Are Supermarkets a Benefit to the Society, or Do They Pose a Social Cost - Term Paper Example

Role of Supermarkets in United Kingdom and role number> Submitted> Executive Summary This report is based on a research which analyses the role that supermarkets play in the United Kingdom and determines whether supermarkets are a benefit to the society, or do they pose a social cost. Introduction Supermarkets whether good or bad have become a necessity but the question is that whether all types of supermarkets are beneficial to the society. Supermarkets offer a variety value added services to its customers, it include banks, canteens, music rentals, medical help and stock meat, baked products and other household merchandise. Supermarkets all over the world have generally been beneficial to the mankind. Supermarkets store a lot of things like household materials, dairy products and groceries. Customers serve themselves and buy products. Some stock goods for a month, others make frequent visits like every twice in every week. The goods are mostly abundant to match the demand. Advantages of supermarkets Supermarkets success or failure is dependent on the goods they stock and prices they keep. The other important factors are location, size, service, quality and proximity to its competitors. The customers are generally attracted to supermarkets which stock goods at low prices and never run out of stock. There is a new trend of shopping through internet, even for perishable groceries. But shopping on internet has not been as successful as shopping in supermarkets has been because people still prefer to step out of their busy schedules and shop for grocery for home and the prices are negotiable at stores. Another factor that has made shopping on internet a less attractive avenue is that people are not merely looking at the products on a computer screen; they are holding it in their hands before buying. Despite the fact that stakeholders especially suppliers are by and large satisfied with the products they supply and the return they get. Suppliers have been able to develop a mutual interest relationship between themselves and retailers or wholesalers. The competition in United Kingdom is intense and the only stakeholder that is largely benefitting from this is customer. Customers are enjoying the competition driven prices that have made prices low. Traditionally, organizations were very production oriented and performance oriented at some later stage. The fact is that customer is prime and direct key factor to these existing supermarkets profits had been ignored in the past. Transformation has started to pick momentum rapidly, the supermarkets are looking for more tactics that were resource friendly, employees friendly and also keep customers happy. Customers are increasingly being quality conscious and becoming enlightened about value added services and therefore, it is becoming extremely important to cater to their expectations to prevent loss of good will and retain its customers. Introduction of TQM - Total Quality Management in the supermarkets. The Total Quality Management incorporates Kaizen concept where the incremental changes / improvements occur rather than dramatic change to the policies , the gradual up gradation of the processes throughout these supermarkets helped satisfy the public demand for the credible quality of the services that these existing organizations provide , so in short the new paradigm shifted from production orientation as well as the conventional means of improvement to the newer ways of capitalizing on their existing resources , these changes that are relatively new and still consistent include: 1) Customer Retention and quest for the new ones. 2) Employees appreciation and drilling on reducing the turnover rate in these existing organizations 3) Total Quality Management, an entire independent and separate discipline that was recently integrated in to the supermarkets. In United Kingdom supermarkets store a lot of things like household merchandise, dairy products and groceries. Customers serve themselves and buy products and are generally happy. The goods are mostly abundant to match the demand of the customers. Disadvantages of supermarkets In United Kingdom, supermarkets have a huge scope and extremely popular. Customers go to supermarkets to buy their merchandise in bulk. However, the supermarkets, in Britain in particular, are faced with a lot of criticism. The contention of most farmers in United Kingdom is that their products are not sold at a reasonable price; the supermarkets squeeze prices reaching the farmers. This results in a lot of feud between the farmers and supermarkets as farmers feel they do not get the deserving price for their products. Another criticism faced by supermarkets of United Kingdom is that supermarkets charge a lot of premium on prices for shelving, attractive positioning and also for limiting the choices of the customers. By limiting the choices the author means that supermarkets do not stock a lot of goods for e.g. very limited variety of apples and other fruits being present in the supermarket, this ultimately leads the customer to limit his or her shopping preferences. The premium supermarkets owners put on goods they stock lead customers to switch to other supermarkets. The suppliers and customers are directly affected by the supermarkets. Preference to imported good will adversely affect the country’s own product suppliers. In United Kingdom supermarkets have not been so careful of the vested interests of the stakeholders. Many