkets. On the other hand, only 9% participants denied by supporting that they did not have any ‘out of stock’ experience from Panda Retail Company. 23% participants took a neutral stand without supporting or denying the fact.

	Frequency	Percent	Valid Percent	Cumulative Percent
Valid	Strongly disagree	6	6.0	6.0	6.0
Disagree	20	20.0	20.0	26.0
Neutral	37	37.0	37.0	63.0
Agree	31	31.0	31.0	94.0
Strongly Agree	6	6.0	6.0	100.0
Total	100	100.0	100.0

Table 8: Consumer service is not satisfactory

Among 100 participants, more than 37% participants complained that consumer service of Panda Retail Company supermarkets and hypermarkets is not satisfactory enough. On the other hand, only 26% participants supported that Panda Retail Company has adequate consumer support system. 37% participants took a neutral stand without supporting or denying the fact.

	Frequency	Percent	Valid Percent	Cumulative Percent
Valid	last 1 week	8	8.0	8.0	8.0
last 1 month	11	11.0	11.0	19.0
last 2 month	27	27.0	27.0	46.0
last 6 month	37	37.0	37.0	83.0
more than 6 month	17	17.0	17.0	100.0
Total	100	100.0	100.0

Table 9: Last purchasing

Among 100 participants, around 17% said complained that they last purchased from Panda Retail Company supermarkets or hypermarkets before 6 moth. On the other hand, only 19% participants supported they last purchased form  Panda Retail Company in last 1 month.

	Frequency	Percent	Valid Percent	Cumulative Percent
Valid	Strongly disagree	5	5.0	5.0	5.0
Disagree	10	10.0	10.0	15.0
Neutral	29	29.0	29.0	44.0
Agree	40	40.0	40.0	84.0
Strongly Agree	16	16.0	16.0	100.0
Total	100	100.0	100.0

Table 10: Products are not fresh in quality

Among 100 participants, around 56% supported that Panda Retail Company not always sales fresh quality product. On the other hand, only 15% participants supported that Panda Retail Company always maintains the fresh quality product in their supermarkets and hypermarkets. 29% participants took a neutral stand without supporting or denying the fact.

	Influenced_by_online_Promotion	Product_availibility_website	Online_purchasing_delivery	Weak_queuing_management	Often_out_of_stock	Consumer_service_not_satisfactory	Not_fresh_quality_product	Last_purchasing	Get_promotional_sms_email	age
N	Valid	100	100	100	100	100	100	100	100	100	100
Missing	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Mean	3.6300	3.9500	3.9900	3.6400	3.8500	3.1100	3.5200	3.4400	2.2500	2.1600
Median	4.0000	4.0000	4.0000	4.0000	4.0000	3.0000	4.0000	4.0000	2.0000	2.0000
Mode	4.00	4.00	4.00	4.00	4.00	3.00	4.00	4.00	2.00	2.00
Std. Deviation	1.01160	1.02863	.99995	1.01025	.97830	.99387	1.03942	1.13991	.96792	.84948
Sum	363.00	395.00	399.00	364.00	385.00	311.00	352.00	344.00	225.00	216.00

Table 11: Exploratory Statistical analysis

From the statistical analysis, the research considers the Medians and Mode for this quantitative analysis. The statistical data has been presented by SPSS software based exploratory frequency analysis system. According to the statistical report the mode and median of Influenced by online participants is 4. 4 represents the ‘agree’ option. Therefore, it is clear that most participants supported that they use to be influenced by online promotion. Similarly, mode and median of product availability from website is 4. Therefore, most participants supported that they like to visit online website of a particular company to visit the product availability. The mode and median of Incorporating online purchasing delivery is 4. Therefore, most of the participants supported that the Panda Retail Company should incorporate online purchasing and delivery service. The mode and median of not getting fresh food products is 4, which means that participants are agreed about this fact. However, mode and median of getting online promotional message and email is 2. 2 represents Disagree option. Therefore, most of the participants disagreed that they get promotional email or message often. The mode and median of Consumer Service not satisfactory is 3. Since, 3 refers the neutral option, this mode and median report showed that there is a 50-50 chance that a consumer may think that Consumer service of Panda Retail company is not satisfactory. Therefore, due to median and mode of all the factors that indicate the essentiality of the Information Technology in business operation are respectively 4. It can be concluded that, as per the consumers opinion Panda Retail Company must invest larger amount of the operational expense for their technological advancement.

