Leading Through Digital Disruption: Case for Change in Morrisons

LEADING THROUGH DIGITAL DISRUPTION: “CASE FOR
CHANGE” IN MORRISONS

Executive Summary
Digital transformation can provide effective growth to an organisation. This study is based on
the digital strategies adopted by Morrisons in order to continue with their functions during the
pandemic situation. However, the following sections of this study will explain a lot of details
regarding the effective strategies of Morrisons.
2

Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................4
Task 1: The Case for Change.....................................................................................................4
Task 2: Gaining Digital Business Agility..................................................................................5
Task 3: Create a Digital Ready Culture.....................................................................................6
Task 4: Steer Collaboration........................................................................................................8
Task 5: Select your Leaders.......................................................................................................9
Conclusion................................................................................................................................10
Reference List..........................................................................................................................11
3

Introduction
The diversified products of Morrisons are the main attraction of people in the UK. This
retailing organisation was founded in 1899 and from the last 123 years a lot of major
decisions were taken by the leader of the company. The aim of this report is to determine the
digital transformation features adopted by Morrisons in order to gain a high amount of
profitability from the target market.
Task 1: The Case for Change
Background of Morrisons
Morrisons has two brands that are Safeway and McColl’s operating in 497 stores in
worldwide regions. This company offers different kinds of retailing products such as books,
clothing, food and drink, magazines, homewares, petrol and so on. According to the annual
report of this organisation the group revenue will be reduced from 17.7 billion in 2019 to 17.5
billion in 2020. On the other hand, the profit before tax increased from £396 million in 2019
to £408 million in 2020 (Morrisons, 2020). This indicates around 3% growth in the
profitability rate of the company due to the strategic decisions taken by the company. This
company is operating in Wales, Scotland, England and Gibraltar. Thus, around 11 million
consumers are serviced by 110,000 employees each week.
Reasons for digital transformation
Moreover, due to the pandemic outbreak the buying behaviour of customers has changed. In
order to fulfil the needs of customers, the leaders of this company have taken a lot of
approaches to use modern technology. According to the statement of Sampson-Choma
(2019), digital transformation in the correct way can provide a lot of scope to increase the
productivity of a company. Thus, digital transformation is beneficial to increase the
profitability rate and growth of the organisation. Business transformation involves a lot of
investment and strategic management. Besides that, proper training is important to be given
to the staff members so that they can accept the new business model in an effective manner.
As per the reviews of Rigby (2021), the online sales rate of the company has tripled due to
the supermarket diversified its digital channels in order to deal with the pandemic situation.
In 2021, the company adopted a lot of steps in order to deliver groceries through digital ways
to the doorstep of customers. This company ranked leading in “RXUX Top500 research” due
to the success achieved through its developed and transformed online service (Rigby, 2021).
During the pandemic situation, customers prefer to shop online by using their mobile devices.
In that period, the online booking system used by this organisation helped to meet the
4