ACCY936 Woolworths Group Limited Business Report Sample

Subject Code : ACCY936
University : University of Wollongong My Assignment Services is not sponsored or endorsed by this college or university.
Subject Name : Management

Management And Information Systems

Table of Contents

About the company.

SWOT Analysis for the Woolworths Group.

Strengths.

Weaknesses.

Opportunities.

Threats.

Key Technology Services Used by the Woolworths Group.

Role of Technology Services in Woolworths Group.

Conclusion..

References.

About Woolworths Group Limited Business Report

Woolworths Group Limited, is one of the leading Australian business groups which has major retail stores all through Australia and New Zealand. It is the second largest business group in Australia by income followed by Wesfarmers which is a Perth based retail business firm. The company is known as one of the largest alcohol retailers in the country and also owns the biggest hotel. The company is a locally owned company which derives its revenue from the sale of food items at supermarkets, liquor and general merchandise. The company also owns some of the well acclaimed hotels in the region. The group has one of the leading employers and has provided employability to about 196,000 people. The company headquarters is situated in the region of Bella Vista located in the suburbs of New South Wales. The very first store for the company was opened for public service in the year 1924 on the Old Imperial Arcade Pitt Street in Sydney and was named the Woolworths Stupendous Bargain Basement. The store was however taken down and was followed by the opening of the Westfield Sydney, which hold the location to date. As per the Australian Food News (2015), the group has achieved remarkable achievements in the improving the shopping experiences of the customers and have outlined their three-year strategy to win the trust of their customers. In 2019, the group was marked of having one of the most sustainable stores to date. At a consumer level, Woolworths’ sustainability endeavours have reflected in its pledge to boycott single utilize plastic sacks through the introduction of its green 'bag for good'. As clients become progressively conscious of what they devour, many depend on the Fairtrade logo on items to direct them towards an ethical buy. As per Anderson (n.d.), owns a market capitalization of $46.5 billion, and has a value of annual sales as high as $60 billion. As compared to its biggest competitor in the Australian market, Coles, it owns a market share of around 37%. For the March quarter in the financial year 2020, the sales revenue of the company had increased by 10.7%. For the Australian food business sector which comprises of the supermarkets in the region, the march quarter witnessed a total increase in sales of 11.3% and reached worth $11.2 billion with comparable sales also witnessing an increase of 10.3%. While the growth in sales was steady in the March quarter, it was counterbalanced by the higher incremental operational expenses to a great extent because of increments in the company’s expenses to satisfy higher demands and to help wellbeing and following governmental order in context of the existing health crisis around the world. The impact of the Woolworths group and some of its competitors has been such that they have been dominating the consumer’s choices and manufacturing of products. Some of the factors which have had an impact on the business performance of the company include GDP and inflation rate.

SWOT Analysis for the Woolworths Group

Strengths

As per Roy Morgan (2020), the group has a total market share of 32.9% which accounts to about $34 Billion.
The company statistics also showed that the stores owned by the group witnessed maximum customers in the year 2019 in comparison to some of the leading supermarket stores in the country.
The company holds a record of 7.2 million customer penetration.
As per the Australian Competition and Consumer Mission (2017), the company owns a total of 75% in the Australian Leisure and Hospitality Group.

Weaknesses

As per Butler (2020), the company had planned to lay off around 1350 of its staff and had admitted to a backpay of $90 million to its workers which were unpaid.
The company had aimed to serve all sections of the society but has been known for better service provided to the higher segments of the society with its costly and attention seeking products and services.
The company has been often forced to cut short prices of some of the products so as to maintain a competition with its immediate competition Coles resulting in losses.

Opportunities

As per Crozier (2019), the company had signed a deal with Boston based Takeoff Technologies which will help automate the offline shopping experience.
This will help cater the people’s needs by moving the products closer to the customers and reducing the workforce wasted in doing so.

Threats

As per Lau (2019), the offers and discounts offered by Amazon can cause a possible threat to the company.
Growing awareness amongst the consumers to shop organic and selective purchasing can lead to decline in net profits.
Immediate competition has also signed deals with companies to automate their processes.

