Scan Rate Issue at W.M. Morrison - Essay Example

? Scan Rate Issue at W.M. Morrison Table of Contents Introduction 3 Discussion 3 Conclusion 8 Recommendations 9 References 12 Introduction W.M. Morrison Supermarkets plc. is one of the largest supermarket chains in UK headquartered in West Yorkshire. The organization is known as Morrisons and it is listed in the FTSE 100 index of organizations. The organization operates in the retail industry of United Kingdom. This particular industry is becoming highly competitive as several leading organizations within this industry are implementing unique business operation strategies to gain potential competitive advantages and develop a significant customer base. People used to look for better service from these retail organizations in order to save consumption time and cost. It is true that organizations like Tesco, Sainsbury and Morrisons always try to provide effective services to the consumers in order to meet the market demand and needs of consumers. Scan rate issues are becoming major concerns for the organizations within the supermarket retail chain industry as the customers in this modern era always prefer quick and efficient customer service from the organizations. Scan rate can be defined as the number of products scanned per minute during the time of consumption. Morrisons faced several scan rate issues in recent past due to inadequate strategy development and implementation process that affected the relationship of the organization with the target customers. The essay will analyze and discuss about the scan rate issues at Morrisons. In addition to this, the essay will provide some recommendation plans in order to address the current issues in near future to retain existing customers and develop new customer base. Discussion The supermarket retail chain industry in UK is becoming highly competitive as different organizations are developing effective business operation strategy to enhance significant customer service. Effective customer service can be considered as one of the important business growth drivers for these organizations. Being one of the leading organizations, Morrisons tried to implement new strategies to improve its customer service aspect and meet the requirement of the target customers in UK. Low supply chain lead time, reduced inventory management process and adoption of online business process are the examples of customer centric business operation strategies of Morrisons. However, the organization is facing critical issues in the scanning process of the consumed items. Long scanning time in the supermarket chains of Morrisons is forcing the customers to wait for so long in queue. It is quite general that each and every individual can get harassed due to these issues (Slack, Chambers and Johnston, 2010, p.34). These specific issues are forcing the existing customers of Morrison to switch over to another brand as the organization is finding it difficult to meet the satisfaction level of the target customers. It is true that the organization has implemented online order processing, order delivering and online payment process. But, inadequate operation management processes affected the business performance and customer service of the organization. Several leading organizations within the industry are implementing advanced technological processes and tools in order to enhance several business operation activities. It is important for the organizations to capitalize on the potential business opportunities to sustain in this competitive business environment. Organizations within the UK supermarket retail chain industry are trying to focus on the recent market trend and demand of the target customers. It is quite difficult for an organization to survive in this competitive industry without having skilled and experienced workforce, and highly automotive business operation process. Operation management has become highly challenging for all the organizations within this competitive retail industry as the nature of the industry is becoming highly saturated and competitive. Skills and efficiency of the employees highly depends on the leadership and managerial skills and techniques. The operation management team of Morrisons did not consider and react to the significant change in the market demand and needs of target customers. Tesco is one of the potential competitors of Morrisons. Tesco adopted strong and unique online business operation strategy to respond to the constant change in market demand and trend. It is highly important to monitor the issues and assess the impact of the changes in market demand and needs of target customers. But, the management of Morrisons failed to maintain its client base due to lack of adoption of advanced technological processes and tools in the scanning process of the consumed goods. The managers of the organization always tried to increase the work pressure on the employees to improve the scanning rate (Maylor, 2010, p.72). The operation management did not understand the significance of the adoption of highly advanced technological process and tools in in-store operation processes. Customers always prefer quick and significant service for the staffs of an organization against their paid money and loyalty towards the brand. Waiting for a long time in a queue increases the frustration level of every customer. Still the operation management team of Morrisons never bother about improving the efficiency of operation management process by bringing efficiency in these processes. It is true that efficiency of the operation management processes depend upon the speed and performance of the workforce. Apart from implementation of advanced technology, inadequate workplace performance management and monitoring of the performance of the employees are other reasons behind the high scan rate of Morrisons. It is important for an organization to ensure effective training and development programmes for the employees as it increases the knowledge and skills of the employees. High skill and competence level of employees is required in the efficient operation management process. In addition to this, the organization failed to increase the motivation level of the employees. It is quite general that each and every employee expects high social recognition and effective rewards from organization against effective performance level. But, limited career growth opportunity for the employees and lack of friendly workplace environment de-motivate the employees of the organization to perform effectively (Mintzberg, 2009, p.65). High turnaround time in every scanning process is another reason behind the high scan rate. Inadequate technological tools and lack of effective information technological processes force the customers to wait for so long in a queue for the purpose of scanning of purchased goods. The in-store staffs of Morrisons face huge difficulty in controlling a long queue. The organization takes huge time in scanning the goods comparing to other competitors. In addition to this, the organization did not try to fix the issues with the implementation of advanced technological processes. Lack of reviewing and feedback process increased the challenges for the organizations as the people started to switch over another brands. It has been discussed that the management of the organization did not understood the significance of the implementation of advanced technological processes and tools in the scanning process of goods that forced the staffs to face difficulty in the scanning process of the goods. It was highly important for the operation management of Morrisons to take the feedback from each and every customer regarding this issue as it affected the sales growth rate of the organization. But, unfortunately inadequate strategy development and implementation processes affected made the situation more serious and critical. The organization lost its market share to its potential competitors in UK due to the inadequate customer service, poor business operation management and high scan rate. The management of the organization pressurized the staffs to improve the scenario without trying to know exact reason behind the problems. However, this high scan rate created several issues for the organization. High employee turnover, loss of market share and reduced customer base are the major consequences of high scan rate. The operation management team tried to implement several strategies in order to improve the scan rate. Morrisons adopted and implemented one checkout item policy in every three seconds. Intense industry rivalry and growing market demand forced the operation management of the