Operations And Supply Chain Management - Essay Example

Operations & Supply Chain Management In the fast-paced world of the twenty-first century, people are hunting for such a place or store where they can shop their everyday needs and requirements such as grocery, clothing, home products and much more. In other words, inhabitants of almost all nations wish to get all of their required stuff from under one place or market only as it is feasible to shop from the only place rather traveling to several places to fulfill their requirements. Therefore, the concepts of the supermarket and departmental stores emerged and arise in order to please and gratify the needs of the customers. Therefore, the hypermarket is one superstore that can come under the definition when the departmental store and supermarket comes under one roof as amalgamation with each other (Dunne & Lusch, 2007). With the hypermarkets, the customers get an opportunity to satisfy their daily basis and routine shopping needs in a solitary trip. This is because the hypermarket carries a broad range of ample products that include groceries, general commodities like home products, drugstore, gas station, clothing and many more under one umbrella. Wal-Mart, Costco, and Carrefour are few of the prominent and well-known hypermarkets of the world that have now opened its outlets in every corner of the globe (Krafft & Mantrala, 2008). However, according to this case study, exploring options to open an outlet near Sydney, Australia is one of the international expansion strategies that would help the hypermarket grow and become more eminent in the Australian market as well. Sydney is one of the most famous metropolitan, multi-ethnic, and cosmopolitan cities in Australia that comes under the location in the southeast portion of Australia. Moreover, it is considered one of the largest cities in Australia with a population of more than four million residents, which has also been popular for being a vivacious, dynamic, and lively city. It is a very diverse city with respect to its population where people of Australian, English, Scottish, Irish, and Chinese heritage are the usual inhabitants. Moreover, people from various other countries such as United Kingdom, Italy, New Zealand, Philippines and few other are also migrated and live as the natives of Sydney (Freestone & Butler-Bowdon & Historic Houses Trust of New South Wales & University of New South Wales-Faculty of the Built Environment, 2006). The topography of Sydney, Australia reveals the truth that locality comes under the surrounding by several national parks, coastal regions that incorporate rivers, bays, and beaches. Furthermore, it has also involved itself in sports activities and events and hosted quite a few out of them. The climatic conditions of Sydney demonstrate the fact that it usually has a moderate and self-controlled climate with warm summers and mild winters; however, the city experiences the rainfall all over the year (Robinson & Bachman, 2000). One of the leading and vital reasons to open up the chain of hypermarket in Sydney is due to the reason that it has come under-recognition in the world rankings for its economic innovations. Moreover, Sydney contributes a huge proportion of the total GDP of the country. According to the statistics, Sydney has also gained the reputation as a worldwide center for commerce, arts, culture, music, and quite a few other aspects. Sydney has become a hub for the multinational corporations and top organizations including banks and shopping malls. Moreover, Sydney has become a place with major worldwide brand name labels (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2000). Therefore, it can come to the conclusion that the cream of the crop people is mainly the residents of Sydney. According to the information and facts of Sydney, it is significantly one of the most expensive cities in the world with a very high cost of living. However, this is one of the crucial reasons for creating difficulty for any business to operate its functions in a healthy and winning way. However, the strong and diverse economy coupled to the reliable infrastructure of Sydney brings out the great opportunity for any business to have its operations in Sydney (Freestone & Butler-Bowdon & Historic Houses Trust of New South Wales & University of New South Wales-Faculty of the Built Environment, 2006). Another vital and salient advantage of Sydney is that it provides and offers the business with a more cost competitive office location as compared to the other international business centers. In addition, the office or store locations come under provision at a very economical price that is affordable and is less expensive when compared to other places of the world. Sydney is also a favourite city to operate business as it offers with flattering income tax rates to the firms with no limitations on capital flow, profit transmittals, or transfers of trade-related payments and money (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2000). Sydney is a city that also provides with an environment that is more open and has efficient regulatory systems that make it easy to do the businesses. Furthermore, it provides with flexible and accountable financial practices with transparent policies. Indeed, Australia, particularly Sydney is a nation that is politically and economically stable that endow with a low-risk business environment (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2000). The government in the local areas of Sydney promotes the global business demands by cutting down the power bills, transforming the rail freight, abating the port charges and quite a lot of other practices. Moreover, the telecommunication infrastructure and technologically advanced networks are one of the plus points for the business operational units in Sydney. The immense and vast lifestyle of Sydney with a broad and extensive range of cultural, sporting and leisure hobbies makes