Countdown Supermarkets - Stakeholder Analysis In Transformation Essay.

Transformation Process for Countdown Supermarkets

Discuss about the Stakeholders, Objectives and Compliances of Organization.

Countdown is a New-Zealand supermarket chain and it is one of the subsidiaries of Woolworths New-Zealand Limited. Woolworths NZ is a subsidiary for Australia’s Woolworths Limited. Countdown supermarkets are bigger than the other supermarkets of New Zealand and with huge product offerings, it targets various target audiences. The first Countdown store was opened in 1981 which later on expanded to 184 stores till 2016 (Countdown, 2016). It is the largest supermarket store in the New Zealand in terms of number of stores. Scope of this report is to analyse internal as well as external stakeholders of the organization which are involved in the planning of the transformation process. Both internal as well as external stakeholders play vital role in enhancing organizational performance and with this regard, it is necessary for the organization to adopt an effective stakeholder management strategy with regards to the attainment of desired goals and objectives of the organization. There are numerous compliances linked with the stakeholders and with its operations, thus, it is required to analyse all those factors which could affect organizational performance (Countdown, 2018).

Transformational process is an activity or group of activities which takes input in and transforms them into valuable output as per the requirement of clients. In relation with this, inputs could be raw materials and every other supporting material required for creating finished products. Process of transformation majorly includes machinery, actions performed by the human resources and every material which is required for producing finished goods (Berg, 2018). Countdown is a supermarket and their major product offering include grocery items and essential items which are included in basic necessity goods. Transformation process for Countdown also includes three stages i.e. input, transformation process and output. In relevance with organizational operations, inputs will be goods sold and the consumers. Apart from this, input transforming resources include staff, machineries required for making the input ready for the purpose of consumption by consumers. Other facilities such as computers, billing machines, etc. are also crucial part of initial stage of transformation process of Countdown. Further, transformation process involves advices to the consumers in relation with the selection of products from a wide variety as per their needs. The final stage i.e. output for the organization includes customer satisfaction, profits, revenues and goods sold (Böckli, Davies, Ferran, Ferrarini, Garrido Garcia, Hopt & Winter, 2015).

Analysis of Internal and External Stakeholders in the Transformation Process

In relevance with this procedure, stakeholders plays vital role in making this process smooth and effective. Following is the brief regarding involvement of both internal as well as external stakeholder of Countdown in the transformation process:

Internal stakeholder: Internal stakeholders for a Countdown are directors, managers, leaders and employees. Managers are active members who actively participate in the planning of transformation process. Managers are responsible for managing all employees and workers’ actions as it has direct impact over organizational performance. Apart from this, managers are also responsible for analysing the demands for the target audience as well as for the purpose of allocating resources with the motive of providing finished goods as well as to obtain customer satisfaction (BSR, 2012).

External stakeholder: External stakeholders for Countdown are shareholders, suppliers, and all those who tales interest in the organizational activities. In relation with the transformation process, suppliers plays vital role because they are responsible for providing raw and other materials. Thus, it is required for the organization to develop strong relationship with the suppliers so that customer’s demands could be fulfilled along with the objective of gaining customer satisfaction (BSR, 2018).

Both internal as well as external stakeholder’s involvement in the procedure of planning for the transformation process. Involvement of stakeholders in necessary in the planning of transformation process because transformation process affects the organizational process either in negative or in positive manner. If transformation process is well planned and executed then, it will be easy for the organization to gain positive outcomes. All those members of the organization as well as the external stakeholders which will be affected by the decisions taken under transformation process should be involved in order to reduce the chances of resistance from the employees and other stakeholders with regards to the implementation of change or other methodologies. Apart from this, it also helps the organization to design the methodologies as per skills and requirements of the stakeholders so that the desired goals and objectives could easily be attained (Drezner, 2008).

Countdown is a supermarket and deals in various products and services. Organization has huge product offering through which they target large part of the target market. In relevance with their transformation process, it is required to adopt appropriate measures for improving organizational performance by enhancing product offering as well as by enhancing customer satisfaction. Behind attainment of business transformation, following are recommendations for performances and for organizational objectives:

Recommendations for Enhancing Organizational Performance

• Increasing product offerings and product quality;
• Increasing customer satisfaction by providing them appropriate goods and services as per their taste and preferences (Gelter, 2017).