The following Qualitative analysis has been done as per the data collection from face to face interview procedure. The thematic analysis of the collected information contains the perspective of 5 managers on the organisational internal and external condition along with the regulators and constrains.

Panda Retail Company is one of the most largest retail chain in Saudi Arabian grocery industry. Panda Retail Company is listed under the top 100 companies in Saudi Arabian market. Panda is also the second biggest industrial sector in Saudi Arabia. The company was originated in 1978. Savola Group acquitted the company named Panda United in 1998 and now the Panda Retail Company is the major subsidiary of Savola Group. Currently Panda Retail Company is spreading across the Middle East and northern African retail and grocery market. Bandar Hamooh is the current present CEO of Panda Retail and currently and this retail hypermarket has 25000 employees. Nowadays, Panda Retail Company has over 500 hypermarket, supermarket and convenience stores throughout Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Egypt (Kaplan, Wirtz and Stephens 2013).

Being the retailer subsidiary of Savola Group Panda Retail Company offers varsities of food products, kitchen tools, household materials, fruits, vegetables, diary product processed food and bread, packed non alcoholic beverage, spice and other grocery products. To maintain sustainable and profitable relationship with consumer the company offers other product related services, such as online purchasing, product delivery, online payment, mail and phone call based consumer services and many more. The aim of Panda Retail is not only to make profit out of the market segment, the company maintain a steady healthy and sustainable relationship with consumer for further scope of development. Due to the efficient product and product related service, Panda Retail is one of the most successful and well known retail company in middle east (Handfield et al. 2013). The products quality and service efficiency are directly regulated by the Savola Group.

• PESTEL

P	Political	Saudi Arabia’s government has diversified the economy from the oil sector to the non-oil sector such as the retail, healthcare, education, residential housing, and banking and financial sectors. The overall political condition is stable and supportive for business operation.
E	Economic	The Saudi Arabian economy is dominated by the industrial sector, which contributed approximately 62.8% to the total GDP in 2015. The national as well as per capita GDP has been significantly increased in last 10 years
S	Social	Saudi Arabia is facing social challenges, such as increasing crime rate, which is raising the level of corruption. Saudi Arabia’s unemployment rate was 5.727% of total labor force (Ahmad 2012.).
T	Technological	The national and regional level business organisations are increasing their business base by utilising advanced Business Intelligence, Information technology and Next generation networking system.
E	Environmental	The government of Saudi Arabia has imposed 9 environmental laws regarding the air pollution, mobile wave emission, water prolusion, waste management standards, chemical management and others.
L	Legal	The introduction of VAT in all business operation and monetary transaction taxation system and increment of various food-based raw materials such as sugar are causing additional legal issues and compliances.

• SWOT

Strength	Weakness
· Panda Retail company is the largest food retailer in Middle East · From 2015 to2016 the company increased its market share by 7% to 8% · Panda has strong ERP system (Enterprise Resource Planning) (Bakar et al. 2013) · The parent company Savola is renowned international business organisation.	· Lack of modernisation of offline store service · Consumer goods market failed recently · Revenue decreased by 14% in last year (2017) · Lack of strategic market penetration · Panda Retail Company has very low global expansion rate
Opportunity	Threat
· Sales trends improved during end of 2017 and the beginning of 2018 · Panda Retail can evaluate Non-Oil based retail operation · Launch of Soudi Vision in 2030 can cause additional benefit. · Introduction of new auto checkout system can increase the consumer interest.	· Introduction of VAT and increase the sugar taxes can damage shoppers confidence · The CEO of Panda Retail is completely new face in this company. · Government keeps pushing the business authority to hire local workers instead of international level selection of quality worker.

• Porters 5 Forces

The retail and grocery industry of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Middle Eastern countries is expanding quickly while generating a large amount of profit contributing the national GDP. In this fragmented retail market several retail companies are participating to gain maximum profit. The 5 components of the market competition analysis are Market Rivalry, Threats from New entrance, Threats from substitutes, Bargaining power of the consumers and the Bargaining power of the suppliers.

Market Rivalry:

The rivals of the Panda Retail company in the retail market of UAE, KSA and other countries are highly competent and experienced in business. The major competitors of Panda Retail Company are Al Othaim, Bin Dawood/Danibe, Al Raya and Carrefour (Rahman 2014). All of these competitors are strong and have well market reputation, which creates a strong market rivalry in retail industry.