Key Technology Services Used by the Woolworths Group

Woolworths has been one of the leading business groups serving the people of Australia in different sectors. The group has been actively serving the people while catering their needs in the hotel, liquor and supermarket categories. The group has been in the top companies holding a record of 32.9% of market revenue. As per Mitchell (2020), Woolworths could double their sales by developing its market and create double profits by launching new businesses for the group, for example advertising and consultancies by taking advantage of its strong brand value, client information and the large number of stores across the country. Woolworths being one of Australia's biggest retailers is capable of making the "grocery store of things to come" by utilizing resources, for example, its store network chain, purchasing power, client loyalty and information to catch a greater portion of clients' wallets and make new revenue stream. Business analytics play an important role in understanding the current business state and helps in predicting the future of the business depending on the nature of the current data. One of the best ways to understand data generated by businesses and organizations is by using visualization software. The Woolworths group makes use of the data reporting and visual analytics software by Tableau. It helps the supermarket giant in analysing huge datasets to facilitate real time decision making. As per the general manager of the data and analytics for the company, there is always a rise in retail and the company needs to pace up to study the increasing data. The main advantage of using this software by the group has been its speed and the ease with which it has been used by the employees (n.a. 2019). As per Kaelin (2020), the data analytics software helps organizations change large data sets of business-related data into easy to understand and information which lays the foundation for major management and technical decisions. The large volumes of data generated by modern business and organizations on clients, transactions, and activities is staggering and for the most part inconceivable except if appropriately prepared and broke down. A survey carried out by Accenture and Qlik showed that, while organizations of different types can find value in data analytics, just 87% accept that data is an asset for their organization. Tableau software's main task is to provide tools which any business needs to make every piece of that data helpful, informative, and valuable. The company had also planned to make use of the analytics tool provided by Google in 2019. As per Crozier (2019), Woolworths had planned to use Google analytics to study the range which is carried by its stores. The analytics tools also helped the group in calculating personalized offers for its customers and innovate the entire value chain. The company aimed at setting up a new data infrastructure in a decided time span of five months. This infrastructure comprised of a Hadoop-based information lake which was accustomed to combine information that was recently held in siloed information distribution centres over the Woolworths group, including business, supply chain, and retail. From that point, the information would be brought into the Google cloud stage where Woolworths would analyse it and progressively withdraw significant data utilizing AI and other major data analytics tools to extricate key bits of data. The group has also been working extensively in automate the shopping experience of its customers. The company had deployed scan and go stores to help its customers in wasting time standing in long queues. As per the scan and go technology, customers can walk around isles located in these special stores and scan the products they wish to purchase. The system calculates the final bill and allows the users to exit the space only after they done the required payments. The group has also employed robot at some of its supermarkets to provide surveillance. As per Wibowo (n.d.), the supermarket trialled a new robot at its Gregory Hills branch to travel through aisles at the supermarket and alert the administration of any possible threat. The stores have also been equipped with iPads having inbuilt cameras to detect any possible chances of threats during checkouts.

Role of Technology Services in Woolworths Group

As per Haque (2018), An effective organization has clients at its centre. Long gone are the times when all advertising and competition were dependent solely on sales. On the off chance the need for organizations to get and keep clients, they should collaborate with them and building connections on a coordinated level. The goal for any organization is to study the data generated over the years including the recently generated data in order to understand the trends in its sales and calculate net profit or loss acquired. This is where having data analytics is crucial. The depth of knowledge they give assist organizations to cater directly to their clients with certainty, enhance their resources, and grow in accordance with changing markets. It also adds to business intelligence. As per Grant (2020), Business intelligence changes data into intelligence used to settle on business choices. It might be utilized in an association's key and strategic tactical decision making. It offers a route for organizations to look at patterns from gathered data and get insights from it. The process of automating processes has played a key role in expansion and establishment of supermarkets and stores in the 21^st century. Supermarkets have moving ahead in the field of automation and innovating their processes to provide a better customer experience and to promote better employability options. As per Begley, Hancock, Kilroy and Kohli (2019), retail is feeling the pressure of competition from rapidly growing e - commerce organizations. The business margins are under a constant stress from all sides, resulting in greater expenses to manage online business ventures Simultaneously, the client's expectations tend to increase as computerized natives and disruptors increase current standards for customized service which again leads to an advantaged cost structure. As most of the supermarket ventures are facing a sense of competition from every possible corner, they have worked extensively to innovate the process by automating these processes for a better customer experience.

Conclusion on Woolworths Group Limited Business Report

Woolworths has been a leading service provider for people catering the retail, liquor and hotel businesses. It has been the top company holding a large segment of the market revenue of the Australian economy. As per Anderson (n.d.), for the Australian Stock Market, the group has been able to achieve $60 Billion sales annually. Although it has faced a market competition with its immediate rival Coles, the company has managed to be the leading company in customer penetration and holding almost 75% of the total Australian Leisure and Hospitality Group. The report discussed the internal analysis of the company. The SWOT analysis of the company helped understand some of the key points relating to the strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities for the company. The company also discussed the some of the key present-day technologies by the company. The company has been making use of the some of the leading data analytics software. Tableau has helped the group visualize the data and make better decisions from the key points acquired by performing analytics. The software has been widely used by the group over different business keeping in mind its efficiency and the ease it offers to the employees. The group has also made use of Google analytics which has helped the company calculate custom offers and discounts to its loyal customers by understanding their shopping trends as depicted in the data. The company has also focused on automation by deploying scan and go stores. These stores help customers to scan the products they wish to purchase with their phones and pay using the same without having to stand in queues. The company has also been trying to incorporate robotics with the business by making use of robots for tracking and surveillance purposes. Altogether, the company has been a key supporter of the Australian economy. Its rapid innovation leading to its limitless growth has helped it survive some of the major competitors such as Amazon. As per Broker Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, the sales growth related to the supermarket sector has been calculated to be at an average 4% in the past five years. The sales are expected to grow at a value between 4% and 5% in the next five years (Low 2017).

