Busm8735C Manage A Supply Chain Assessment Answer

The Radio Frequency identification chip if placed on every product has the capability to provide the management of Woolworths to track their inventory easily. The enhanced visibility provided by the RFID chip will enable the management to improve their supply chain efficiency by detecting hr loopholes (Seuring 2013). Not only that, the mentioned technology will also enable the employees to correct their mistakes immediately. Additionally, RDIF also allows easy and highly consistent tracking that enables the management to posses maximum control and visibly over their products. Considering the fact that the RFID chip allows computerized product management, it posses the potential to eliminate potential errors while simplifying the supply chain as well as reducing operating costs.

It is highly crucial to incorporate the consumers, staffs and stakeholder and support their contribution to the supply chain management in order to enhance the efficiency of the same. The first principle that needs to follow by the organization for effective stakeholder collaboration is to get to know the stakeholders. This principle will help the management to develop a comprehensive understanding of who the stakeholders are, what are the factors that they care about and how are they related to the supply chain management. According to the researchers, several organizations suffer from failure in managing their supply chain efficiently due to inefficient identification of the stake holders (Cohen and Roussel 2013). In order to avoid the failure, the management of the Woolworths organization must perform external scan. For instance, suppliers posses the ability to contribute to their contribution to the supply chain operation.

The second principle to ensure effective stakeholder collaboration includes engaging the stakeholders as early as possible. According to the researchers, human beings by nature are resistant to changes (Hugos 2018). The early stakeholder engagement has the capability to different form depending on the type of stakeholder, their relationship with the supply chain program and finally their capability to influence the outcomes of the supply change outcomes. The requirement of engagement of the stakeholders depends on the degree of direct involvement and decision making of the same. For stakeholders like senior executives, ho only get indirectly impacted by the program decision, high level of engagement is not required.

The third principle that needs to be followed by the management for active collaboration of the stakeholders is active listening. Actively listing to the views and suggestion of the stakeholders not only make them fill valued and empowered but also enhance their loyalty toads the organization.

Communication and information exchange between supply chain partners 

Effective communication and exchange of information between the supply chain partners is highly crucial in order to manage the supply chain of the organization effectively. According to the supply chain policy of Woolworths, the management must ensure regular consultation with the stakeholders about the area associated with human rights, environment, labor and anticorruption (Wisner, Tan and Leong 2014). This in turn will enable the company to ensure a healthy management-stakeholder relationship so that the business can be operated with efficiency. Secondly the policy of the mentioned organization is to restore the statement of information associated with the supply chain communicated both externally as well as internally to every personnel, business partners as well as other relevant parties this policy has been taken by the Woolworths company to avoid any kind of misunderstanding or issues which may result from misinterpretation of the information shared with the supply chain partners

The policies associated with the supply chain financial strategy helps the Woolworths organization t reduce its costs of supply chain without hampering the quality of the same and the productivity of the company. Not only that, the financial planning also provides effective coordination among manufacturing and sales. According to the policies of the Woolworth Company, all the trading partner who supplies the company with goods and services to the Woolworth supermarkets, liquor and petrol sites related to the warehouse should report to the Woolworths transaction processing centre for any kinds of queries associated with payments. Apart from that the trading partners of the company are asked to reconsilate their accounts in a timely manner in order to ensure quick resolution of any payment related that may arise (Pagell and Shevchenko 2014). The purpose of the above mention policy is to ensure the satisfaction of the trading partners as well as other stakeholders of the company while preventing any kinds of loss of revenue due to inappropriate financial strategy. 

Development of trust within the stakeholder and the management is highly crucial in order to ensure the effectiveness of the supply chain management. In order to ensure effective workplace environment and bonding between the employees of the organization, the Woolworth campy has undertaken several policies and procedures. According to the antidiscrimination policies, strict action along with high fines will be imposed upon the employees who will demonstrate anti-discriminatory act on the basis of race, age, gender and sexual orientation towards others.  One of the effective strategies to ensure trust within the supply chain culture of the mentioned organization includes connecting both suppler as well as consumers to the supply chain and allows them to easily exchange information, demand data and ensure visibility of the status. This strategy will ensure that all the stakeholders are working together in order to improve the quality of the service as well as to reduce the costs of the supply chain management.

As being stated by the management of the Woolworths organization, the safety o the employees as well as the communities where the company operates is one of the chief concern of the management of the company. The company is committed to manage its operations in order to protect the health, safety as well as welfare of the employees, consumers, contractors along with the wider community. According to the policy of the mentioned organization, all the individuals performing on the site must complete the Woolworths limited online safety instruction. The purpose of this policy is to ensure that all the workers are familiarized with the Woolworths limited safety requirements by going through the instructions (Fernie and Sparks 2014). When it comes to the OHS policy associated with the In store, service Cashiers are entitled to check the contents of any bag, parcel or container in the customer's possession that is larger than an A4 sheet of paper. This policy protects the consumers as well as the employees from any harmful activities within the market.