a great opportunity for the hypermarket to open its chain in Sydney (Freestone & Butler-Bowdon & Historic Houses Trust of New South Wales & University of New South Wales-Faculty of the Built Environment, 2006). The suburb is one of the locations in Sydney that comes under the consideration to be one of the ideal places for starting a hypermarket. This is due to the reason that suburb is accessible to every individual and easy to reach. Moreover, they hypermarkets usually have a capacity to have more than hundred thousand brands for which a huge place comes under the requirement. Therefore, the suburban area would come under contemplation to be one of the finest choices. Although there are quite a lot of grocery stores and supermarkets in Sydney, however, a hypermarket would be one of the initiatives to provide the customers with all products of their needs under one-stop. The size of the store or hypermarket chain location should be somewhat between 150,000 square feet to 250,000 square feet as this comes under deliberation to be the ideal size for starting a hypermarket chain. This is due to the reason that plenty of space also come under the requirement for the parking and a gigantic place for the building of hypermarket. Moreover, millions of capital investment are also one of the primary requirements as the operating cost; the cost of transportation of the products and cost of facilities come under-involvement. According to the estimations, the operating capital that would come as the initial investment for the opening of hypermarket chain should not be less than one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Another imperative feature of a hypermarket is that all the processed products sold here are branded, which gives an edge to them over the local business owners. This even assures that the branded products sold to them have a consistent quality over the successive purchases made by the customers. This also enhances the market power of the hypermarket chain and brand loyalty comes under augmentation by the customers. To have the immense stock of all the products is one of the fundamental and essential elements while opening up a hypermarket as it caters a huge amount of customers rather than few people who live nearby the residential area or the neighborhood. Therefore, the operating cost with respect to the stock would escalate the initial investment plan. In the layout of the hypermarket, one thing that should come under profound consideration is the checkout-customer service area. The devoted percentage for this area should not be less than twenty percent and should have a space of approximately eight to ten feet from the front door. Furthermore, impulse items such as candy, magazines, cigarettes, batteries, razor blades and few others of this kind prove to be fruitful. The positioning of aisles must be in such a way that the customers have ample of space to walk between two aisles. The hypermarket should be fully equipped with the general fixtures and equipment that take account of baskets, stock carts, security equipment, Refrigerator/freezer, and various others. The aisles should have a proper placement of all the products as going back to the track of aisles may annoy and dissatisfy the customers. Therefore, in order to please the customers, the proper placement of the product is essential. Moreover, the hypermarket should endow with enough brands and products that the customer wishes. For the customers buying patterns of the brands, a market research can come underperformance that would provide the firm with a much better idea about the buying patterns of the local customers. With reference to the labor workforce, the statistics disclose the piece of information Sydney is full with the well-educated workforce. In fact, the data expose the reality that more than fifty percent of the labor force is tertiary educated with a culturally diverse workforce available in the Sydney marketplace (Champlin & Knoedler, 2004). Additionally, the records expose the authenticity that the workforce of Sydney is diverse, hard-working, and multi-disciplined employees or labors, where the workforce is also ethically bound to honesty, integrity, and dedication towards their work. For the Sydney labor force, it even comes under saying that they come underdetermination to make a difference in a progressively more competitive marketplace. The information of the labor market divulges the information that the labors are without doubt flexible and adaptable to the changes with respect to the industry variations. The labors are also updated and are on the forefront with the use of latest and novel technologies (Champlin & Knoedler, 2004). With the opening of the new chain of hypermarket in Sydney, Australia would emerge the new concept of competition amongst the supermarkets and grocery stores in comparison to the hypermarket. Lastly, this would also provide a great deal of prospects for the customers to have all their shopping from a one-stop store. The hypermarket would prosper and have success with the implication of all the conditions presented in the feasibility case study that is substantially one of the spreading out strategies, which would prove to be constructive. References Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2000). 2000 Year Book Australia No. 82. Aust. Bureau of Statistics. Champlin, D.P. & Knoedler, J.T. (2004). The institutionalist tradition in labor economics. M.E. Sharpe. Dunne, P.M. & Lusch, R.F. (2007). Retailing. Cengage Learning. Freestone, R. & Butler-Bowdon, C. & Historic Houses Trust of New South Wales & University of New South Wales - Faculty of the Built Environment. (2006). Talking about Sydney: population, community, and culture in contemporary Sydney. UNSW Press. Krafft, M. & Mantrala, M.K. (2008). Retailing in the 21st Century: Current and Future Trends. Springer. Robinson, C. & Bachman, B. (2000). Australia. Airphoto International/Odyssey. Read More