Improvements In Business Processes And Customer Service At Oz Supermarket Essay.

Overview of the Business Operations

Discuss About The Improvements Business Processes Operations?

Oz Supermarket is a retail chain that has been set up in order to provide the customers with improved retail services to allow them to avoid long queues. The primary aim of every business unit is to provide its customers with excellent services and gain their trust and engagement as a result. There are various initiatives that have been taken by Oz Supermarket to enhance the customer experience. The report covers the suggestions to improve the business operations along with the customer service in association with Oz Supermarket.

There are several initiatives that have been taken by Oz Supermarket to improve the flow of business operations and customer service. The retail chain deals in three product categories as household items, stationary and non-perishable goods. PayWave technology has been adopted in the organization for the customers. The customers having the PayWave card make use of the same to add or remove items for purchase and the special RFID readers are used to process the same. The customers need not to stand in the queues as the payment is automatically calculated and removed from the card. For the customers not having the card, a temporary card may be issued after the cash deposit at the entrance. The difference in the balance is paid at the time of the check-out. The retail chain has also installed the shopping summary stations in the store along with the RFID chips on every item for easy tracking. The car parks of the store are also timed as per the peak and non-peak periods.

Supply Chain Management Systems

Oz Supermarket retails in three categories of the products and there is a huge customer base that is associated with the store. In order to manage the entire set of the business processes along with flow of the supply chains, it is recommended to make use of automated supply chain management systems (Svensson, 2010).

Supply Chain Management (SCM) is the process that involves the efficient management of the activities from supplier to the customer. It includes the management of inventories, logistics, shipping, distribution and procurement of the goods (Doran, 2004). There are several automated supply chain management systems that shall be implemented in the supermarket to avail the benefits as listed below:

• The system will allow maintenance of the product flow as per the demands of the customers and will therefore lead to minimal wastage.
• The material flow will also be improved with the installation and deployment of the supply chain management system in the retail store (Suvadarshini & Prasad Roy, 2014).
• There will be a number of third parties that will be associated with the retail store and the system will ensure seamless flow of information (Fawcett, 2008).
• Data driven supply chain management system will also keep track of the real-time data and information which will lead to improvement of the flow of business activities.
• There are increased cash flows that are involved in the supply chains. The use of automated supply chain management systems will lead to enhancement of the financial flow.

Transactional Six Sigma will lead to the improvement of the business processes by identification and mapping of the core processes. There will be following advantages provided to Oz Supermarket with the use of Transactional Six Sigma.

• The procedure will allow the reorganization of the opportunities and elimination of the defects in association with the customer complaints (Ray & John, 2011).
• The process will lead to reduction and elimination of the wastes.
• The method will lead to the reduction of the process variation.
• The process will make use of the quality tools for better decision making and problem solving for Oz Supermarket (Kornfeld & Kara, 2013).
• The use of transactional Six Sigma will also allow the business side to experience the ability to select better suppliers.

Recommendations for Improvements in the Business Processes

Accounting information systems (AIS) are the automated systems that are installed in order to improve upon the accounting activities and methods. Oz Supermarket shall also make use of accounting information systems to ensure that the accounting activities are streamlined. The following advantages will be provided to the retail store with the deployment of AIS in the organization.

• The speed of the accounting activities will be improved with the installation of AIS in the retail store. There are a lot many accounting activities such as invoice management, billing processes, PayWave card management, payroll tasks etc. that can be easily managed with the deployment of AIS.
• Cashless operations that will be enabled by the supermarket with the inclusion of PayWave technology would allow the customers to go cashless and experience the ease and flexibility that comes along with the same. AIS would keep a track of the cashless options and activities that will allow improved business flow and operations (Newton, 2017).
• There are many accounting processes that are involved in the retail store in terms of generation of sales revenues and many others as per the type of the products and the customers. AIS will manage the accounting activities with the aid of automated information systems (Hla, 2015).
• There are numerous security risks and attacks that are associated with every business unit. In case of the occurrence of such events, there may be deterioration of the brand image and customer oriented services. Accounting data is usually the data set that is targeted by most of the attackers. AIS comprising of latest tools and security frameworks will lead to the prevention and detection of the security attacks leading to improved customer satisfaction and engagement (Daoud, 2013).
• Accounting data will be easily used and accessed by many of the business executives.

Technology is one of the most important tools that can be used by Oz Supermarket to improve upon the business operations and the flow of business activities. The use of supply chain management systems and accounting information systems has been suggested in order to implement the latest elements of technology in the retail store. It will lead to automated processing and management of the business activities and operations. Also, the use and adoption of transactional six-sigma will improve upon the quality of operations. The improvement of the quality of the business operations along with the functional aspects of the business activities will lead to the overall improvement of the flow of the business processes.