The Woolworths limited organization abides by the policies and guidelines stated in the Department's Conduct and Ethical Behavior Framework, Australia. According to the mentioned policy, the management of the organization is liable of demonstrating impartial and apolitical values and provides advice that is frank, timely, and honest and is based on the best available evidence. The policy also states that all the employees of the organization should demonstrate professional behavior and commitment towards the organization as well as the community the organization is meeting operated in. The purpose of the above mentioned policy is to eliminate any kind of corruption associated with the supply chain.

The purpose of the policies associated with the risk management of the Woolworths Company is to ensure a consistent as well as effective approach to risk management, incorporating the same in the areas of supply chain management as well as formalize its commitment to the principles of risk management. Not only that, the aim of the policy is to foster as well as encourage a culture which is well aware of risk within the organization where risk management is considered as a positive attribute for decision making instead of a corrective measure.

Considering the fact that Woolworths belongs to the highly competitive retail industry, the goal of the company to enhance its yearly revenue by enhancing its consumer base. The following are KPIS that helps the company too gain competitive advantages over its competitors.

The most crucial performance indicator of the retail organization is the sales generator. The sales of the company are generally compared on the basis of locations, product categories’ and retail outlet in order to identify the performance trends as well as formulate strategies to enhance the sales.

The management of Woolworth also considers the gross margin since it helps the same to determine the markup percentage of the products and is a crucial indicator of the financial performance (Connelly, Ketchen and Hult 2013).

This KPI measures the average sales generate by each square foot area in a retail outlet of the Woolworths organization. the mentioned KPI provides the management with a crucial insight about the store layout effectiveness as well as the performance of the sales personnel’s.

The inventory turnover is defined as the number of times the average inventory of a product has been sold by the Woolworths organization in a financial year. This indicator helps the management to understand how quickly the organization is ale to sale it inventory.

In order to ensure further improvement and to deal with the loopholes that are restricting the company to meet its KPI, the role of the training and continuous improvement manager of the organization is to deliver consistent as well as effective training to both current and newly appointed employees, in accordance to the values and strategies of the Woolworths Company.

In order to maintain the quality of the service as well as to enhance the work life balances of the employees, the management re-priotise its existing workloads.  In order to gain competitive advantage, the management is implementing additional resources like new supply chain responsibilities as well s communication with the stakeholders. The chief communication method implemented is communicating with the suppliers with the help of popular social media platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn (Chandrasekaran and Raghuram 2014). Finally, in order to detect the loophole associated with the supply chain of the mentioned organization several problem solving tools like the CATWOE checklist for root cost analysis has been developed by the organization.

Conclusion

From the above discussion it can be concluded that the supply chain management of the Woolworths Company is effective enough to maintain its brand value and reputation in the global market. However, considering the fact that with the lowering of barrier of the company,  the number of compaction within the company has increased a lot, the following suggestions will ensure improvement in the supply chain of the company.

1. The company can use a cloud based software that are highly efficient in tracking as well as managing the inventory in real time. This software will enable the retailers to adopt seasonal trends as well as fluctuations that are in demand (Hugos 2018).
2. The management of Woolworths can use source tagging along with the RFI in order to keep track of the inventory as well as the stock level. Source tagging helps the inventory management to make better business decisions.

Reference List

Chandrasekaran, N. and Raghuram, G., 2014. Agribusiness supply chain management. CRC Press.

Christopher, M., 2016. Logistics & supply chain management. Pearson UK.

Cohen, S. and Roussel, J., 2013. Strategic Supply Chain Management: The Five Core Disciplines for Top Performance, Second Editon. McGraw-Hill.

Connelly, B.L., Ketchen, D.J. and Hult, G.T.M., 2013. Global supply chain management: toward a theoretically driven research agenda. Global Strategy Journal, 3(3), pp.227-243.

Fernie, J. and Sparks, L., 2014. Logistics and retail management: emerging issues and new challenges in the retail supply chain. Kogan page publishers.

Hugos, M.H., 2018. Essentials of supply chain management. John Wiley & Sons.

Brandenburg, M., Govindan, K., Sarkis, J. and Seuring, S., 2014. Quantitative models for sustainable supply chain management: Developments and directions. European Journal of Operational Research, 233(2), pp.299-312.

Monczka, R.M., Handfield, R.B., Giunipero, L.C. and Patterson, J.L., 2015. Purchasing and supply chain management. Cengage Learning.

Pagell, M. and Shevchenko, A., 2014. Why research in sustainable supply chain management should have no future. Journal of supply chain management, 50(1), pp.44-55.

Seuring, S., 2013. A review of modeling approaches for sustainable supply chain management. Decision support systems, 54(4), pp.1513-1520.

Wisner, J.D., Tan, K.C. and Leong, G.K., 2014. Principles of supply chain management: A balanced approach. Cengage Learning.