The present study will describe the business operations of Woolworths. In this study, a product or service will be selected which is delivered across a national border. A brief overview of the company will also be included in the current study. In addition to that, key operations of Woolworths will be clearly defined based on the company reports. Finally, based on the application of relevant model critical review of the key operations will be presented in this study. It will help to develop an appropriate operations plan for the company. Identification of the company which will be analysed in this study and company background In the current study, the retail giant, Woolworths have been selected. The company is selected as it has some operations related to products which are delivered across national borders. Woolworths is a large multinational company which is situated in Bella Vista, Australia.
The organisation was established in the year 1924 and it is continuing the business activities for almost a century (Woolworths group 2021). The organisation has a large range of products such as grocery, bakery products, health and beauty products, food products, household products and so on. Based on the large range of products, the organisation has collected $16.5 billion revenue in the recent financial year. The organisation has over 225,000 employees all around the world. Additionally, it has more than a thousand stores in numerous regions. The organisation has maintained massive business operations in which they have adopted the next generation of technology after a significant amount of time. Based on these advanced business operations processes, the organisation has been relevant in the industry for almost a century and conducting high volume trading.
Key description of Woolworths operations and its link with the business strategy
In regards to the current company reports and business description, it has been identified that the management of Woolworths has been able to maintain effective business-related performance over the years. The organisation has implemented effective business strategies and eliminated the old and obsolete business strategies to improve business performance per year. The key business operations of Woolworths are described beneath:
i) Supply chain operations:
The organisation has been able to improve its supply chain operations over the years. In previous times, the company had opened offline stores in which the customers were forced to come for shopping. However, as the demand for online retailing services expanded, the company was easily able to capture that demand and provide various products and services online. Based on the official website of Woolworths and official mobile application, the customers were capable of shopping any products or services of Woolworths from their home (Hepworth & Newman 2019). It has saved a huge amount of time and effort for the organisation. In addition to that, based on the online services, both the inbound and outbound logistics of Woolworths has developed and supply chain management has improved. The delivery of products across the national borders is a key aspect of the supply chain management..
ii) Labour planning:
In regards to human resource operations, the senior executives of Woolworths have introduced labour planning process which is a highly effective and beneficial process for the management. The main focus of labour planning is to develop proper staffing policy to stabilise the employee performance and reduce unnecessary conflicts. The staffing policy includes anti-discrimination, employee rights and safety policies which helps to secure the job position of the employees and they are capable of maintaining constant performance growth over the years (Gama 2018). Along with that, the labour planning includes hiring cheap and highly skilled labours who are capable of conducting their business works in a suitable and affordable charge. It would help to mitigate the additional financial cost for labours and the potential profitability rate will develop effectively.
iii) Demand and capacity management operations:
It is mentioned above that Woolworths has a huge range of products. However, compared to the range of the products, the stores have less capacity which causes issues to store the goods and raw materials. In order to develop the capacity of the organisation, the senior executives have introduced capacity management operations. In this operation, the company has developed new warehouses which have enough space to store a high number of products for future sales (Mukonza & Swarts 2020). Due to this operation, the potential storage capacity of the company has been expanded which helped to fulfil the demands of the customers per year. Based on that, the potential profitability rate will develop in an effective way.
Analysing relevant models to define the operations
In regards to the learning unit, models such as operations transformation model, mixed model and design model will be used to provide details of these key operations.
i) Operations transformation model:
operations transformation model is an effective model that focuses on transforming the inputs of the company to high quality products and services. In this model, inputs refer to raw materials, management, technologies, labour and capital of the organisation which helps to conduct the supply chain management operations Woolworths (Parkinson 2018).
fter considering these elements, the transformation process starts in which the labours follow their roles and responsibilities and use appropriate technologies to develop new products for the company. It is absolutely necessary for Woolworths to manage the transformation process properly in which raw materials are used effectively and unnecessary wastage is avoided. With the assistance of this process, the management of the company is capable of generating a massive amount of profit at the end of the financial year. In addition to that, inbound and outbound logistics of the supply chain management can be measured based on the transformation process. As a result, the service demands of the customers can be easily achieved by the management in the future.
ii) Mixed model:
In order to improve the business operations, mixed method strategy is used by the companies which can be extremely essential to achieve the expected outcomes. The main focus on the mixed model is to use two different processes in the same operations. Based on that, the organisation can easily be able to understand the positive and negative impacts on the supply chain operations (Loh et al. 2018). It would help to decide which strategy the organisation can choose to achieve the expected supply chain management outcomes. On that regards, the potential productivity rate and efficiency of supply chain operations can be developed. In relation to this strategy, the customer product demands can be analysed and effective strategy can be implemented for achieving the current target. It may reduce financial risks and the organisation can maintain competitive dominance.
iii) Design model:
Design model is a type of model which focuses on designing the whole business process properly so that the employees are able to complete the processes without facing unnecessary risks. The design process includes a design team which basically conducts every management activity (Grant et al. 2017). the design team evaluates the needs of customers and identify the processes to fulfil those needs within a small amount of time. After that, effective business strategies are implemented by the management which can help to conduct the design of the supply chain management process.