Threats from New entrance:

The market competitiveness is already higher and it is consistently increasing. Therefore, for new entrees the survival in this high competitive market will be  extremely difficult. However, some new companies are entering in the market under some existing international level business groups. Therefore, the threat from new entrance is low.

Threats from substitutes:

The market competitors of Panda Retail Company are incorporating new product and services in their business. However, Savola Group is not enabling the Panda retail to incorporate any additional features. It opens more options to choose for the consumers. This situation is making the threats from substitutes higher.

Bargaining power of the consumers:

The price range and product quality of Panda Retail Company is average that allows the company to hold a stable price product balance in retail market. However, the entree level companies are trying to attract the market segment by new offers with comparatively low price. At the same time, due to have a strong market reputation panda retail company has considerably low treats of bargaining power of consumers.

Bargaining power of the suppliers:

Due to have low fertilising capability of ground, most of the grocery products including fruits, vegetables and beverages are imported in the retail market of Middle East from other part of the world.  However, fruits like Dates and the diary product are highly available in the farms and the domestic suppliers count are high. On the other hand, due to have high profit margin the competitors of Panda can offer better trading price for suppliers. Moreover, the bargaining power of the suppliers is very high from the perspective of Savola group and Panda Retail Company.

In the face to face interview session, all 5 managers were completely agreed on the fact that panda Retail company has some serious management and operational issues due to the lack of technological incorporation in the work process. Some of the major challenges are stimulating other constrains that blocking the overall growth of the organisation.

As per the opinion of the managers one of the major constrains in organisational operation is its logistics system. Currently Panda Retail company logistic system depends on traditional bar code identification system. This logistical implementation consumes higher time and workforce. At the same time, in this process the scope of utilising automation in very low that hinders the further speed enhancement procedure. The supply chain management of Panda Retail warehouses are also not advanced enough to compute the most efficient transportation system to avoid traffic related transportation delay (Holtshouse 2013). This situation often causes rotting of fruits, vegetables and other process food products. As a result, the company has to filter the entire supply packages to eliminate disputed products. Even after all these procedures, the fresh food ratio of the warehouses always remains lower than expected.

Consumers often complain about lengthy queuing process in cash counters. Even, employees regularly experience cash management deficiency during monetary interchange procedure in cash counter. The lengthy queue in cash counters often result bitter consumer experiences. Due to inefficient cash management in counters, the employees usually do not have idea about the existing cash and changes availability. In case of low cash or change, the particular counter has to be closed temporarily (Joshi 2009).

Panda Retail company always faces high consumer turnover due to their inefficient post-purchasing consumer relationship. Another reason behind this low consumer loyalty is that, the company has very less amount of data about consumer trends and their investment capability. As a result, the online promotional activities of Panda Retail Company are not linked with the automated information system. Therefore, the company is unable to deliver the information of the offers and special availability to the potential buyers

In internal factor, high employee turnover rate causing significant amount of performance loss of the workforce. The employee management and monitoring system of Panda Retail Company is not advance enough to control a efficient workforce. The recognition and scorecard system is conventional and the implementation of ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system is absent. On the other hand the company does not have any intranet cloud system through which the operational data can be integrated within various department for better synchronisation (Laudon and Traver 2013). At the same time, the lack of advance file handling and manual data processing system are making the internal operation high time and energy consuming.

In this section, the interpretation of collected data and the analysis of the findings will be discussed while concerning both the problem situations and possible strategies for improvement. Therefore, the interpretation and discussion section will be divided into 3 major phases namely problem tree analysis, discussion of possible interventions of technologies and discussion of change management procedure. From the data analysis section, the consumer related data and information about their experiences and expectations have been collected through survey. On the other hand, the information about internal operational problems, market competition, information about internal influencer and external regulators have been collected, presented and analysed. The purpose of this data interpretation and discussion section is to examine the collected data with more critical parameters and to find the possible scope for improvement with the change management implementation strategies.

Competitive environment: The major competitors of Panda Retail Company are Al Othaim, Bin Dawood/Danibe, Al Raya and Carrefour. In the fragmented retail market of middle east, especially in Saudi Arabia, UAE and Lebanon, several retail companies are participating to gain maximum profit. All of these competitors are strong and have well market reputation, which creates a strong market rivalry in retail industry. At the same time, Savola Group is not enabling the Panda retail to incorporate any additional product and service. The lack of innovative business ideas is causing slowly dearth of market share and consumer loyalty (Schwalbe 2015). Due to have high profit margin the competitors of Panda can offer better trading price for supplier, that increases bargaining power of the suppliers.