• Sustainable growth and development
• Enhancing customer base, revenues, and profitability so that acquired position could be maintained.

These objectives could easily be attained by involving stakeholders in the decision making process as this leads to generate various options for the purpose of accomplishment of organizational tasks. Apart from this, change management is another necessary aspect for an organization in relevance with the attainment of desired goals and objectives (Supermarket News, 2015).

• Primary ethical challenges in business transformation decisions are:
• Weak sponsor engagement
• Lack of clear empowered roles and responsibilities
• Lack of communication
• Lack of measures for controlling and maintaining change management (Hammer, 2018).

• Identity-Consider-Act-reflect: This is a four step framework and it is mainly designed for managers to identify and eliminate challenges faced by the organization. First step involves identification of each scenario for finding best course of action. Further, managers need to analyse the decision making path so that the identified challenges could be eliminated. Third step is entails action so that challenges could easily be managed. The last step is that decision makers are required to reflect on the outcomes originated as per the actions.
• Stakeholder management strategy

• Internal environment of organization includes certain events, systems, and workplace environment. All these factors and events are under control of organization. Risk factors involved in the internal environment are change in the leadership style, mission of organization and culture. These factors have considerable impact over organizational transformation.

External environment includes all those factors which occur outside business premises. Clients, technological factors, social, and political are some of the external factors that have influence over organizational performance. Ignoring external factors could result in failure of the organization as these have direct impact on organizational transformation. Apart from this, organization could lose its competitive advantage in the market due to non-adaptation of latest strategies as per business environment.

• Internal compliances:
• Conducting annual as well as initial director meetings;
• Recording inflow as well as outflow of tasks along with updating the policies as per law (McQuail & Windahl, 2015).

In relation with analysing internal compliances, organization would focus over appropriate measures so that the impact of the factors of compliance could be reduced. Internal requirements are legislation, rules, guidelines, standards and all other codes and policies developed by top level management for enhancing performance of the organization.

Thus, it is required by the managers to develop strong relationship between compliances and operational risk management for the purpose of attainment of desired goals and objectives (Piotrowicz & Cuthbertson, 2015).

• Providing assurances to the stakeholders that organization is following all external requirements;
• Creating a framework for assisting in terms of achievement of desired goals and objectives (co.nz, 2018).

External compliances could easily be approached with the help of range of approaches. In relation with this, managers generally use the periodic manual sign by the top management with the objective of meeting with the external requirements. These compliances are imposed by external bodies with regards to keeping the interest of the organization. Majorly these compliances include portraying fair image of the organization amongst the stakeholders, filing tax return positively and showing all the incomes and expenses. This helps the internal as well as external stakeholders in terms of accomplishment of the tasks of organization along with gaining positive outcomes (Podgórski, 2015).

Conclusion

From the aforesaid information, it can be concluded that organization requires identifying organizational stakeholders, objectives and the compliances which could affect organizational performance. In relevance with this, it is necessary for the organization to analyse the requirement for the organization before adaptation of the strategies with the motive of enhancing organizational performance. In this report, Countdown’ stakeholder analysis has been discussed. Countdown is a supermarket and grocery store in New Zealand. It is a subsidiary of Woolworths NZ which is subsidiary of Woolworths Australia. Countdown has developed its effective image in the supermarket industry in New Zealand through enhancing its product offerings along with delivering high quality products. With regards to this, organization has attained leading position in the target market. Major findings of the report are performance and organizational objectives and interest of stakeholders in relation with business transformation. In addition to this, organizational internal and external stakeholder’s roles and responsibilities have also been discussed. Stakeholders have been identified with the objective of involving into planning of transformational processes. Transformational process needs to be executed in fair and in ethical manner so that the performance of the organization could be enhanced along with the objective of targeting large part of customers.

Thus, it has been recommended to the organization to practice the discussed stakeholder management strategy as per the action plan and the communication plan in regular intervals for staying connected with the stakeholders as well as with the objective of accruing leading position in the target market. With regards to this, it is required to identify the requirement of organization so that all the resources could be gathered in terms of well execution of organizational practices as well as for gaining competitive advantage.

References

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