Table of Contents
BUSINESS RESEARCH DESIGN................................................Ошибка! Закладка не определена.
INDUSTRY CHOSEN AND ITS BACKGROUND....................................................................... 2
ARTICLE 1 AND RELEVANCE............................................................................................... 4
ARTICLE 2 AND RELEVANCE............................................................................................... 6
ARTICLE 3 AND RELEVANCE............................................................................................... 7
REFLECTION ...................................................................................................................... 9
REFERENCES: .................................................................................................................. 11
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INDUSTRY CHOSEN AND ITS BACKGROUND
Retail is one of the fast growing and ever-changing industry that has a great scope in regard
to association with customers, innovation and future. There is a great scope for enhancement
is various aspects of retail industry, as its presence is growing towards different facets of life,
be it online shopping or face-to-face buying, the need for different types of enhancements is
a question that needs concern at present and also in the future. To better understand the
need I have chosen Woolworths group to provide insights into how research at different levels
can impact the retail industry and its future.
Woolworths group has been my choice because, it is one of the leading retails conglomerates
and yet has challenges, dealing with customers who need various types of requirements. It
has to deal with growing concerns for a pleasant shopping feeling amidst situations like the
pandemic which has shaken the world economy in 2020. Retails is the worst hit when it comes
to a situation where everything is under a lockdown, yet it is the same industry that can
emerge as the best case for enhancements using online selling platforms. Major challenges a
retail industry can face are the customer loyalty, supply chain, customer retention in future.
With respect to the challenges Woolworths faces with respect to customers is, the decrease
in number of people that are having Woolworths brand stores as the first option. There might
be many reasons as to why customers stop buying at Woolworths like the pricing of products,
ambience and convenience of the stores, product SKU’s, better alternatives, people and
performance, online etc. All in all, it is to gain the loyalty of customers to drive them towards
buying at Woolworths as first option. Usually price is the main factor that keeps competition
amongst supermarkets a tough go. Aldi and Coles are the main competitors who are also
supermarket giants that strive to have major market share.
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Innovation is one of the major factors to strive in the present world. There are key innovations
with regards to many aspects of the supermarket. But the traditional way which customers
buy inside the supermarket hasn’t changed. There has not been any major change to the
shopping aisles except for the checkouts which are self-serve now that too with various
hinderances. There have been innovations at the supply chain and logistics level but not the
supermarket level. Online shopping has been a greater challenge these days. Woolworths has
partnered with takeoff technologies to innovate the way online shopping is done utilizing
minimal space. The need for more innovation comes in handy with the aspect of retention of
customers for long-term. Grocery has been a main concern for the company as it is the most
underperforming aspect when compared to other fresh food and perishables. It’s CEO add to
saying that it is partly due to the lack of innovations in product when compared to other fresh
products for example the yoghurt division is a high performing with various types of
innovations like flavors, less sugar, probiotic etc. There is a better scope for innovation to
reduce the carbon footprint and also innovations in regard to the store experience.
Future of Woolworths mainly depends on the way people look to buy in the near future,
whether it is online or in-store. Estimates prove that the below image shows the predictions
for population of Australia for the next 10-14years. These data suggest that the population of
Australia is going to be much busier and older when compared to the present scenario. There
are various challenges the company might face with respect to the changes in future. There
needs to tremendous efforts to way the tradition sopping is changes. On a personal note,
shopping is shifting more towards an experience rather than a requirement. Image 1.1 shows
the
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ARTICLE 1 AND RELEVANCE
I have chosen the article focusing on Edelman, D.
C and Singer, M (2015) “Competing on Customer
Journeys”, Harvard Business Review, November
2015, pp88-100. Woolworths retail business and
especially supermarket division is well suitable to
use the feature of this particular article as it
mentions of how important customers retention is
as it has been a problem for the supermarket giant
depending on various factors. As the authors discuss there have been key ideas as to how the
customer journey is captured and made into an experience rather than a traditional shopping
method. Supermarkets are now a days looking at how the shopping is more of a customer
centric method that creates a loyal and constant bond to return to the store to buy.
Customers these days are looking into places that have better alternatives with convenience
of shopping made easy like never before. In the article Edelman, D. C and Singer, M (2015)
talks about how four key areas are taken into consideration to improve the customers loyalty.
Automation, proactive personalization, contextual interaction, journey innovation.
Automation is a key step towards future as it helps to reduce the human interaction where
errors are a common thing. Be it inexperienced staff or placement of products there is a lot
of scope for automating various processes throughout the store that can enhance the
customers experience. Automation can bring about changes to how a customer can buy the
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products for example Woolworths can take down the manual labels and have an led based
platform to show the details of a product and at the best suggest what are the best
alternatives to the said product at the touch of a screen placed in the centers of the aisle.