Macro factors: Introduction of VAT and increase the sugar taxes is damaging the buyers motive. As a result, the buyers of grocery market are becoming more price-sensitive. Panda Retail Company is currently operating with very low Return on Investment margin (Rai and Tang 2013). Apart from that, the updated workforce regulations and Governmental policies keep pushing the business authority to hire local workers instead of international level selection of quality worker. It hinders the potential work force efficiency of Panda Retail Company.

Poor Consumer relation: Panda Retail Company always faces high consumer turnover due to their inefficient post-purchasing consumer relationship. The company does not provide enough information about product availability and offers to the potential consumers. At the same time, the company has very less amount of data about consumer trends and their investment capability (Veit et al. 2014). As a result, Panda Retail Company becomes unable to deliver the information about new offers and special availability to the potential buyers. Apart from that, the lengthy purchasing process in Panda Retail Supermarkets and Hypermarkets is making the consumer experience bitter.

‘Out of stock’ and low product quality: Currently Panda Retail company logistic system depends on traditional bar code identification system. This logistical implementation consumes higher time and workforce. As a result, the supply chain management of Panda Retail warehouses are also not advanced enough to compute the most efficient transportation system to avoid traffic related transportation delay. This situation often causes rotting of fruits, vegetables and other process food products. The brand reputation and the profit margin are affected because of this inefficient and disputed logistic operation. Apart from that, lack of information integrity blinds the storage operation of the company to monitor the run time stock management (Zott and Amit 2015). This situation often causes sudden blank inventory and out of stock situations. After the occurrence of inventory failure, the company is able to identify the situation and makes effective supply for recovery. However, throughout the process the company loses a huge number of customers who wanted to buy that particular product.

Employee performance: The employee management and monitoring system of Panda Retail Company is not advanced enough to control an efficient workforce. The recognition and scorecard system is conventional and the implementation of ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system is absent. Therefore, the business management planning, payroll system, resource allocation and other management operations are taking excessive amount of time and cost (Wagner, Beimborn and Weitzel 2014). The lacks of effective appraisal system, recognition and reword management have failed to boost up the workforce performance. Apart from that, lack of technical support in work process causing work inefficiency in many cases.

Weak marketing and promotion: As per the data analysis section, it is clear that currently Panda Retail Company does not have any advanced information system to collect process and automate the information while integrating them within the work process. The online website of Panda Retail company is unable to develop consumer information by developing consumer traffic map that could enable the company so monitor consumer interest. Apart from that, during the purchasing operation Panda Retail supermarkets and hypermarkets are unable to strategically use the consumer details with contact number, email and residential address for future promotional purpose. Panda Retail Company does not have the information integrity that can connect the consumer interest and consumer details data to develop the most potential buyers list for promotional message and email.

Weak queue and cash management: Currently Panda Retail Supermarkets and Hypermarkets do not have any point on cell system to keep track the available physical cash balance. Due to inefficient cash management in counters, the employees usually do not have idea about the existing cash and changes availability. In case of low cash or change, the particular counter has to be closed temporarily (Rai and Tang 2013). Apart from that the Panda Retail Super markets and hypermarkets does not have a queue monitoring system that could allow the customers to spend less amount of time in queuing system. As a result, the lengthy queue in cash counters often result bitter consumer experiences.

Panda retail Company can improve their workforce efficiency, consumer loyalty, monitoring ability, business operation and others by utilising advance technologies strategically. The company have many opportunities to improve their Information Technology based operations.

Improving the information system:

Business intelligence is an umbrella of application, infrastructure and tools with the best practice that enable the Panda Retail Company to analyse information, improve and optimise their decision, performance and profitability (Venkatesh, Thong and Xu 2012). Through Business Process Management (BPM) software applications, the company can improve their business planning, operational lifecycle and workflow model. It will also enable the company to have strong governance on the organisational operations. Apart from that, through cloud computing Panda Retail Company can control groups of online servers or hosts for data processing, storing and transferring the data in a real time information interchange environment (Luftman, Lyytinen and ben Zvi 2017). The cloud computing will allow the company to operate the market data, consumer data in a real-time environment where more than one user can used the data to develop and alter information. At the same time, the vast cloud storage system of big data will enable the Panda Retail Supermarkets and Hypermarkets to store internal data, operational structure, essential details, reusable information, market research report, consumer report, legal compliance and many other data and information. Utilising the Advanced DBMS system Panda retail can maintain, control, alter, and audit the stored data with more efficacies while avoiding any potential data loss or redundancy.  

