Emerging Themes In Business Organizations: A Case Study Of Aldi

Learning outcomes assessed:
1. Demonstrate a critical understanding of emerging themes as informed by research and the marketplace.
2. Critically analyse evolving trends in business management in order to provide robust strategic solutions to organisations.
3. Proactively source and apply research to inform operational and strategic decisions in different organisational contexts.
4. Critically evaluate a range of alternative courses of action in order to solve problems

Impact of Emerging Themes on Business Productivity

Emerging themes in business organizations is an important tool that helps the organizations in increasing their business productivity. In the present days as new technologies are emerging, it helps businesses to go for large number of strategies in order to maximize profit. However, marketing is regarded as a dynamic discipline that thrives on innovation and creativity and adapts to changes at the local and global context (Salas and Martin 2017). To reach the global market on the present and future days, organizations and businesses implement and strategise various emerging themes that include allocation of capital and proper management of the organization, environment management, innovative products and more. Emerging themes in market have become a major concept as customers in the present day demands better products that should be environment friendly at an effective cost (Bogers et al. 2017). Therefore, organization tends to develop new and emerging strategies in order to reach the target market. The paper will elucidates on the major aspects that includes critical analysis of the organization, PESTLE analysis, impact of emerging themes on business and accordingly recommendation will be provided for increasing the productivity of the business organization.

As per the case study, Aldi is a famous retail industry that has more than 8,000 stores all over the world. The main aim of this organization is to provide customers large number of better quality products at lower prices. The main focus of the brand is the value for money and puts major emphasis on the quality of the products. Apart from this, the main slogan for the organization is the “spend a little, live a lot.”  However as an emerging theme, the organization is putting more importance on developing and training its employees through different methods. Training as an emerging theme in Aldi will not only help the organization to increase its productivity but will also help to increase job satisfaction level of the employees (Brandes and Brandes 2015). Apart from that, training helps the organization becoming effective in short terms and it also aims to develop long term goals for increasing workforce capabilities. Emerging themes will affect the policies and practices of the particular organization as emerging themes tend to have a positive impact on the organization. However, the current business strategy of Aldi is to provide better quality products to its customers at lower prices, therefore the emerging trends that focus on the developing of employees will generate positive outcomes for the organization. In order to focus on its employees, Aldi has identified various training needs for its employees that include workforce planning, on-the-job training, off-the-job training and more. Workforce planning is a training process that will focus hoe business organization will able to meet the labour requirements in present and in future. In order to meet their current business strategy, Aldi needs to focus on the needs for its future staff and by planning the major skills required for the particular job, the organization can recruit staffs accordingly. For instance, to identify the future training needs of the employees, the organization analyses the overall performance of the employees (Alizar, Syahid and Nikoyan 2015). However, since the last few months, the company is experiencing rapid growth; therefore it needs to recruit more staffs in order to meet the sales growth of the organization. On-the-job- training in the organization that takes place, at the place of working of the employees, that means through this training process skills and training will be gained at the same time while carrying out their jobs. This particular training procedure tend to provide benefits both the business and the employees, as employees get to learn new task and according can take risk and challenges at the critical situation (Clegg, Kornberger and Pitsis 2015). However, Aldi provides on-the-job training to its employees through different methods that include mentoring, coaching and job rotation. In Aldi, the store managers also act as trainers where they demonstrate the training process.  On the other hand off-the-job training aims in focussing on developing major skills that would help employees to deal with new methods and technologies. For instance, in order to communicate and interact more easily, Aldi planned to introduce the ‘the Internet of Things (IoT). The Internet of Things is a modern technology envisioned as global network machines for gaining major attention from customers as well as from the employees. Therefore, the organization is tends to provide training regarding handling this technology that will have a positive impact on the organization (Haar and Ernst 2016). Apart from this, the apprenticeship scheme of Aldi also provides positive outcome to their business strategies, as the scheme focus on providing motivation and job satisfaction to its employees. However, it is to be noted that beside the training procedure provided by Aldi, the organization also focus on the development and personal growth of the employees. From time to time the organization implements development programs such as the retail placement scheme that provides reward package to the young employees in placement and in return expect them to work enthusiastically.

Training as an Emerging Theme in Aldi

It is important to that that the emerging themes of the organization will impact the policies and practices of Aldi in an effective way. Emerging themes in relation to the organizational policies helps in ensuring uniformity in the decision making actions. Apart from this, the themes would help in saving more time in handling critical problem more easily (Hardaker 2017). Emerging themes also aims in providing an appropriate framework for planning the business more effectively and also helps in clarifying functions and responsibilities more effectively.

