Adaptable Decision Making Model For Sustainable Enterprise - A Case Study Of 7-Eleven Essay.

Sustainable Enterprise Strategies

Discuss about the Adaptable Decision Making Model For Sustainable.

A sustainable enterprise is a business which undertakes process that puts negative impact on the society, economy, community and environment. A sustainable enterprise operates a business so that it grows and earns a profit. It identifies the economic and social aspirations inside and outside the organisation on which the enterprise depends. A well planned sustainability program helps businesses to increase profits by generating savings, driving growth and minimising risks. Creation of sustainable enterprise comprises renovating entire value chain from material supply to product design, operations, sales and marketing to the end of life. It also helps companies to recognise opportunities, risks and set priorities for the implementation of programmes.

There are sustainable strategies to improve profits and reduce impact on environment. The monitoring systems are made for measuring and monitoring sustainability of business at regular intervals to bring efficiency in the operations. A proper monitoring system reduces the risks associated with business (Valackien? & Micevi?ien?, 2015). It facilitates decision making at appropriate time. The monitoring system also enhances the growth of organisation. The monitoring system provides various measures to reduce loss incurred by company. The monitoring system need to be updated from time to time to possess special skills. The consideration of monitoring system represents dimensions of an organisation like socio-cultural, economic and environmental. These dimensions can be measured with the use of effective indicators. The sustainability indicators create understanding towards the path adopted by business and the difference between the current and predicted position (Abdul-Ali, Davis, Twomey & Knowles, 2017). The indicators are helpful in alerting to the business before occurrence of any worst circumstances. The sustainability indicators point out the weak points within economy, society and environment. There are two types of indicators, traditional and modern. Quality of water and stakeholder profits comes under the traditional indicators. The modern indicators consist of social, economic and environmental. These three indicators are interconnected.

The indicators are important in resolving the issues faced by an organisation. The sustainable enterprise also enables to gain knowledge and provide guidelines to solve present problems of company. It also allows company to concentrate on the key issues. The effective indicators functions to prove information about the system. The information provided by the effective indicators is reliable. It can be understood by a person who does not have any knowledge in this field (Edgeman & Eskildsen, 2014).

The Importance of Monitoring Systems and Sustainability Indicators

In this report the focus is given on the sustainable enterprise dimensions 7-Eleven. These dimensions are socio-cultural, economic and environmental. Further the brief overview of 7-Eleven is given. The sustainability indicators applicable to the enterprise are discussed. It also enables the list of indicators which can be used by the enterprise to monitor environmental dimension.

7-Eleven is a convenience store. It is Australia’s first prefernce in convenience. 7-Eleven is a private company and possessed by Withers and Barlow family. The first store was opened in 1977 in Australia. The company operates more than 670 stores. 7- Eleven has stores in Queensland, Victoria, New South Wales, Australian Capital Territory and Western Australia. It serves an average 7 customers per second and more than 228 million transactions are conducted in a year. The company generate sales of almost $4 billion. The company is specialised in convenience, retail, food and fuel. It has authorisation to run stores in Australia from the US based 7-Eleven. It is the mission of company to be top in Australia at meeting the changing need of customers (Steen, 2015). The vision is to uphold first position in choice of customer’s preference and market growth. It can be made possible through sustainable growth and by practicing highest level of ethical standards. The values of company defines it’s spirit and how it conducts business activities with key stakeholders. The values of company are to deal with fairness and reliability, attempt for excellence, bold in endeavour and place customers at heart. The decisions taken at company are tested against the principles to ensure the best choices are made all the time. The guiding principles are better for customers, simpler for stores, quicker for everyone and deliver bang for buck. Whatever company do for the product development and store team training is always ‘better for customers’ (Chavarria-Barrientos, Batres, Perez, Wright & Molina, 2016). The company believes on delivering a great customer experience. It takes care of everything and does ‘simple for stores’. The company focuses on finding new things to make operations efficient and quicker for everyone. The ‘bang for Buck’ keeps the company focused on the operations efficiently.

