Introduction To Informatics Essay At Woolworths Limited.

Discussion on business strategies of Woolworths Limited

Discuss about the Introduction to Informatics Woolworths Limited.

The report depicts the crucial necessity of adapting biggest technology revolution for the retails organization like Woolworth Limited, to achieve competitive advantages from the market.  Nowadays, digitization and technologies are referred to as the central of every organization. In order to develop the existing business to online web based application certain factors come under consideration.

The sales, goal and objectives of Woolworths Limited are illustrated in this paper. Apart from this, usages of different diagnostic tools that help to increase the business revenue are also mentioned in this report. The role of strategic alignment between the goals and objectives including the ways through which it can be developed are also mentioned in this report. Additionally, the benefits of data management process used by Woolworths Limited are also elaborated. The business strategies can be developed if web 2 and web 3 technologies are adapted by the organization.  A technology not only gives opportunities but also it generates threats to the organization. The issues can be mitigated after adapting certain risk management techniques.

Woolworths Limited is one of the largest Australia based retail industries which sell their products to the consumers by online and offline both marketing approaches. The business strategy focuses on solid and efficient business foundation, affordable offers to the consumers and creation of business future (Arli et al. 2013). Woolworths has a website from which the consumers can select their desired products. In order to achieve business revenue five best priorities are considered. These are as follows:

1. Customer and store led culture building and team as well
2. Sustainable food selling approaches
3. Inclusion of drink products
4. To pursue business strategies empowering business portfolio to deliver stakeholder’s values (vom Brocke et al. 2014)
5. To become a lean retailer with the help of end to end process

The business objectives of the organization are as follows:

1. To develop a project team that can increase the business revenue
2. To reduce the cost by improving the business process
3. To develop a cohesive brand
4. To update the quality of the products and offering different updated product
5. To increase the brand value (Klettner, Clarke and Boersma 2014).

In order to understand the competitive ambiance, where Woolworths operates the operational and functional tools that they use are also needed to be understood. The organization lacks end to end view of the IT services. The critical projects of Woolworths Limited are underestimating the cost due to adaptation of inadequate tools (Frederick Rose, Hawryszkiewycz and Kang 2014).  Porter’s five forces analytical tools are used for Woolworths Limited to achieve competitive advantages from the marketplace.

1. Bargaining power of the buyers
2. Bargaining power of the suppliers
3. Industry substitutes
4. Threats of new entrants
5. Rivalry among the competitors

The impact of goal and objectives setting of Woolworths Limited plays an important role in the development scenario.  The strategic alignment maintains certain components:

Inbound logistics:  It has their own distribution centre to reduce the cost and get competitive advantages from the marketplace.

Operations: It can take the supply of the raw materials from the root with a reduces production cost

Identification and discussion of tools Woolworths Limited uses

Outbound logistics: Vendor based management system is used by the organization

Marketing and sales: More investment is done for the marketing approaches to create successful brand awareness.

Customer services: The refund policy is consumer focused.

During analysis it has been found that, data management has become nowadays one of the most identifiable issues. After implementation of market automation, the rate of data hazard is also increasing widely thus, for the marketer’s data management has become one of the major factors to be considered (Pilbeam et al. 2016). In offline practice, data management was little difficult but after adapting online business application, management of the data has become easier. The benefits of advanced data management are as follows:

Establish control: Depending on the quality and quantity of data, controls on the data access are established after introducing the online data management system (Cheng, Green and Ko 2014). None of the external rather unauthenticated users could access the data from the storage of Woolworths Limited.

Development of data map: After development of data management system in Woolworths Limited, mapping of data has become an important feature of the system. As the number of products and other data upgrades, data mapping also updates according to the changing data set (Feigin 2016). In order to maintain the management consistency the data are required to be mapped properly. The data management system provides appreciable market development strategy to the organization.

Data segmentation: Based on quality, the data are segmented in different parts. The data management system has the capability to store data based on the quality such as the financial data and personnel data are stored in different storage.

Reduction in data redundancy: In traditional approach, single data might get stored in the database system more than once that increases the rate of data duplicity (Lozano, Carpenter and Huisingh 2015). However, in online application once a single data get stored will not get stored again. Through this approach the rate of data redundancy get reduces from the traditional approach.

Data security: The data stored in the storage are secured from external attack and none of the external users could access the data from the storage without authentication.  

Based on the quality, quantity and number of online consumer retail organizations should adapt web 2.0 and web 3.0 technologies, for information management.   

The web 2.0 technology is much easier to handle than other technologies. It gives a large variety of information to the users and to the organization whenever they require it. The technology has the capability to search for those data that are recently stored (Liao 2013). A retail organization can be benefitted as great varieties of entries are available on the internet services. If any wrong data stored in the storage then that entry can be changed as per the organizational requirement (Recker, Malsbender and Kohlborn 2016). This application helps to stay connected with different people throughout the world. This helps to promote the business online with a lesser amount of cost. As per the requirement, the information oriented data and documents can be shared with others. Even, if any retail organization organizes a discussion forum then, people regardless of their location could take part in the discussion forum.  