Customers are the primary entities that are required to be managed by Oz Supermarket. It is necessary to ensure that the customer trust and satisfaction is gained in order to improve upon the overall business performance. There are several strategies and processes that may be adopted in order to achieve the same.

Oz Supermarket has come up with a number of customer-centric approaches and activities to make sure that the customers are satisfied and gain a positive customer experience. However, the steps that are taken by the organization may be liked by a few and vice versa. It is necessary to understand the experience of the customers and collecting feedback from the customers is a constructive and easy approach to gain the same.

Customer feedback shall be gained in the areas of ease of purchase, overall shopping experience, preference on the products and likewise. Also, there are a majority of the customers who do not wish to spend a lot of their time on providing the feedback. In order to gain the customer feedback in minimal time, there shall be touch-sensitive screens installed in the store to ask for the feedback. The customers shall be provided with the ability to provide the feedback by answering a few feedback questions by pressing the buttons on the screen. The responses shall be recorded and stored in the database (Keramati, Shirkouhi, Moshki & Berneti, 2010).

Supply Chain Management Systems

Cashless society is one of the primary aims of the Australian Government in the current times. The customers would also wish to have the payment measures to allow them to contribute in the objective of the Government. PayWave technology is one of the measures that have already been included in the organization. The feedback from the customers would allow the implementation of more of such methods and measures.

The feedback that will be provided by the customers shall then by analyzed using the data analytics tools and processes. There are a number of automated data analytics tools that are available that shall be used in order to analyze the customer feedback. It will lead to the revelation of the patterns and trends associated with the customer purchase and preference. The comments provided by the customers in the feedback process shall then be included to improve upon the business processes and activities to enhance the areas.

Quality is one of the most significant parameters that are associated with any of the business units. The quality of the products that are provided by the retail chain shall be maintained and also improved so as to provide the customers with the excellent quality products.

Reviews and inspections are the important procedures that may be used to improve upon the product quality. The retail chain deals in three products categories as household, stationary and non-perishable goods. There are quality guidelines that are associated with each of the product categories that shall be met and there are additional quality parameters that may be achieved for the improvement of the same. The organization must form a team of reviewers and auditors comprising of internal staff members along with external quality inspectors to execute the task with utmost perfection. The review process shall include the detailed inspection of the quality guidelines that are met and the ones that are missed. There shall also be recommendation provided by the team to improve upon the quality and the measures that may be taken for the same.

There shall be reporting tools that shall be used by the review and audit teams to keep a track of the reviews that are conducted and their respective results. Every review that is conducted must also verify the issues that are pointed out in the previous process to validate that the recommended actions are taken.

Customer feedback is one of the activities that may be conducted to improve upon the relationship and engagement with the customers. However, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems are the systems that are automated in nature and can be implemented to carry out a lot many customer-oriented activities and processes (Khodakarami & Chan, 2014).

Transactional Six Sigma

There are a lot of decisions and strategies that are associated with the Oz Supermarket in association with the customer purchase and experience. It becomes difficult to form such decisions and track all of the customer data for the same (Haas, 2002). The deployment of a CRM system will ensure that the customer preferences are analyzed through the entire customer lifecycle and the relationship with the customer is improved. It will provide the following set of benefits to the organization.

• Oz Supermarket will like to enhance its customer base and will also want the existing customers to have excellent experiences. The installation of CRM system will lead to the discovery of the new customers by creating strategies and decisions as per the customer needs and preferences (Bull, 2010).
• There are specific choices and preferences that are associated with every customer. The deployment of a CRM system will allow easy analysis and tracking of the customer choices and preferences (Tekin, 2013).
• It will also allow the organization to form a better communication channel with the customers and will also lead to the resolution of their queries and complaints.
• The revenues and profitability associated with the organization will also improve (Kevork & Vrechopoulos, 2008).
• The organization will be able to take better decisions in terms of the quality parameters to be used along with the strategies that shall be adopted. It will lead to the improvement of the customer satisfaction and engagement (Roberts-Lombard, 2012).

Conclusion

Customer engagement and satisfaction are the two prime parameters that shall be attained by the organization. There shall be steps that shall be taken by the organization to make sure that the customer experience is improved and is maintained as well. Oz Supermarket has taken many steps to enhance decision making and problem solving in the organization. Use of strategies such as gathering of customer feedback, installation of customer relationship management system along with product quality review shall be used to improve upon the customer service. Along with the customer service, there are further steps that shall be adopted in order to improve the business processes and operations. The amalgamation of these strategies will lead to the overall improvement of the business tasks and activities. It will also lead to the improvement of the revenues and market share of the organization along with the expansion of the customer base.

References

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