Improving the logistics:

Panda can improve their logistic, warehouse resourcing system with  BPM based automated applications that will allow the managers to develop most profitable and efficient ERP or Enterprise Resource Planning. Utilising the artificial Intelligence through these software applications will allow the Panda Retail Company to dynamically automate the configuration of the core operation in order to solve any unknown problem (Anandarajan, Anandarajan and Srinivasan 2012). Panda Retail Cal also use Warehouse Management System or WMS to maintain the quality of the product. Apart from that, with RFID system the Panda Retail Company can locate the position of the inbound object and even monitor the physical condition of the object. RFID enables any logistic service to detect any tagged object from very long distance (Venkatesh, Thong and Xu 2012). By locating the geographical position of the inbound goods through RFID system Panda Retail can develop the most efficient transportation route plan that would take less time for transportation. The effective logistic and supply chain planning reduce the disputation of inbound products. Apart from that, with RFID system the company can continuously monitor the inventory system, to detect any potential vacant stock. It will allow the company to restore the sock volume of a particular product before the ‘out of stock’ situation making the products always available for the consumers.

Improving the consumer relation, marketing and promotion:

The information system store the detailed information of the customer including the phone number and email Id and generates and sends the most appropriate promotional massage with upcoming offer details and details product information automatically. Apart from that, by utilising their official website Panda Retail Company can develop a consumer forum where the consumers can convey about their experience or opinion freely. The company can connect the consumer service department to this forum to maintain a strong post-purchasing relationship with the consumers (Eason 2014). Panda Retail can also inform their customer about new offers and product availability according to their interest and purchasing capability.

Improving Queue management and Cash management

Panda Retail Company can connect each and every electrical and electronics devices related to cash exchange by utilising CPOS or Computer based Point On Sell system. Through the CPOS system, the company can operate a interconnected software controls to fetch cash related data from various cash machine and calculate the present number of notes and coins in a real time environment to avoid any kind of physical monitory transaction or exchange delay (Bardhan, Krishnan and Lin 2013). Apart from that, the system will also allow the company to distribute the cash notes and coin in a most effective way before occurring any temporary cash counter closing. The work performance and the speed purchasing and selling procedure will also be increased through this method.

To implement the required changes in the organisational operation and workforce structure Panda Retail Company needs to execute an effective change management procedure that will comprise the force field analysis and implementation plan.  The change management plan will allow the company to convince the workforce to accept the new changes while providing adequate training and development required for the new system (Chen, Chiang and Storey, 2012).

Force field analysis:

In force field analysis, the Panda Retail Company can identify the drivers for change and the resistance force within the organisational process and workforce. Apart from the identification process, Panda Retail company has to measure the magnetite of these drivers and resistance forces to maintain an equilibrium condition. Only in equilibrium condition, the changes can be implemented within the organisational process (Mithas et al. 2012).

According to the organisational internal and external situations, the major drivers of the changes are low workforce efficiency, poor promotional activity, development of strategic information interchange system, maintaining strong consumer relationship and increasing the efficiency of cash counter queue management (Mithas et al. 2012). Apart from that, the company has to make the core product cycle management capable to use advanced automated information system for logistics and supply chain management. At the same time, Panda Retail Company has to install RFID system in their Warehouse Management System. On the other hand, Panda Retail company can experience several potential resistance forces including rigid perspective employees, weak employee-employer relationship, lack of expertise within the workforce, poor facility support, slow infrastructure development inappropriate workforce distribution and others (Chen, Chiang and Storey, 2012). In order to implement the proposed changes Panda Retail Company has to reduce the resistances against the proposed change.  

Implementing the changes:

In the current situation, Panda Retail Company requires a simplistic and effective change management process to reduce the resistance from the obstacles while implement the proposed changes efficiently. In order to execute such procedure, the company should also ensure the situational leadership approach that will help to execute the Lewin’s Change Management Model, which is the most effective and simplistic change management and implementation procedure in business operation.

