Managing Change at The Co-operative Group - Assignment Example

The market share of the company is about 4.2 percent which is not high at all in comparison to its competitors but one good thing about the company is that it is certainly a market leader when it come to top up food shopping and it is due to the convenience which is offered by the store. Company being a food retail chain, certainly has an ethical business, with various strengths and also weakness which provides a margin for company to improve. There are few set values and also set of principles according to which the company operates and works.

The major standards linked with the business mandate being the openness to democracy, social responsibility and also caring along with equality for others. They believe in converting these believes practically within the market place. The major pillars of the business being issues linked with ethical trade and fair trade. The company is also dependent on other important principles about training and information, concern for the community along with co operation between co operatives and training (KLINEDINST, M.

, & KALMI, P. 2009). There are some very important areas of concern for the co operative food retail which include the presence of “top up” shopping market segment along with the small store size. There are some very important areas which needs to be improved like restricted shelf space for the ethical lines of produce along with the customer base or the demographic profile of the people who are not willing to pay premium prices for the high welfare and organic foods which are produced. This thing can be improved by developing better marketing techniques for top up segment and market base along with focusing on the convenience factor more and making it their unique selling point.

Great amount of marketing efforts can prove to play a vital role in increasing sales of the top up retail sector which is facing problems (BENNIS, W. G. 2000).  It is not always about the policies being practically set up , the company needs to work extremely hard in improving their supplier relationships which are not very great. The major problem which can be solved is improving the local procurement of the food. The company stresses a lot on their social responsibility and the role played by them which totally helps their consumer membership but they tend to ignore their supply chain management which is a very important and a crucial thing in today’s world.

The competition is so high and large that no company can take a sensible risk of ignoring their supply chain which can indeed help them increase their profits by cutting costs. The efficiency of the company can increase if the supply chain is managed properly and the company is able to have good relationships with their suppliers. The Company can also improve their functions by focusing on the staff training and environmental reporting. All the environmental concerns need to be analyzed and reported on time.

The company should make sure that proper training is provided to the senior management about the importance of environmental issues and the impact they can have on them. The training should be linked with practices and policies which need to be set up. There should be proper and specific training given to the store based personnel regarding the environmental awareness and different mediums can be used in order to perform this task which includes using staff information posters and