Solve The Issues Raised Due To The Dumping Of The Masters

How Proposed Amendment to the Management Accounting Techniques To?

 

Introducation:

This memorandum requests the Board of Directors of Woolworths that they shall make the alteration in the techniques of management accounting for solving the issues regarding the dumping of the masters and to act through the notational voting to enable the member of the board to request that the set matter for the notational action shall be considered instead at the meeting of the board.

Background  

Apart from the regular meetings f the company the board held this meeting as the board’s Chairman after giving reasonable notice to each of the member of the board by the Executive Secretary, the by-laws has been set out for two methods of transacting its business.

It has been identified that Woolworths convinced their magic touch in the world of supermarkets and that could be seen in the $45 billion from the hardware market of Australia. As it was going-up, it started putting extra pressure in the financial sector on the new owners for Coles, the conglomerate of Wesfarmers, that operates as leader for the Bunning and hardware sector failed significantly.

Woolworths created Masters for home improvement sector in Australia to enter the hardware market. It was created to compete with the rival company Wesfarmers, who were the leader in that sector. However, the project was a big loss for Woolworths and it accumulated the loss amounted to over A$ 3.2 billion that led to exiting the hardware industry by Woolworths with closing of all the stores and finally selling-off during 2016 December.

The failure on the part of management technique was that the Masters were stocking too many items including Vacuum cleaners and washing machines that the Australians were not keen to buy from the hardware stores. Further, the look of the stores and its early promotion were intentionally portrayed to be friendlier for the females, however, it made the crowd of tradesmen uncomfortable who were the loyal customers of Bunning. As a result, the Masters were  obliged to find out and settled for the second-best property for their stores as Bunning were already grabbed most of the best property sites.

The entry barrier cost for the Masters were too high due to the dominant power of Bunning and they ended up with spending high costs for set-up and labour cost that exceeded the revenue at a large scale. The management instead of pulling out this sector for market were kept on persisting and the cost simply kept on rising and rising. Owing to this failure, the share price of Woolworths declined significantly as compared to the past years as the big investor ware started losing faith in the company and their market capitalisation fell from $48 Billion to $ 29 Billion.

Recommendation

For the above stated reasons, it is recommended that the Board shall alter some techniques of management to solve the issues arose due to the failure of Masters. As many people will lose their job and the company had experienced huge amount of loss, they shall think of an innovative product and before implementing, the management team shall plan out the revenue and costs that will be associated with the product to avoid the loss.

Attachments

1. Agenda
2. Minutes of meeting

Jofn Stewart

Executive Secretary

AGENDA

Team Name: Woolworths task force

Team Members: John Stewart (Executive secretary), Paul Spoor (Directors), Suzane Parker, Andrew Dekkers

4^th May 2017 at Sydney, Australia

ITEM

Present/Welcome: The Woolworths task force meeting was held on 4th May 2017 at Sydney, Australia, the chair of the team welcome 10 participants and asked for the roll call

Apologies: David Luison apologised before the meeting

Minutes: secretary called the roll, matter related to the meeting discussed

Discussion/decision items: alteration in the management accounting technique

Any other business: No

Meeting closed: 4th May 2017 at 5.00 PM

Next meeting: 7th August 2017

Minutes of Meeting

Team Name: Woolworths task force

Team Members: John Stewart (Executive secretary), Paul Spoor (Directors), Suzane Parker, Andrew Dekkers

4^th May 2017 at Sydney, Australi

Item Notes Action:

Present/Welcome	John Stewart (Executive secretary), Paul Spoor (Directors), Suzane Parker, Andrew Dekkers (Chair), Mathew Hopp, Marion Parker
Apologies	David Luison
Minutes	secretary called the roll, matter related to the meeting discussed
Discussion/decision items	alteration in the management accounting technique	Decision passed by majority vote presented in the meeting
Any other business	No
Meeting closed	4th May 2017 at 5.00 PM
Next meeting	7th August 2017

MINUTES CONFIRMED………………………………(SIGNED)

References

Cooper, D.J., Ezzamel, M. and Qu, S.Q., 2017. Popularizing a management accounting idea: The case of the balanced scorecard. Contemporary Accounting Research.

DRURY, C.M., 2013. Management and cost accounting. Springer.

Evans, S. (2017). What went wrong at Woolworths' Masters. [online] The Sydney Morning Herald. Available at: https://www.smh.com.au/business/retail/what-went-wrong-at-woolworths-masters-20160118-gm8fge.h