According to the Lewin’s change management model, the management of Panda Retail Company should follow the Unfreeze, Change and Refreeze phases respectively. In the Unfreeze phase, leaders of the organisation should convey and establish the mission vision and the purpose of the proposed changes to the subordinate workforce. It will make the workforce flexible and motivated for the new changes. After that, In Change phase, under the management monitoring leaders should execute the change implementation training and development procedure with the required while maintaining a proper evaluation and feedback collection procedure (Anandarajan, Anandarajan and Srinivasan 2012). In this phase, the management of Panda Retail Company should incorporate new workflow model in their existing workforce and install the ne advanced Information Interchange system within the organisational operational tools and components (Chiang, Goes and Stohr 2012). In Refreeze phase, the management has to ensure that the implemented changes are sustainable and efficient that will allow the organisation to pursue the benefits of the changes successfully.

Conclusion

From the above research, it can be said that Panda Retail Company is one of the largest retail chain in Saudi Arabian grocery industry. The information technology implies a large group of interconnected digital technologies, such as networking, Database management, Computer operation, Communication server, Software, Web development, software Automation, Virtual storage system, cloud computing and other advanced technologies that help to exchange and process information while connecting the clients across the globe. throughout this procedure the retail industry needs a huge amount of IT support because of their requirement of effective communication. The focus of this research was the utilisation of IT in the business procedure of Panda Retail Company while analysing the scope of improvement in future. Both primary and secondary data collection is used through literature review and survey and interview. Both Qualitative analysis and Quantitative analysis have been used to formulate the findings and interpretation of this research.

From the data collection, findings and discussion, it has been found that Panda Retail Company has many internal operational disputes due to their lack of utilisation of information interchange. Currently Panda Retail Company is spreading across the Middle East and northern African retail and grocery market. Being the retailer subsidiary of Savola Group Panda Retail Company offers varsities of food products, kitchen tools, household materials, fruits, vegetables, diary product processed food and bread, packed non alcoholic beverage, spice and other grocery products. It has been also found that, the retail and grocery industry of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Middle Eastern countries is expanding quickly while generating a large amount of profit contributing the national GDP. As per the opinion of the managers one of the major constrains in organisational operation is its logistics system. The supply chain management of Panda Retail warehouses are also not advanced enough to compute the most efficient transportation system to avoid traffic related transportation delay. It can be concluded that, as per the consumers opinion Panda Retail Company must invest larger amount of the operational expense for their technological advancement.

Consumers often complain about lengthy queuing process in cash counters. Even, employees regularly experience cash management deficiency during monetary interchange procedure in cash counter. Panda Retail company always faces high consumer turnover due to their inefficient post-purchasing consumer relationship. Apart from that the company is also experiencing high employee turnover rate causing significant amount of performance loss of the workforce. The major obstacle in business operation of Panda Retail is, Savola Group is not enabling the Panda retail to incorporate any additional product and service that could improve their competence level. Panda Retail Company is currently operating with very low Return on Investment margin, because the buyers of grocery market are becoming more price-sensitive. Apart from that, Panda Retail Company does not provide enough information about product availability and offers to the potential consumers.

As per the discussion, the brand reputation and the profit margin are affected because of this inefficient and disputed logistic operation. Apart from that, lack of information integrity blinds the storage operation of the company to monitor the run time stock management. Apart from that, the employee management and monitoring system of Panda Retail Company is not advance enough to control an efficient workforce. Currently, Panda Retail Company does not have any advanced information system to collect process and automate the information while integrating them within the work process. Due to inefficient cash management in counters, the employees usually do not have idea about the existing cash and changes availability. In case of low cash or change, the particular counter has to be closed temporarily. However, Panda Retail Company can improve their workforce efficiency, consumer loyalty, monitoring ability, business operation and others by utilising advance technologies strategically. The company have many opportunities to improve their Information Technology based operations.

From the discussion and analysis of the findings, it has been found that, in order to implement the required changes in the organisational operation and workforce structure Panda Retail Company needs to execute an effective change management procedure that will comprise the force field analysis and implementation plan. Due to median and mode of all the factors that indicate the essentiality of the Information Technology in business operation are respectively 4. It can be concluded that, as per the consumers opinion Panda Retail Company must invest larger amount of the operational expense for their technological advancement. All 5 managers were completely agreed on the fact that panda Retail company has some serious management and operational issues due to the lack of technological incorporation in the work process. In order to implement the proposed changes Panda Retail Company has to reduce the resistances against the proposed change. In the current situation, Panda Retail Company requires a simplistic and effective change management process to reduce the resistance from the obstacles while implement the proposed changes efficiently. The change management plan will allow the company to convince the workforce to accept the new changes while providing adequate training and development required for the new system. Only in equilibrium condition of driving force and resistance force, the Panda Retail Company can implement the changes within the organisational process.