Other areas that can help customers are the use of advanced stock rotating software’s that
can help the supplier to have an idea of the demand to the particular product, so that
customers cannot be emptyhanded. For example, toilet paper was a key issue during the
pandemic time, and it can never be really estimated to know the demand of the product.
Electronic data interchange can reduce the human interface to provide the demand details.
It works by the process of exchanging data whenever the product is bought from the shelves
by customers.
Proactive personalization can be used in the online shopping experience of Woolworths
where the past data is considered and analyzed to ascertain the requirement of customers
and suggest options at a great pace. For example, if the customers are searching for products
like fettucine, prawns etc. the online platform needs to work in a manner ascertaining the
past purchase for the customers to show recipe-based products for prawn fettucine.
Contextual interaction is an also an interesting topic that uses customers whereabout based
on the positioning to suggest the recommendations. I feel this can draw customers to in-store
experiences whenever they are nearby for example a customer within the proximity of
Woolworths can get a recommendation about a product that has gone on sale or a product
that comes with a special discount. It can also allow the online application to draw in the
loyalty card at the self-checkout kiosks to easily scan the rewards card.
Journey innovation is always important irrespective of the industry or a company is in, as the
world is advancing at a rate never before seen, adapting to the future conditions and
demands is only possible through learning from the trend and analyzing them. I think the
article gives a clear idea of how a business can increase the customer experience by creating
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an all-round development in the know-how of its activities. The other important takeaway
from the article is the journey managers which is a very good initiative to analyze and develop
the qualitative aspects of a company. Woolworths can also include special position for the
customer care as mentioned in the article like the chief experience officer. On a whole
considering the journey of customers as yet another product which can be understood by
various metric is what Woolworths can habituate for the transformation for experience to
provide for customers.
ARTICLE 2 AND RELEVANCE
I will focus on Christensen, C. M., Hall, T, Dillon, K and Duncan D. S (2016) Know Your
Customers’ “Jobs to Be Done”, Harvard Business Review, September 2016, pp54, to ideate
the concept of innovation and how it is helpful for a company like Woolworths which has a
lot of scope and chance for innovation. Christensen’s article has provided some key points on
to how an innovation can take place. Woolworths hasn’t had any innovation with regards to
the traditional way a customer buys in-store. They had a in place a real-time sushi place that
makes fresh sushi everyday which is a great success as they might’ve identified that people
love fresh sushi and it is one of the more popular international food that has been a daily go
to eatery in Australia. Tapping into that potential are of having a sushi place is a great idea as
it reflects to Woolworths and its innovation towards what customers want. In the article
where the example of condominium and the simplest of concepts that lead to less sales was
a dining table that people didn’t want to get rid of. In the same way people wouldn’t want to
go completely online no matter what as they have a better experience of touch and feel while
shopping for products in store. This makes it a great place for innovation.
As understood form the article I can suggest one thing that Woolworths can adapt is people
tend to find the trolleys and baskets provided dirty and wouldn’t want to touch them, one
solution the supermarket provide is cleaning wipes that help the customers clean trolley but
in reality a customer isn’t still sure if the trolley are clean or not, the takeaway as per my view
is that they find it difficult to push the trolley and carry the baskets all through the store. This
can be solved by a simple concept of having a virtual basket and collect all the products at the
end of the checkouts. This I feel can be related to the simple task of identifying what jobs
people are trying to get done and will be benefitted if there is an alternative. The second point
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I would like to mention which can help Woolworth’s is the task of identifying work-arounds
people have invented. This is a gap that needs to be filled and it can turn out to be a potential
market ahead for the said product or service which is still untapped. The online shopping
methods can be innovated to have AI involved and faster shopping methods like potential
recommendations based on searches is to be done. For example, if a customer is trying to buy
apple puree and understand that it is out of stock, showing recommendation on how to make
apple puree and products needed for it can be more advantageous as people always tend to
find alternatives.
Another idea I could suggest Woolworth’s is the concept of social, emotional, and functional
dimensions of the job. The jobs need to be done are not only viewed as the functional aspects
but also social and emotional manner. People should always tend to come back towards a
brand as they’ve had an emotional attachment in one way or the other. Often, I see people
calling Woolworth’s as Safeway and it used to confuse me. Christensen article has given
insight onto why people are attached to a brand, the concept of emotional attachment to the
brand has been built by the earlier name, people grew up with that brand name and didn’t
want that to go away and Woolworth’s has rebranded itself with being the new name for
Safeway. As mentioned in the article by Christensen et.al. it is understood that innovation
doesn’t necessarily mean a technological one. It can be various types which can influence the
level of innovation a company like Woolworth’s considers irrespective of the type of
innovation.
