Impact of Covid-19 on Sainsbury's Business Activities and Functions

Research Proposal

Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
Research aim and objectives:.......................................................................................................3
Research Questions:.....................................................................................................................3
Rationale for the research............................................................................................................3
LITERATURE REVIEW................................................................................................................4
Impact of Covid-19 pandemic on business activities and functions of Sainsbury's....................4
Issues faced by Sainsbury's due to Covid-19 pandemic in managing business activities and
functions......................................................................................................................................4
Strategies that can be adopted by Sainsbury's for managing business activities and functions.. 4
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY....................................................................................................4

INTRODUCTION
The changes within the external environment surrounding the retail industry highly impact
on their business activities and functions. COVID-19 global pandemic has adversely impact on
the overall economy and sectors. The main impact is on retail sector as they are not able to
execute their activities in a proper manner (Abay, Tafere and Woldemichael, 2020). There are
many issues which is faced by retail sector because of COVID-19 that is decline in performance,
ineffective working, non-fulfilment of demand and supply, not capable to bear expenses,
discontinue of stores and many more. All this has highly impact on the productivity and
profitability of retail organisation which is still not recover by them. In the present report, the
organisation chosen is Sainsbury's. The organisation is one of the second largest chain which was
founded in the year 1869 and headquartered in UK. In addition to this, it has around 1900 stores
globally which is operation with the help of 1,80,000 staff members. The main objective of the
report is to identify the challenges that arise in the retail sector due to Covid-19 pandemic in
their business activities and functions.
Research aim and objectives:
Research aim:
“To identify the issues faced by retail sector due to Covid-19 pandemic in their business
activities and functions”. A study on Sainsbury's
Objectives:
 To analyse the influence of pandemic on business activities and functions of
Sainsbury's.
 To identify the issues faced by Sainsbury's due to Covid-19 pandemic in managing
business activities and functions.
 To recommend the strategies that can be adopted by Sainsbury's for managing business
activities and functions.
Research Questions:
 What is the impact of Covid-19 pandemic on business activities and functions of
Sainsbury’s?
 What are the issues faced by Sainsbury's due to Covid-19 pandemic in managing business
activities and functions?

 Identifying the strategies that can be adopted by Sainsbury's for managing business
activities and functions?
Rationale for the research
One of the major reason to conduct the study is to analyze the issues faced by retail sector
because of global pandemic within their business functions and activities. In addition to this, it
help in gaining insight about the COVID-19 Influence on business activities and the strategies
adopted by companies to deal with it. Furthermore, the present study will help different
stakeholders that is organisation, researcher and so on. With reference to organisation, it helps in
developing effective strategies so in order to manage business functions and activities that has
positive influence on the company's performance. In context to researcher, it help in
development of the skills that involves time management, data collection, data analysis and
other research skills. Moreover, it will also allow researcher to carry out future studies in more
effective and systematic way.
LITERATURE REVIEW
It is defined as the procedure of gathering data from various sources which comprises of
Journals, articles and books. Moreover, all these sources are beneficial and useful for
investigator in achieving reliable and positive outcome that will lead towards attainment of
objectives (Arora and Srinivasan, 2020). The main objective of literature review is fulfil gaps
related to research from the past studies. In context to present study, the major gap issues faced
by retail sector due to Covid-19 pandemic in their business activities and functions but there is
lack of information about the future implications. For fulfilling this gap, few of the research
questions were analysed as mentioned below:
Impact of Covid-19 pandemic on business activities and functions of Sainsbury's
According to Liu (2020) COVID-19 has affected adversely on the overall business
functions as well as activities of an organisation. Due to COVID-19 global pandemic, there are
many organisations who stopped performing and running as they are not able to deal with the
expenses easily. This impact directly on their performance and profitability level of company in
a negative manner. Sainsbury's has faced £261m annual loss despite of boom in supermarket and
Argos sale, as the company spend millions on protecting and assisting its employees (COVID-
19: Implications for business, 2022). Sainsbury's registered 17% grocery sales, 8% boom in