To understand the Information technology affects upon the retail stores:

In the literature review, the potential interventions of Information Technologies in retail market have been examined and discussed. It comprises the cloud computing, big data advanced DBMS, Artificial Intelligence, RFID and other business intelligence have been taken into consideration. It has been found that, Business intelligence is an umbrella of application, infrastructure and tools with the best practice that enable the Panda Retail Company to analyse information, improve and optimise their decision, performance and profitability. Cloud computing is a information technology that allows virtual connection within more than one system to handle any particular task simultaneously from anywhere in globe. Big data is a virtual storage system with huge storage capacity that does not consume any physical space to store or operate the large amount of records. DBMS or Database Management System is a widely used tool for maintain the data and record with more efficient and accurate way through digital computing platform. Artificial intelligence is widely recognisable in Robotics industry as a automatic problem solving system or platform. By utilising their official website, Panda Retail Company can develop a consumer forum where the consumers can convey about their experience or opinion freely. The existing utilisations of these information technologies have been examined along with the potential scope of improved implementation and development.

To determine the impact of Information Technology on Quality of Service:

In the critical analysis of findings and discussion sections, the impact of Information Technologies on the quality of the services have been discussed taking the organisation structure of Panda Retail Industry under consideration. It has been found that the utilisation of various softwares is becoming very common to make the business operations easy, less time consuming and accurate. Cloud computing allows virtual connection within more than one system to handle any particular task simultaneously from anywhere in globe. Big data provides a virtual storage system with huge storage capacity that does not consume any physical space to store or operate the large amount of records. In Advance DBMS the records are stored in more efficient format with more reliable indexing method that allows any organisation to store, alter and fetch any record by spending minimum amount of time. With more advanced mobile devices like Smartphone, tablets, Laptop, even smart watch 5G networking system can increase the operational performance significantly that can change the efficiency of business intelligence. It has been found that Panda Retail Company can connect each and every electrical and electronics devices related to cash exchange by utilising CPOS or Computer based Point On Sell system. Through the CPOS system, the company can operate a interconnected software controls to fetch cash related data from various cash machine and calculate the present number of notes and coins in a real time environment to avoid any kind of physical monitory transaction or exchange delay.

To provide a recommendation in order to improve the IT technology of Panda retail Company:

In the critical analysis of findings and discussion sections, after analysing the existing dilemmas in the business operation of Panda Retail Company the research also founds some effective recommendations for the company. The recommendations are consists of Improving the information system by utilising business intelligence, cloud computing and storage system; Improving the logistics by ERP and RFID base networking and information interchange system, Improving the consumer relation, marketing and promotion with information system and data integration; Improving Queue management and Cash management with CPOS system. The recommendations have been developed from the data analysis and discussion section while considering the internal and external dilemmas of the Panda Retail Company and the possible technological interventions within the business. The company have many opportunities to improve their Information Technology based operations.

To Judge the taken hypothesis:

H0: Investing in Information Technology has no impact in performance of the organization.

From the analysis of Interview and Survey related data, it is clear that, there are some significant anomalies in business operations and service providing facilities of Panda Retail Company that continuously hindering the growth of the business. On the other hand it has been found from the literature review and discussion that cloud computing, big data advanced DBMS, Artificial Intelligence, RFID and other business intelligence have some significant impact on the performance improvement of any organisation. Therefore, due to median and mode of all the factors that indicate the essentiality of the Information Technology in business operation are respectively 4. It can be concluded that, as per the consumers opinion Panda Retail Company must invest larger amount of the operational expense for their technological advancement. All 5 managers were completely agreed on the fact that panda Retail company has some serious management and operational issues due to the lack of technological incorporation in the work process. Therefore, the null hypothesis has been successfully rejected by this research.

H1: Investing in Information technology has a huge positive impact in performance of the organization.

From the analysis of Interview and Survey related data, it is clear that, both the managers and the consumers were agreed upon that the Panda Retail Company should incorporate advance Information Technologies in order to improve the business operational efficiency and productivity. Therefore, the alternative Hypothesis, has been accepted and established.