ARTICLE 3 AND RELEVANCE
I would like to use the article by Michael e. Porter and James e. Heppelmann to enhance the
future of operations in a company like Woolworths. I have 3 key takeaways from Michael’s
article which Woolworths could use them to develop their future of selling. The first concept
applies to the online shopping and its future with the development of “The New Technology
Stack.” The article identifies the need for new smart and interconnected device which have
communication amongst themselves, this can give rise to automated information and insight
generation based on individual customers preferences. The article talks about how crossfunctional teams can rely on the data and provide new insight for various aspects of the
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supply chain. For example it can help develop new products in the grocery department which
is lacking innovation, this can be done based on the data form the customers buying patterns
which are later analyzed by the cross functional teams like it department and R&D to innovate
new and more required products.
Now the question that the article rises is a series of implication for strategy, Woolworth’s can
improve their new products by monitoring the development through interconnection,
controlling the data or product’s journey right from beginning, optimize the utility and finally
automate the process to reduce errors.
The other important idea is having a data lake that can present data analyzed in different
scenarios that help the company take decisions about the future.
Manufacturing is the key to reduce the cost of a product and Woolworth’s brands own
products that are high quality can do the trick using the smart, connected devices. The
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supermarket aisles can use augmented reality as mentioned in the article where they portray
the different sku’s which are available without actually having them placed there as there is
a lot of theft and damage in the aisle that has to be coped with. There are various other
aspects of the article that can be incorporated at a retail, online and manufacturing level to
develop and innovate for future processes.
Some of the, are smart factories which use data lake to find out malfunctions, increase or
decrease the production capacity, this procedure can allow Woolworth’s to have “Just in
time” production capabilities and produce the product of need whenever there is a huge
demand. Data lake is useful various other manner where the organization multi-tier roles can
have cross-functional support as mentioned earlier and can develop the product faster than
earlier.
REFLECTION
As a person from commerce background and interest mainly in establishing a business
hopefully, a supermarket in India, I would like to reflect on how I would use the business
enhancement techniques mentioned in the article and also the relevant course material I
would main concentrate on three are which are customers, innovation and future which I
think are the basic pillars of any organization to withstand the huge competition.
Customers as I see in regard to a concept of supermarket are mostly having challenges to
finding products, carrying baskets or pushing trolley, rewards and discounts, after sale
attention, new products and last but not least a brand identity. Customers as I see often find
it hard locate few products and there isn’t always a staff member to help if it is a busy time.
This can be avoided in my view through automating a stores sku’s into a handheld layout of
products in the store which is easy and time saving. Carrying baskets can be avoided by hiring
pre booked dedicated assist to help carry the baskets, as improving customer experience is a
main goal if I start a supermarket business which I believe is a proactive personalization.
Customers always tend to be in the loop as mentioned by Eldemen only if they have a specific
bond, this is usually created by the experience they have in buying at our store. I would take
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into consideration contextual interaction by creating a mobile application where they can
know everything happening with regard to the availability of stock and discounts etc. the app
would let them accrue points which can be redeemed later. It can store the money and make
the purchase cashless at store.
Innovation has always been a key area in my view as commerce graduate with specific interest
in supply chain area. I would be taking into the idea of finding the jobs to be done as
mentioned by Christensen as that is what I believe is untapped potential. I would think the
process of restocking as unproductive during busy times as it is difficult to stock the shelves,
I would innovate a process to automate the restocking by increasing the space between the
centers of two connected aisles thereby creating room for adding extra space for automation
of restocking robots. I would also consider the room for having a dedicated play center for kid
while in store or various programs that keep kids engaged while parents are shopping, which
I believe is a difficult task for parents to do.
I would very much want to have my own brand of produce so I would use smart device like AI
to gain insights into what customers need based on various parameters. I would redesign the
logistics network to Milkrun method which can reduce the carbon footprint. Warehouse is
one key area that needs to be innovated as the cost of holding the inventory is high. I would
use automation like what Woolworths is trying in one of their warehouses to increase the
holding capacity thereby reducing the number of warehouses.
As per future consideration I would like to consider on the UI side of the online shopping to
have customers better experience as if buying in store sitting at their house, this I think can
be achieve by integrating a virtual reality device to seem like buying in store and in the
background the actual buying happen at the click of website. This I think can be clearly
understood from the smart, interconnected devices article from Michael et.al. I would very
much make the shopping experience based on insights from data lakes stored information,
this I think can be done by forecasting the products based on the seasonal changes and
situational needs. I would also introduce a platform for staff to get trained for a virtual
shopping assistance where they can help customers in real time.
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REFERENCES:
Christensen, C. et al., 2016. Know Your Customers' "Jobs to Be Done". Harvard
Business Review, p.1.
Edelman, D. & Singer, M., 2015. Competing on Customer Journeys. Harvard Business
Review, p.1.
Porter, M. & Heppelmann, J., 2015. How smart, connected products are transforming
companies. Harvard Business Review, 93(10), pp.97–114.
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