Analysis of the roles of strategic alignment between goals and objectives

The Web 3.0 technology is an extended version of web 2.0 technology. This is technically advanced but non-expert users cannot handle it.  Less advanced computers will not be able to handle this technology as most of the technical supports will be missing. This is costlier than web 2.0 technology (Hew and Cheung 2013).  The technology is not enough secured compare to its features. Data access process is easier. It means if the retails organization needs to access any data, of older days then with certain query language the data can be accessed. Moreover, it can be said that implementation of web 3.0 technology is beneficial but this is much expensive and complex to use from the user aspect.

Example 1: An appropriate Supply Chain Management system is served.

Example 2:  It provides innovative and inventive integrated IS to the users.

From the market analysis of Woolworths Limited it has been found that the organization is facing major challenges, due to lack of usage of tools and technologies as well. In order to gain competitive advantages from the marketplace it is required to identify the issues first (Cheng, Green and Ko 2014). After identification of the issues it can be mitigated.  

Lack of market development: The market of Woolworths Limited is lagging certain factors. Based on the market structure the quality if the products their products are needed to be developed (Feigin 2016). As the organization has got new and different sales channels from the traditional stores thus, it is helping the organization to gain competitive advantages from the marketplace.   

Lack of product development: Currently, many organizations are developing in Australia and their business and market strategies are more advanced and consumer focused (Klettner, Clarke and Boersma 2014). Compare to other newly entered organizations, the quality and price of the products are not appreciable.

Technical threat: The organization does not have enough technical support and this is the reason for which the organization is facing major challenges (Liao 2013). Moreover, the data management system used by the organization does not provide adequate security to the storage thus, the banking information might get hijacked from the storage.

Example 1:  The consumers are getting affected from the alcohol related products delivered by the organization.

Example 2:  Due to rapid increment in technology the rate if threat is increasing.

Conclusion

From the overall discussion it can be concluded that, Woolworths Limited sells multiple products to the consumers throughout Australia and New Zealand as well. The sales goal and objectives of the organization including the tools they used to develop their business strategies are also mentioned in this report. Apart from this, the role of strategic alignment between the goals and objectives are also mentioned.  The benefits of data management, web 2.0 and web 3.0 technologies are also mentioned in this report. Though, the online application provides different opportunities at the same time many threats are also associated to Woolworths Limited.   

Addressing retail paradox: In order to meet the requirement of the consumers it is needed to serve a product in affordable cost and quality.  

Technical development: Technical development in terms of accounting software, big data, and cloud computing and digital platform are needed to be adapted.

Encryption: In order to keep the information secured, proper encryption key is required to be adapted.  

References

Arli, V., Dylke, S., Burgess, R., Campus, R. and Soldo, E., 2013. Woolworths Australia and Walmart US: Best practices in supply chain collaboration. Journal of Economics, Business & Accountancy Ventura, 16(1)

Cheng, M.M., Green, W.J. and Ko, J.C.W., 2014. The impact of strategic relevance and assurance of sustainability indicators on investors' decisions. Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory, 34(1), pp.131-162.

Feigin, L.M., 2016. The effects of protests and boycotts on a brand and its reputation: a case study on Woolworths and boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) (Doctoral dissertation, The IIE)

Fleischman, D. and Craig, J., 2015. Exploring integration of non-economic goals into business models of small regional food enterprises: Embedded value creation. The Journal of New Business Ideas & Trends, 13(2), p.39.

Frederick Rose, J., Hawryszkiewycz, I. and Kang, K., 2014. When and how to facilitate the introduction of new knowledge processes in organisations. VINE: The journal of information and knowledge management systems, 44(2), pp.210-227.

Hew, K.F. and Cheung, W.S., 2013. Use of Web 2.0 technologies in K-12 and higher education: The search for evidence-based practice. Educational Research Review, 9, pp.47-64.

Klettner, A., Clarke, T. and Boersma, M., 2014. The governance of corporate sustainability: Empirical insights into the development, leadership and implementation of responsible business strategy. Journal of Business Ethics, 122(1), pp.145-165.

Liao, J.S., 2013. Using Web 2.0 to enhance SME agri-food supply chain management: a Tasmanian study (Doctoral dissertation, University of Tasmania).

Lozano, R., Carpenter, A. and Huisingh, D., 2015. A review of ‘theories of the firm’and their contributions to Corporate Sustainability. Journal of Cleaner Production, 106, pp.430-442

Pilbeam, C., Davidson, R., Doherty, N. and Denyer, D., 2016. What learning happens? Using audio diaries to capture learning in response to safety-related events within retail and logistics organizations. Safety science, 81, pp.59-67.

Recker, J., Malsbender, A. and Kohlborn, T., 2016. Using Enterprise Social Networks as Innovation Platforms. IT Professional, 18(2), pp.42-49

vom Brocke, J., Schmiedel, T., Recker, J., Trkman, P., Mertens, W. and Viaene, S., 2014. Ten principles of good business process management. Business Process Management Journal, 20(4), pp.530-548.