The PESTLE analysis of Aldi will help to understand the macro environment of the organization.

Political Environment: As per the UK election in the year 2015, there has been a change in the Government system that imposed new tax policies and legislations procedures within the market. However, with the increase in the VAT rate from 17.5% to 20% negatively affected the business organization (Zahra, Iram and Naeem 2014). Apart from this, Government tends to alter the legislation procedures in a regular manner such as the introduction of the parental leave that will aim to extend the time period for such leave. This will tend to hamper the organization in a negative manner. Zero-hour contract has also been abolished by the Government, however all these political factors in the country tend to affect the organization.

Economic Environment: The economy of the UK is strong and had been successful in avoiding recession but the number of unemployment and uncertainty is more in UK that changes the buying patterns of the consumers. As per the report, the UK economy increased by 2% in the year 2013as this might be a major concern for Aldi (Frieden and Eichengreen 2018). However, the economic factors are likely to influence the demands, profit and cost of the organization. Moreover, the unemployment level in UK is a major concern for Aldi as it might affect the business negatively.

Social Environment: As in the present day the population of UK of shrinking and the negative impact of the shrinking population would lead to shortage of labour in the market area. Apart from this, the impact of the rising expenses affects the buying behaviour that leads the organization to compromise on the quality in order to provide products at lower prices (Metzger 2014). Apart from this due to baby boom generation in UK, the figure of the elderly people is increasing that led to the shift in tastes of the consumers. As a result Aldi introduced online shopping system that would help the elderly people to shop from their own place. As per the report it has been proved that elderly people are more interested in using internet, therefore this has proved beneficial for the organization.

PESTLE Analysis of Aldi

Technological Environment: With the advanced of technology, consumers are demanding more high tech shopping experiences. Therefore, Aldi has implemented certain innovative changes in their business environment that includes electronic displays, advertising displays and self checkout. However, internet plays a significant role in attracting large number of customers through e-commerce. One of the major technological innovations that has been implanted by Aldi is the “green” IT, as this would help them to reduce carbon footprint to a certain extent (Sivalingam 2015). However, with the introduction of the Electronic Point of Scale and Electronic Funds Transfer System provided positive outcomes by improving the distribution process of the products.

Legislative Environment: The UK market is considered as a regulated market as it makes difficult for the entry of large companies. As per the report, the European Commission has made mandatory that every retail industries should display nutrition based edible products. The legislative factors will help consumers to have more balanced diets that would help them to lead a healthy lifestyle. For instance, the Food Retailing Commission (ERC) planned to implement enforceable code of practice that would ban many illegal practices of the business organization.

Environment Analysis: In the present days, consumers have become more environments friendly and therefore demand environment friendly products. Apart from this, increase of carbon emission is also a major factor that needs to be reduced in order to protect the environment. As per the report, UK has decided to generate power by 31% through renewable resources within 2020.

Demographic changes in the country relate to the increase in the ageing population in UK, increase in the number of female workers and as a result there has been a declination in the preparation of the home based food. Therefore, the retailers of the UK are focusing more in the value added products such as nutrition based products and more. Apart from this, the changing demographic pattern influence the purchasing power of the consumers As per the report, in the next ten years the overall growth of the retail industries will come from consumers aged fifty-five and above (Lee and Lee 2015). As the number of ageing people is increasing, therefore the major challenges of the retail industry is to adapt the tastes of their products as per the population in order to attract the trending consumers of the country.

In order to meet the taste of the changing population, Aldi from time-to-time changing its strategies, but their core aim remains the same that is “incredible value every day.” By reaching the global market, Aldi’s sale report was $47 billion (Ottman 2017). Globalization has a larger impact on the global industry and with the use of modern technology, growth and revenues, stock market retail businesses have exposed to globalization. Accordingly e-commerce has a major contribution to retail industry by making it more global and contestable. With the signing of the free trade agreements with NAFTA, it helped Aldi to import goods at lower cost and in Europe; the organization can easily transport goods and services without ant tariffs (Fairburn, Maier and Braubach 2016). Presently Aldi is making its business in eighteen countries and most importantly, the organization does not sell products over the internet. The organization tends to promote all their services and products through WWW. Apart from this, Aldi is considered as one of the largest retailers that tend to sell products at cheaper prices and is continuously keep on growing their prices. Moreover, globalization forces companies to follow the same standards and all there global stores should have the same concept everywhere.