small businesses have closed down because of losing customers to supermarkets. Supermarkets attract customers buying charging them less, supermarkets can afford to sell products at lower price because they sell products in large volume and this reduces cost per product supermarkets purchase. Supermarkets are accused of not functioning properly by getting food ‘grown anywhere, anyhow’ without regard for standards of working conditions of the employees, the conservation of wildlife , the survival of farmers, the traffic on roads, the management of waste, the interests of farm animals, or the health and food security of lower middle classes. However, in United Kingdom many supermarkets operate and function as desired and according to the terms of the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Many have showed desired performance and satisfied all stakeholders. Supermarkets and Employees Supermarkets have come a long way in developing tactics to motivate employees towards accomplishing and attaining supermarket goals. Many supermarkets work under the mantra of “customer is the king”, and the entire supermarket with this objective in front of it gears towards customer satisfaction, builds customers loyalty and attracts more customers. Customers are increasingly being quality conscious and becoming enlightened about value added services and therefore, it is becoming extremely important to cater to their expectations to prevent loss of goodwill and retain its customers. Other than being customer oriented, supermarkets are trying to cater to needs of employees. Lots of investment is being done in this area to help learn employee’s psyche so that supermarkets is better to help them to adapt to its culture. Also by strengthening the equation between supermarkets goals and the individual employee’s aspirations, the employees are better able to relate to supermarkets. Hence, this not only helps supermarkets but also employees. This is under the assumption that when it comes to work employees act selfishly, they are told to work towards the attainment of the supermarkets goals and if the supermarkets does well and satisfies its customers, it will help employees’ worth in the market. With these tactics to help supermarkets growth, a lot has been invested in trying to find supermarkets needs and the viability of these goals to supermarkets’ good will. Programs have been initiated by supermarkets to identify its goals; after thorough scan of these goals, the correlation of these goals with supermarket performance is established. Many tactics have been employed to help supermarkets to work towards goals with the harmony between supermarkets performance, customer’s satisfaction and employees’ motivation. Few of the many tactics include learning transfer system, performance technology, human resource technology, strategic Human Resource Development (HRD), action learning, spirituality, ethics and online training of the employees. Out of these emerging tactics, action learning is gaining popularity most. Many good will conscious supermarkets are employing action learning and it has added to its value. Conclusion Supermarkets have come a long way and have benefitted society a lot. Despite a lot of criticism faced by the supermarkets in the United Kingdom, one thing cannot be ignored which the benefits it provides to the common man. The employment, matching ever increasing demands of the customers, making competition intense, stocking the necessities at one place and most important the drive towards the sustainable development are few of the many benefits that the supermarkets functioning in the United Kingdom provide to the masses. The heavy reliance on the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is unparalleled and meets the standards of the international community. The benefits to the society are plenty and cannot be ignored because of the criticisms faced. By and large the transparency in the dealings between suppliers and the supermarkets is unparallel in the United Kingdom. Also, the customers are always looking forward to the supermarkets for the shopping and usually discard other shopping options for supermarkets. The conclusion is clear: in such a persistent consumer oriented era, corporate social responsibility and welfare initiatives are extremely crucial for concerns that are aligned with the consumer’s interest. Creating incentives for supermarkets to drive in the positive and right direction towards sustainable development implies a more robust role for the United Kingdom government. Recommendation Supermarkets do pose certain social costs such as exploiting weak suppliers, causing small stores to go out of business and in some cases for selling products unethically. However, they provide convenient shopping mechanism to customers and help gather a large number of products from several suppliers and provide variety to customers. It is recommended that supermarkets be encouraged to operate and even expand, but their actions should be monitored and regulated to ensure that social costs are kept at bare minimum. Bibliography 1. Bulkley, G. and Tonks, I. (1989) “Are UK Stock Prices Excessively Volatile? Trading Rules and Variance 2. Bounds Tests”. The Economic Journal, vol. 99, 1083-98.Converse, P.D., “New laws of retail gravitation”, Journal of Marketing, Vol. 14, 1949, pp. 379-84. 3. Lakshmanan, T.R. and Hansen, W.G., “A retail potential model”, Journal of the American Institute of Planners, Vol. 31, 1965, pp. 134-43. 4. 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