Management Research

Coles Supermarket is one of the largest retail stores in Australia, starting its roots from Melbourne since 1914. It also provides customer services and wholly owned by the Coles group, although it involved a lot of changes in decision making. Coles Supermarket’s biggest competitor is Woolworths and together they are contributing to the 80% sales through retail stores in Australia. Coles tend to offer home delivery and online orders in order to increase their customers. Moreover, Coles Group hold several other brands under their subsidiary. There are exactly 807 retail stores, inclusive the branding Bi-LO supermarket which also comes under their category. An interesting fact that exists, only Coles Supermarket have over 100,000 employees. That is the 0.4% of the Australian population just work for this retail store. The profit earning is shown in the Chart 1.1

Chart 1.1

Reason why I have chosen this company is mainly because of the hugeness of the organisation as it involves large number of employees. Moreover, this company has a vast network of suppliers, customers, transportation parties and clients who are connected to this retail giant. Furthermore, it also provides enough ethical concepts as the company has been building itself for better sustainability. The Coles Group just having the supermarket under them as a subsidiary would create a lot of opportunity for more research on how they can improve their efficiency. The Coles Supermarket have also been involved in legal suits and cases in past. It would require thorough research on how such legalities can be related to the ethical modules. Moreover, the requirements of Coles Supermarket can be taken as an Agile Organisation which tend to stay more balanced and proactive to changes.

In order to get and reserve the data for report, several sources can be used for more acquisition. Considering their network system is integrated in Australia, it gives out more opportunity to collect information regarding different approaches that Coles use. Regarding all the statistical information, the sources used will be the company’s annual reports which are available on their websites. Moreover, the Bureau of statistics can also be referred for sales reports. Regarding the ethical and legalities, their website includes all the activities being performed in the Corporate Social Responsibility. The organisations work in very different ways and how they practice diversity is also a concern for Australian norms and achievements. Theories of organisation can be referred through research articles of respectable and reputable journal in Management and Business studies. For example; Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Business View and Journal of International Management are those who will provide enough explanation regarding how organisational theories can be implemented in the Coles Supermarket.

The technique that will be used in regards to the implementation of all the data will be content analysis. As the report is based on the qualitative approach and involves the process of acquiring all the qualitative data and present the findings through the application of such approach and theories used. Content analysis helps to differentiate given data and segregates into different solution for each problem. It requires a thorough study of the methodology that will be used, including website data, statistical data and data from management journals. The support of qualitative data can only be given through the analysis of content analysis.

Table 1.1

Management Style

For Coles Supermarket, Morgan’s image of Organisation can be implemented because the structure follows such concept.

· Brain: The Senior Management or Coles Group itself

· Organism: The Coles Supermarket itself and how it operates

· Culture: Working for customer base and the concept of “Customer is King”

· Political System: Not affiliated with Australian or Global politics.

· Physic Prison: Coles Supermarket employees can be involved in doing subconscious acts but which are not desirable by them.

· Flux: The flow of environment for Coles revolve around the fact that how its competitors are behaving in the market.

· Instrument of Domination: The overall market share that the Coles Supermarket has around the country is astonishing by giving employment to at least 100,000 people of the country.

· Machine: The big machine that runs for Coles Supermarket is the entire network of Supply Chain and employee management system.

The overall management style that the organisations adopt is according to their core competency and how it can attract more customers and eventually satisfy them. Regarding the Coles Supermarket system, it is necessary to adopt certain levels of management theories in order to improve their situation. The problem which has been found since past several years inside the Coles, is regarding their supplier management. In the industry of Supermarkets, it is very necessary to develop strong connections with suppliers.

In order to cater such problems, there are two main theories that can implemented in the Coles Supermarket:

Figure 1.1

· Balanced Scorecard: This concept is used in order to measure the impact of non-financial activities on the financial activities. In order to create an integral solution of knowing how financial activities can be affected by non-financial activities, such concept is used. For Coles Supermarket this can be very necessary as they can categorise their supplier relations and how it is affecting them and bend them on financial basis. This would show the company what specific features in supplier relationship is negatively affecting the company and how it is being reflected on the financial books and eventually the profits margin.