The following recommendations have been developed from the data analysis and discussion section while considering the internal and external dilemmas of the Panda Retail Company and the possible technological interventions within the business. The company have many opportunities to improve their Information Technology based operations.

Improving immigrated business intelligence: Panda Retail company should use Business intelligence as an umbrella of application to analyse information, improve and optimise their decision, performance and profitability. The company should also use Business Process Management (BPM) software applications, through which the company can improve their business planning, operational lifecycle and workflow model (Popovi? et al. 2012). It will also assist the every department of Panda Retail for precise planning and making change while having a stable resource allocation.

Improving real-time information handling and communication: Panda Retail Company should utilise cloud computing and storage system to control groups of online servers or hosts for data processing, storing and transferring the data in a real time information interchange environment. The company should also use cloud network to operate the market data, consumer data in a real-time environment where more than one user can used the data to develop and alter information. Cloud computing will also enable Panda Retail to increase their data governance capability without increasing the total operational cost significantly.

Incorporating Artificial Intelligence in business operation: Panda Retail Company should use Artificial Intelligence Incorporated Advanced Data Base Management System to maintain, control, alter, and audit the stored data with more efficacies while avoiding any potential data loss or redundancy. Apart from that, AI can be also helpful to improve accuracy during the project development and planning. The automation can also increase the speed of work process by reducing operational time requirements. At the same time, Panda Retail Company can use automated mechanics in their Warehouse Management System, through which they can reduce the total investment in workforce maintenance and compliances.

Automated logistics and resource planning: Panda Retail Company should use ERP system to automate the Logistic configuration of the core operation in dynamic platform in order to solve any sudden failure in inventory management. Panda Retail Company should also Warehouse Management System incorporated with Radio Frequency Identification of RFID effective logistic and supply chain planning while reducing the disputation of inbound products. ERP system will give more in depth controlling system to the management of the Panda Retail Company, through which they can increase the operational accuracy and speed.

Improving consumer relation and communication: Panda Retail Company should use integrated information system to store the detailed information of the customer including the phone number and email Id and to generate and send the most appropriate promotional massage with upcoming offer details and details product information automatically. With automated information handling system Panda Retail Company should develop their integrated information management to develop a more active and comprehensive consumer relationship management system.

Improving Queuing and cash management operation: Panda Retail Company should use CPOS or Computer based Point On Sell system. It will connect each and every electrical and electronics devices related to cash exchange that can operate a interconnected software controls to fetch cash related data from various cash machine and calculate the present number of notes and coins in a real time environment (Goldstein et al., 2015). Though this Panda Retail Company should monitor and control the cash related data from various cash machine and calculate the present number of notes and coins in a real time environment to avoid any kind of physical monitory transaction or exchange delay

Implementing changes with strategic planning:  Panda Retail Company should execute an effective change management procedure that will comprise the force field analysis and implementation plan. Panda Retail company has to measure the magnetite of these drivers and resistance forces to maintain an equilibrium condition. Panda Retail Company should follow the Unfreeze, Change and Refreeze phases respectively to follow the Lewin’s change management model in their organisation. Along with that the company should also review their operational leadership and management module to find the loopholes, which could hinder the implementation efficiency.

Through this analysis and recommendation, the management of Panda Retail Company can have enough information and implementation guideline through which they can actively plan for significant performance and efficiency improvement. Apart from that, it will also help the company to reduce operational cost and waste to gain more return on investment in short period.

The major limitation of this research is, it focuses more on qualitative data analysis. Apart from due to lack of time, the research has failed to display all the potential implementation of Information Technologies to increase the business efficiency in sustainable development. The Sample size is too low to gauge all the necessary external and internal regulators adequately. The Research also has lack of information about evaluation and sustainable procedure for the hardware and software maintenance. Apart from that, the potential risks of inappropriate installation of Information technology have not examined properly. The research also lacks the major information regarding data protection, online data security and privacy policies under the national and international privacy licence.  

The possible threat from data security and privacy can be analysed with appropriate example and case studies. Apart for this evaluation the business complacence and licensing procedure are two major part of the business. Therefore, the required regulations, licensing compliances can be evaluated in future under certain considerations.  Apart from that, more advanced implementation of information technologies can be identified to develop a stronger and more effective recommendation for Panda Retail Company. The Recommendation could also be more appropriate to increase the competence level that could allow the Panda Retail Company to gain the top most passion in the retail market of Middle East.

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