The company introduced Slurpee, Big gulp, Big Bite and other proprietary products.  7-Eleven redefines technology the way to shop. The company also supports loyalty programs to cater new and digital savvy generation. 7-Eleven has also invested in the software and business processes to revolutionize the operations of stores. It implements new equipment and technology. The company is comprised of franchised and corporate stores. The majority of it’s stores are franchised and corporate stores are important part of company. The franchises work hard to achieve goals and deliver convenience to customers (Vasauskaite & Gill, 2015). The selection process is planned to ensure every franchise that joins 7-Eleven has focus on customers, leadership and communication skills, willingness to learn and adopt and commitment to follow system and process of company (Edgeman, Neely & Eskildsen, 2016).

7-Eleven: An Overview

Over the forty years of operation, the company has become one of the largest retailers in Australia. It has approximately 33.5% market share in Australia. The company is the largest independent fuel retailer. The company is engaged in delivering the best possible range and value to customers.  The company makes sure that the customers, store manager, franchisees, team members. Shareholders and suppliers are fairly rewarded (Anbarasan, 2018). 7-Eleven is growing range of exclusive products, brands and services. In addition to the proprietary brands, the company have a market leading supply chain. The supply chain allows having fresh food delivered seven days a week. The company always look for new and innovative products and services to provide more convenience to customers. It includes ATMs in every store, public transport tickets, money transfer services, top ups and car wash services in the selected stores. 7-Eleven makes it’s stores more convenient with well-planned layouts, fast sale systems, selected locations, easy parking and by opening stores for 24 hours, whole week, 365 days a year.

The sustainability dimensions capture the key areas of triple bottom line (people, planet and profit). These sustainability dimensions are socio-cultural, economic and environmental. The importance of sustainability is depicted by the sustainable dimensions. It can be defined by impact of activities on the entire world.

The sociocultural dimension of sustainability involves the social and cultural aspects. It is basically the ability of a company to assure welfare of society through education, security and health by distributing it equally in all the social class. The socio cultural dimension includes the factors such as safety, satisfaction and heath of employees. It also includes the impact on local community and customers. The socio impact is easy to measure than measurement of environmental and economic impacts (Hejduk, 2016).

The social dimensions are applicable to 7-Eleven which includes generation of positive outcome for the community, society, staff and customers. For instance, the company has initiated several employment opportunities to the regional communities the jobs will not be shifted to another country (Axelrod, Harmon, Russell & Wirtenberg, 2017)). The company fulfils it’s obligation by updating products and services and adding more convenience to the life of customers. The social issues are also considered by the 7-Eleven by undertaking various measures and by sustaining communities around the globe (Sakas & Kutsikos, 2014). The company has also partnered with Conversation International which is a non-profit organisation to build a healthier and prosperous planet.

Sustainability Dimensions

The economic dimension of sustainability connects sustainable development and sustainability with the renewable energy systems. The company uses clean energy and separates waste material. Basically it encounters the need of present without conceding the ability of future generations to accomplish their needs. The stakeholders are company’s customers since the company is for the convenience of customers (Salcedo-Perez & Contreras, 2018). The company invests money for the updated products and services.

The economic dimensions of sustainability are applicable to 7-Eleven. It creates jobs and employment multiplier effect. The economic dimensions impacts on company by creating direct jobs and indirect and induced employment. It has resulted in increasing employment rate of Australia (Weichhart, Molina, Chen,Whitman & Vernadat, 2016). 7-Eleven considers it’s stakeholders as owners of bank and the customers are given the highest priority by providing the best products at competitive prices. The company focuses on making life easier of customers. The company works on a customer owned model which works for the benefit of customers with respect to convenience (Lipsky, Friend, Abdul-Ali & Russell, 2017). The company takes every possible step to influence customers and makes available the products desired by them. 7-Eleven fulfils the responsibility towards environment which is ethical, responsible and beneficial.

The environmental dimension of sustainability is required to fulfil requirements of present generation in such a way that the need of future generations is not compromised. It focuses on the impact of activities conducted on the environment (Sindakis, 2017). The environment dimensions of sustainability applicable to the company comprise protection of environment and creation of healthier planet. It creates healthier planet by using progressive approach which builds a strong and healthy planet.