Figure 1.2

Regarding the ethical standards of Coles Supermarket, it has been considered as stable and efficient towards handling their all code of conduct. According to their code of conduct, Coles Supermarket and the group eventually focuses on Ethical and Responsible sourcing. They tend to remain more careful in selecting their suppliers, integrating them and handling logistics of all the organisation. According to their website, “In 2016, Coles was the first major Australian supermarket chain to adopt the Supplier Ethical Data Exchange (Sedex), a global ethical supply chain management platform.” (Supermarket, 2020)

Along with such ethical responsibilities, they have also introduced several promotions, charitable work and introduced donations section for children who cannot afford to go to school. Recently, as the bushes fire captured whole Australia in awe, Coles Supermarket stepped up with donations for the wildlife that was affected by forest fire. Furthermore, they also protect Supply Chain process and keep introducing the policies in order to have a sustainable practice. With the handling of retail stores and extreme high-end measures that are introduced in the Australian market, it is necessary to have such measures. (evolution, 2019)

Finally, With the increasing globalisation in Australia and how many nationalities have been working there, it is necessary for such retail market to introduce the diversity programs and have the involvement in every kind of personal at each level according to their competency. (Ritala & Hurmelinna-Laukkanen, 2013) These measures not only help the diverse people of the organisation but also create a sense of achievement in the industry. Such practices also improve the picture portrayed and create a benefit for the corporate social responsibility department. (Zuzul, 2019) Such measures help the companies cater their financial problems through satisfying stakeholders. Many countries are not adopting diversity and that must be the big reason why the globalization is not working as strong as it should. Australia can take a lead in such market where more capable people would end up working for the Australian organisations and Coles Supermarket would help in this regard to a greater extent. Since 1975 there has been several laws that were introduced in regards to remove and curb unethical practices like discrimination. Those acts are:

• Racial Discrimination Act, 1975

• Sex Discrimination Act, 1984

• Disability Discrimination Act, 1992

• Age Discrimination Act, 2004

• Fair Work Act, 2009

In regards to the diversity being discussed, it is important to give the representation to female as well. Women tend to be nurturing and caring, which can be implemented to customer level as well as for Human resource practices. The empathetic nature of women can make the organisation more ethical toward many decision and eventually Coles Supermarket will face the benefits from such measures. In order to implement such measures, it is necessary to give equal opportunity to males and females both, so both can show their true qualities.

After the thorough discussions above, Coles Supermarket can be recommended on how to improve their situation for more possible profit margins.

· For the Supplier issue (biggest problem that follows Coles Supermarket) several things can be done. A proper supplier relationship cell to be developed under the procurement department. At that section their entire focus would be to integrate themselves with the suppliers for long term growths.

· Moreover, such large organisation involves proper management. For that, the Coles supermarket should segregate its work into more departments for better handling of process and product orientation.

· To introducing more operations and diversifying business, the Coles Supermarket could always enter into new markets for new products. This way they would stay more connected to their customers at every step. Diversifying the business would always end up well for the organisation considering the strategy is implemented. (Schubert & Tavassoli, 2020) The differentiations attract a bucket of customers because of the existing brand name. For Coles Supermarket, it would be great if they enter for frozen products and produce them on large scale. The selling problem would not exist because of their platform involved as a retail store.

•One other aspect for the Coles Supermarket is about having proper communication channels throughout the levels of organisation. Removing the barriers of communications; Culture, language, physiological, relational and situational, would put a positive impact on the Coles standards. This encourages employees to share the useful knowledge which can be traced to Senior Management and proper decisions can be taken.