organization to adopt aggressive business operation strategies. Slowly and gradually the target for the staffs increased at a continuous rate. It created several conflicts within the workplace. The organization already implemented workplace diversity in the business operation process. It was important for the leaders or the managers of the organization to develop employee friendly business operation strategies and processes. In addition to this, the management of the organization should focus on retaining the experienced and skilled employees as these individuals can be considered as important business growth drivers. It is true that the management of the organization implemented change management process but they failed to identify the exact reason behind the high scan rate. It is quite difficult for the organization to get success through the one checkout item policy by increasing the pressure of employees. It can create negative image of the organization among the important external and internal stakeholders of the organization. The reason behind the high scan rate is the lack of adoption and implementation of advanced technological processes. High lead time and limited assistance from the managers and the top management of the organization affected the motivation level of the employees. However, the organization started to take the feedback from employees in every week and reviewed the performance management of the employees on weekly basis. It is helping the management of the organization to monitor the activities and performance level of employees. Despite several strategies, the organization could not address the appropriate reason. It is true that the organization is considered as one of the leading supermarket retail chains in UK market in terms of profitability and business operation (Morrisons-corporate, 2013. P.1). It is important for an organization like Morrisons to invest in sourcing on effective technological resources to improve the operation management activities. This investment would not have affected the profitability of the organization due strong financial stability and assets of the firm. The organization is going for cutting of jobs in case of inadequate performances of the employees. It is not ethical and cannot be justified as the decision making and strategy development processes are full of errors and serious faults. It is crystal clear that the organization need to think about the implementation of new leadership style to increase the efficiency of each and every business operation process so that the organization can support and guide entire workforce towards achieving corporate goals and business objective. Change in leadership style and managerial process will improve the scanning process of the consumed items. The organization does not try to engage the experienced and skilled employees in the decision making process. It could have helped the organization to get the option of different strategies that could enhance the decision making process. This new change management process is still lacking of several important aspects that will be discussed in the recommendation part. Conclusion It is clear from above discussion that being one of the leading organization within the UK supermarket retail chain industry, Morrisons failed to improve its efficiency in the scan rate process. It is highly important for an organization within this particular industry to ensure effective business operation management process in order to provide effective customer service. Now-a-days, people always prefer online consumption facility in daily busy schedule in order to reduce the consumption time in cost. Several potential competitors of Morrison adopted and implemented online business operation start5egy according to the growing market demand and needs of target customers. In addition to this, the organization did not understand the real reason behind the high scan rate. Inadequate strategy development process and lack of effective training for employees affected the entire workplace performance. The organization tried several things to reduce the high scan rate that frustrates the customers to wait for a longer time in a queue. The operation management of the organization increased the target for each and every executive in cash department. The management increased the number of items to be scanned in a minute in order to address the issue. In addition to this, the organization started to take the feedback from in-store staffs about their efficiency. Moreover, the management employed executives to review the performance level of the employees on weekly basis. However, lack of adoption and implementation of advanced technological process affected the scanning process of goods. High scan rate affected the brand image of the organization in UK supermarket retail chain industry. Recommendations It is highly important for the organization to address the issues as early as possible as the organization can lose its potential market share in UK to its competitors. It can affect the profitability and financial stability of Morrisons in UK. First of all, it is quite essential for the organization take feedback from the in-store customers after the consumption process. It will help the operation management to identify real reason behind the high scan rate. Collapse of technical systems and tools are the major reason that affects this operation process. These valuable feedbacks will help the operation management team of Morrisons to adopt new effective technological resources that can fix the issue and provide effective solutions to the developed problems. The management of the organization did not upgrade its technological tools and applications. It is important for the operation management team to source and install advanced information communication technological software application in the scanning process to reduce the scanning time of products. In addition to this, it is also important for the organization to ensure significant training and development programmes for the employees. It will help the organization to increase the skill and confidence level of the employees. Lack of training and development affected the performance level of entire workforce. Therefore, it should be regard as second most important aspects for the operation management team. Thirdly, it is important for the organization to retain its experienced and skilled employees. It is true that employees are major assets f an organization. It is quite important to maintain a strong, skilled and conflict free workforce in this competitive business environment. High employee turnover can affect the motivation level f the other employees. Therefore, it is highly important for the organization to reduce the work pressure and stress level on each and every employee and let the employees enjoy their job. Integration of advanced technology is quite important for the organization. The management of the organization should review the performance of each and every employee. In addition to this, the organization should back their employees in the time of any issue or difficulty. Effective relationship between the top level management and employee will help the organization to increase the loyalty level of the employees towards the organization and workplace. Effective workplace environment is another aspect that can increase the efficiency in the operation management process (Barnes, 2008, p.29). Employee engagement in decision making process, high employee motivation, effective leadership skills, appropriate performance appraisal, significant performance management and proper reward distribution will help the employees of the organization to perform effectively. Last but not the least; the operation management team of Morrisons should try to increase its employee strength in the each and every retail store. Demand for shopping in supermarket retail chain is significantly increasing among the people. Therefore, significant employee strength will help the organization to limit the time of scanning. In addition to this, the organization should increase the number of counters to reduce the lead time during the scanning of consumed products. References Barnes, D., 2008. Operations Management: An International Perspective. Stamford: Cengage Learning. Maylor, H., 2010. Project Management. 4th ed. London: Prentice Hall. Mintzberg, H., 2009. Managers not MBAs. London: Read how you want. Morrisons-corporate., 2013. Company History. [Online]. Available at: . [Accessed on December 30, 2013]. Slack, N., Chambers, S., and Johnston, R., 2010. Operations Management. 6th ed. London: Prentice hall. Read More