The company is devoted to protect and deliver goods proficiently with the least environmental bearing. It reduces the wastage and litter generated by packaging through the waste hierarchy that is avoided, re-use, recycle, recover, contain and dispose. 7-Eleven minimises adverse impact of packaging on humans and environment (Chofreh, Goni, Ismail, Shaharoun, Klemeš & Zeinalnezhad, 2016).  The company also ensures that the effective and validated practices are put in place to address ecological concerns. The product development and process is reviewed for packaging and the packed products. The company follows the Sustainable Packaging Guidelines (SPG) to make sure that the product packaging is suitable for resource efficient, low impact materials and recyclable at the end of life. The company is equally committed to resource conversation and product stewardship (Cole, 2017).

Socio-Cultural Dimension

The management of company is committed to reduce impact of operations on environment and support packaging covenant’s performance goals and framework. The company has also undertaken policies to improve design, recyclability and packaging content to improve reprocessing systems for the post-consumer packaging. It should be observed that the company is committed to work together with it’s product supplies to achieve goals and targets (Upward & Jones, 2016).

There is a value based system which forms the business activities of 7-Eleven Australia. Such system is helpful in fixing prime focus on economic, social and environmental. The company undertakes a lot of initiatives to facilitate building capacity by conducting social programs (Shirazi, 2018). The programs such as community investment program aims at putting positive impact of business to the community. It can be made possible by prioritizing areas which are concerned with the operations of company.

The specific sustainability dimension chosen for 7-Eleven is environmental dimension. The reason behind selecting environmental dimension is that it considers itself as a customer owned convenience store. It provides service for customers and makes available the outstanding products and services at competitive prices. It creates the mutual prosperity (Izvercian, Radu, Ivascu & Ardelean, 2014).

The company aims to create positive environmental conditions for the customers, community and shareholders. The environmental indicators are used to see whether a business meets it’s environmental objectives. It is a diagnostic tool which is helpful to detect trends in the environment. For instance the air quality and water quality can be used to estimate health of consumers (Price, 2016). The environmental dimension can be monitored by a list of indicators. The indicators include:

The economic environment has a special implication which can be understood by the following three points:

Economic system: 7-Eleven is required to know the prevailing economic system of Australia in order to know the economic environment. It impacts the freedom or openness of business. It is mainly of 3 types, socialistic economic system, capitalistic economic system and mixed economic system. In the socialistic economic system, the company is focussed and regulated by the government. The individuals or companies do not have liberty to carry on business activities (Mauricio-Moreno, Miranda, Chavarría, Ramírez-Cadena & Molina, 2015). The government retains the means of production. The company enjoys the benefits of centrally planned economy. This system is less popular in Australia. In the capitalistic economic system, the ownership of a business is given importance. It is also identified as free market economy. All means of production like labour, land, capital etc. are maintained by the private enterprises. The market force decides all the considerations like, what to produce, how to produce and by whom it is going to be produced. There is freedom of consumption, production, savings and investment. It is prevailing in countries like Australia. In the mixed economic system, a business is owned by both individual and government. It is run by private persons in the private sector, but activities are regulated by the government (Belz & Binder, 2017).

Economic Dimension

The economic policies influence the business and are arranged to direct economic activities. The activities include policies like, export-import, employment, taxation, agriculture, foreign investment and more (Pickett, Corb, Matthews, Sundquist & Berg, 2015).

The economic conditions are linked with possibilities of economic development of country. The government has initiated various programmes for the welfare of people on the basis of economic conditions. These programs influence business by advertisement policies, discovery of markets, fetching new products in market and innovative means of production (Hillary, 2016). There are several examples of economic conditions like flow of foreign capital, level of economic development, supply of natural resources, rate of interest, foreign trade and industrial development. There are some factors which clear out the impact of economic environment on the company like the variation in economic environment results in creation of mutual funds, leasing and venture capital business (Larner, Cheverst, MacDonald, Hoile & Soutar, 2017).

Conclusion

From the above report, it can be concluded that sustainability have a vital role to play in the operations of an organisation. This report focuses on the three dimensions of sustainability such as socio-cultural, economic and environmental dimension in the context of 7-Eleven Australia. Further, the environmental dimension has been discussed in the report. It specifies the suitable area and develops the list of indicators to monitor the dimension. The indicator includes economic environment, policies and conditions. Some challenges are being faced in the monitoring of these indicators.

References

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