Separate arguments are supported as follow:

· For the supplier relationship management, many authors and researchers have argued about how organisation fail to implement proper supplier relationship system and few realise the actual importance of such practices. It can not only create better financial profit but also helps the Supply Chain procedures. (Jiang, Tao, & Santoro, 2010)

· The rising diversity issue around the globe can be catered by consideration of organisation accepting the reality and giving merit-based chance to all of their employees. Researchers support the concept of adapting diversity and that would create more environmental friendly culture. (Chai-AunOoia, Hooya, Puad, & Som, 2015)

· The Corporate Social Responsibility is the major strongholds in the stakeholder relations for organisation. (LINS, SERVAES, & TAMAYO, 2017)The effect of Corporate Social Responsibility indirectly effects the stock prices and parts in shares because that is how investment is seen. (Dagnino, Guardo, & Padula, 2012) Slight scandals can lead towards a great way of dealing out the aspects of bad habits that companies should not get involved in.

· For the diversification strategy it is necessary for the organisation to know the markets and products before entering in it. (Lauring & Villesèche, 2017) Many big scale organisations have made mistakes while entering the unfamiliar markets which has resulted in the heavy losses for the company (Wang, Wan, & Yiu, 2019) All that can be achieved under most of the circumstance that have been adapted in the entire organisations. Coles Supermarket should take special care for adapting such strategies.

Chart 1.1. The data about the profit earnings before Income and Tax were taken from the Coles Supermarket Official Annual reports of year 2017, 2018 and 2019.

Table 1.1 Information taken from the article, “Content Analysis or Reference: Adjunct or Alternative to Citation Counting by Daryl E. Chubin and Soumyo D. Moitra (1975).

Figure 1.1 House of Quality was first used by Mitsubishi's Kobe shipyard site (1972)

Figure 1.2 The Balance Scorecard: Measures that drive Performance by Robert S. Kaplan (1992)

References Carlsson, M. H. (1993). Consistency in quality—A baseline for achieving total quality management. Quality and Reliability Engineering International. Chai-AunOoia, Hooya, C.-W., Puad, A., & Som, M. (2015). Diversity in human and social capital: Empirical evidence from Asian tourism firms in corporate board composition. Science Direct, 139-153. Dagnino, Guardo, D., & Padula. (2012). Coopetition: Nature, challenges, and implications for firms’ strategic behavior and managerial mindset. Academy Journal of Management , 492-511. evolution, C. o. (2019). Rajshree Agarwal ; Serguey Braguinsky ; Atsushi Ohyama. Strategic Management Journal. Jiang, R. J., Tao, Q. T., & Santoro, M. D. (2010). Alliance portfolio diversity and firm performance. Strategic Management Jounral, 1136-1144. Lauring, J., & Villesèche, F. (2017). The Performance of Gender Diverse Teams: What Is the Relation between Diversity Attitudes and Degree of Diversity? European Management Review. LINS, K. V., SERVAES, H., & TAMAYO, A. (2017). Social Capital, Trust, and Firm Performance: The Value of Corporate Social Responsibility during the Financial Crisis. Wiley Online Library , 1785-1824. Ritala, & Hurmelinna-Laukkanen. (2013). Incremental and radical innovation in coopetition– The role of absorptive capacity and appropriability. . Journal of Product Innovation Management, 159-164. Schubert, T., & Tavassoli, S. (2020). Product Innovation and Educational Diversity in Top and Middle Management Teams . Academy of Management Journal. Supermarket, C. (2020). Online Website. www.coles.com.au. Wang, X. A., Wan, W. P., & Yiu, D. W. (2019). Product diversification strategy, business group affiliation, and IPO underpricing: A study of Chinese firms. Wiley Online Library , 179-198. Zuzul, T. W. (2019). “Matter Battles”: Cognitive Representations, Boundary Objects, and the Failure of Collaboration in Two Smart Cities. Academy of Management Journal.

Profit

Sales 2017 2018 2019 1668.2 1466.7 1479.4

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