Conclusion

In order to operate business in the global location there are major issues that are faced by the retail industries of UK. In case of Aldi, while operating business in other countries issues faced by Aldi includes political issues as different country have different types of legislation procedures. Sometimes it becomes difficult for the organization to operate their business in that particular area. However, it is also important to note in case of employment ant the requirement of the labour also differs by country. For instance, business in the European countries provides a maternity leave at least for fourteen months, while this might not be the rules in other countries (Verrier, Rose and Caillaud 2016). Apart from this, engaging in the international business market the business organization needs to follow certain cultural guidelines. For instance, any business organization entering the US market must abide with their Foreign Corrupt Practices Act that aims in the elimination of the bribery and certain unethical practices while conducting business in the International markets. Prior to that promoting business in internal markets, fluctuation in the currency rate is one of the major challenging problems for internal business organizations (Jansen 2017). In such situation the company might face huge loss in that particular business market.

In the present day with the changing environmental situation, emerging themes and trends on the decision making process can have a positive impact on the business procedures. In case of Aldi organization, their main business strategic process aims in providing better quality products and services to their customers. In order to increase their growth in the next five years, organization through their business strategic process incorporated various emerging themes in their business procedure in order to maximize their profit and growth (Almeida et al. 2015). However, emerging themes helps in creating more business opportunities for the organization as this would help the organization to get engage with the larger population. As per the report, it has been noticed that the by 2050, the economies of the emerging markets will end to rise by 35% (Acevedo et al. 2017). As for the Aldi organization in order to be one of the top leading business organizations in the next five years, it incorporated emerging trends in terms of providing better training to the employees and giving utmost importance to their developing procedure. In order to interact and communicate more effectively with the employees as well as the customers, the organization implanted an effective technology “The Internet of Things” (IoT) This technology is used as a global network and in the next five years with the help of this technology, the organization will be able to connect other devices for communication process and it will also help in the integration of the vendor managed inventory process. As per the report it has been stated that by implanting this emerging theme, Aldi will able to reach 26 billion units by the end of 2020. There are various technologies of the IoT that includes cloud computing, radio frequency distribution, middleware and more. By implementing all these strategies, the organization would be able to maximize their growth in the next five years. Apart from this, the organization as an emerging theme focus on the training procedures of their employees as according to Aldi employees would help them to focus on their decision making strategy that would help the organization to reach its target within the next five years (Argyris 2017). Accordingly, it tends to provide on-the-job training and off job training to their employees that would help the employees to reach their target and objectives. Training focus on the developing skills and talents of the employees so that employees would be able to tackle any kind of risk or critical problem easily. Prior to that, one of the important emerging themes in the business organization is the implementation of the clean and green measures, as in the present days green business have become a recent trend in the global market (Kiazad et al. 2015). Accordingly, in order to maximize their profits in the next five years implementation of the green business would affect the strategic decision making process of the organization. Introduction of the bio-fuels and solar energy and eliminating aerosol cans for supplying products would help the organization to attract more customers (Tukker 2015). As per the Small Business Organization, “There’s a new focus on environmental responsibility, and as a small business owner, you can make a difference. Help protect our ecosystem and serve your customers who value your environmental efforts.” Therefore, implication of the cleaner environment would tend to attract more customers and in the next five years, Aldi would able to become one of the top retail industries in global context (Curran and Burrows 2015).

 The emerging themes that were implemented by the Aldi organization would help to increase the productivity of the organization and would able to maximize their growth. Apart from the emerging themes selected by the organization, there are other emerging trends if implemented properly would results in more productivity and would also help in the decision making process of the organization (Meyer and Peng 2016). By distribution of the trust system that means implementation of the block chain will deal in innovative products. Another major emerging trend is the “experience economy’ that means consumers do not buy products based on the products and the services, but they tend to buy services and products based on their experiences. Accordingly the brands that will be developed in a better way by the employees would receive higher rewards; this proves that employees consists an important part of the business strategy (Allen and Kraakman 2016). Apart from this, on-demand work is one of the major emerging trends that will provide workers independence and freedom to build their own work lives and accordingly can show their creativity. Implementation of this theme by the Aldi would help the company in increasing their productivity and growth.

Conclusion

From the above conclusion it could be concluded that emerging themes now an ongoing trend that helps business organization to reach its target and objectives. As in the case of Aldi, as a result of the emerging themes, there main focus lies in providing training facilities and employee satisfaction to the employees. For instance, the Internet of Things also known as the Internet of Everything is a new emerging theme that is implemented by majority of the industries for interacting and communicating with each other in an effective way. Apart from that the organization also puts measures in the developing of the employees, as employees are regarded as one of the major part of the decision making process.

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