Systems Thinking for Inventory Management: A Case Study of Woolworths

Running head: SYSTEMS THINKING
SYSTEMS THINKING
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SYSTEMS THINKING
1
Background
Woolworths is a popular retail chain in the country of Australia that has been facing
significant issues in the recent times regarding their inventory management. It has been
reported that the retail chain has been storing products with low demands in high amounts,
and high demands in low amounts, thereby not being able to meet the market needs. This has
significantly impacted the business as customers seek other retail stores to buy what they
need, and they can even avail them at cheaper prices (Feigin, 2016).
Rationale
Systems thinking is a method of complex problem solving in management. This can
be used in this context because the problem does not have one single perspective. It has
affected the customers, the internal stakeholders and the employees of the organization in
various ways. This is why it has to be analyzed from each perspective to arrive at a root
definition, which would help in making a more accurate solution to the problem.
Applying the CATWOE model
Customers: The problem that customers have faced in this is that they have not been able to
find products that they commonly need, and when they have, they have found the price to be
higher than usual due to shortage of that product (Mayoza et al., 2018).
Actors: Actors refer to the various stakeholders. In this case, the suppliers have suffered a
loss from the uneven consignment of goods that they receive from the organization. There
has been no constant flow in the supply chain. Shareholders have suffered losses since
customers are seeking other retails, and the price of Woolworths stock has eventually gone
down (Trongtortam et al., 2018).