References for Woolworths Group Limited Business Report

n.a. 2015. Woolworths announces new strategies to win over grocery shoppers, AFN reveals full detail. [Online]. Available at: https://www.ausfoodnews.com.au/2015/05/06/woolworths-announces-new-strategies-to-win-over-grocery-shoppers-afn-reveals-full-detail.html

n.a. 2020. Looking beyond the panic-buying, Australia’s big supermarket story is Aldi’s growing market share. [Online]. Available at: https://www.roymorgan.com/findings/8336-fresh-food-and-grocery-report-december-2019-202003230634#:~:text=The%20Fresh%20Food%20and%20Grocery,compared%20with%20a%20year%20earlier.

Lau, B. 2019. Amazon’s new threat to Woolworths and Coles. [Online]. Available at: https://www.fool.com.au/2019/10/23/amazons-new-threat-to-woolworths-and-coles/

n.a. 2017. Australian Leisure & Hospitality Group Limited (75% owned by Woolworths Limited) - proposed acquisition of 5 Adelaide Hotels from Saturno Hotel Group. [Online]. Available at: https://www.accc.gov.au/public-registers/mergers-registers/public-informal-merger-reviews/australian-leisure-hospitality-group-limited-75-owned-by-woolworths-limited-proposed-acquisition-of-5-adelaide-hotels-from-saturno-hotel-group

Butler, B. 2020. Woolworths to cut 1,350 jobs and admits it owes at least $90m more to underpaid workers. [Online]. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jun/23/woolworths-to-cut-1350-jobs-and-admits-it-owes-at-least-90m-more-to-underpaid-workers

Crozier, R. 2019. Woolworths to trial automated tech to speed up online orders. [Online]. Available at: https://www.itnews.com.au/news/woolworths-to-trial-automated-tech-to-speed-up-online-orders-529228

Mitchell, S. 2020. Woolworths' market, profits to rise on new revenue streams: UBS. [Online]. Available at: https://www.afr.com/companies/retail/woolworths-market-profits-to-rise-on-new-revenue-streams-ubs-20200128-p53ve9

n.a. 2019. Woolworths selects tableau to analyse and act on customer data. [Online]. Available at: https://which-50.com/woolworths-selects-tableau-to-analyse-and-act-on-customer-data/#:~:text=Supermarket%20giant%20Woolworths%20has%20signed,reporting%20and%20visual%20analytics%20software.&text=It%20will%20allow%20team%20members,general%20manager%20of%20data%20%26%20analytics.

Kaelin, M. 2020. How Tableau makes data analytics and visualization easier to understand. [Online]. Available at: https://www.techrepublic.com/article/how-tableau-makes-data-analytics-and-visualization-easier-to-understand/

Crozier, R. 2019. How Woolworths uses Google to power its massive analytics uplift. [Online]. Available at: https://www.itnews.com.au/news/woolworths-uses-google-to-power-massive-data-analytics-uplift-523639

Haque, T. 2018. Why Data Analytics Can Help Drive Sales for Your Business. [Online]. Available at: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/310001

Grant, A. 2020. What Is Data Analysis and Why Is It Important? [Online]. Available at: https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/what-is-data-analysis/

Begley, S., Hancock, B., Kilroy, T. and Kohli, S. 2019. Automation in retail: An executive overview for getting ready. [Online]. Available at: https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/retail/our-insights/automation-in-retail-an-executive-overview-for-getting-ready#

Wibowo, J. n.d. The brand-new technology you're about to see in Woolworths. [Online]. Available at: https://www.oversixty.com.au/entertainment/technology/the-brand-new-technology-youre-about-to-see-in-woolworths

Anderson, T. n.d. Woolworths Group Ltd: March Quarter 2020 Sales Report. [Online]. Available at: https://www.australianstockreport.com.au/insights/woolworths-group-ltd-march-quarter-2020-sales-report

Low, C. 2017. Supermarkets to prosper from softening economy. [Online]. Available at: https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/supermarkets-to-prosper-from-softening-economy-20170330-gv9u9n.html#:~:text=Sales%20growth%20in%20the%20supermarket,4%20and%205%20per%20cent

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