Managing People and Change in Woolworths Supermarkets

This report analyzes the change taking place in Woolworths Supermarkets, Australia with respect to technology. The report uses the Forced Field Model to analyze the change and recommends a Quality Management System. The report also includes a summary of the change, subject, course code, and college/university.

Running head: MANAGING PEOPLE AND CHANGE
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Executive Summary
The given report throws light on the change taking place in an Australian Organization. Change
is often taken to be as an important part of an organization and every organization needs to
undergo a change. The chosen organization for the given report is Woolworths Supermarkets.
Recently the organization went under a technological change to enhance its operations and to
make its online presence stronger. The report aims to make an analysis of the change using the
Forced Field Model and make recommendations on the same. The implementation and steps to
develop a Quality Management System in the organization has also been made.

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Findings and Analysis......................................................................................................................3
The change in the organization....................................................................................................3
Forced Field Analysis..................................................................................................................4
Quality Management System.......................................................................................................7
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................10
References......................................................................................................................................12

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Introduction
The Woolworths Supermarket is an Australian grocery store which is owned by the
Woolworths Limited. The given company forms a duopoly along with Wesfarmers and
Woolworths. The company is a major in the food grocery industry. With around 1000 stores
across Australia, the company aims to provide convenience to the customers and good products
at reasonable prices (Woolworths.com.au., 2018). The company has over 202,000 employees
under the brand name and maintains a hierarchal structure. Innovation is often taken to be an
essential aspect of the organization. The given report throws light on the change in the
organization with respect to technology.
Findings and Analysis
The change in the organization
The organization – Woolworths implemented a technological change in the last 12
month. The company began to realize the importance of adapting to the new technology in an
organization and decided to utilize the technology in order to enhance its operations.
The primary triggers for such a change were the increased competition from its
Australian counterparts Wesfarmers and Coles. Another trigger for change was to tap the new
era of growth. The given initiative for change began to take place in 2016 whereby the company
began to realize and strategically plan to make use of the technological developments in order to
enhance the effectiveness of business operations (Baldwin & Scott, 2013). The company has also
made elaborate plans to transform its supply chain which has been dubbed as the Mercury 2.

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The company for this purpose, had appointed Matt Stanton as the transformation or change
officer for the given change in the organization.
During the year, Woolworths started its cost reduction initiatives and started making use
of an effective technology (Link, 2013). The company also plans to make use of the customer
insight tool which is an application which will help the company to make better use of its
customers.
Through the given initiative, the company plans to raise and uplift its sales by 1.8% as it
is currently not satisfied with its current sales target. Another change that the company aims to
make in this field is that it wants to establish its online store successfully in order to uplift its
online sales. To promote the technological change and in order to ensure that the maximum sales
takes place, Woolworths has partnered with eBay and Big W stores (Monahan, 2013).
This change in the technological processes of the company is expected t bring about huge
changes in the company and bring it a higher revenue base.
Forced Field Analysis
Force Field Analysis can be described as a tool which is used in order to analyze the
changes that are necessary to make in the organization. The Force Field Analysis was created by
Lewin in 1940s in order to help the business organizations to make a go or no go decisions. In
the Forced Field Analysis, equilibrium needs to be reached in between the drivers for change and
the resistors for change (Lorenzi & Riley, 2013). According to the given theory, these driving
forces needs to be strengthened and resisting forces need to be weakened.
Forced Field Analysis for the change at Woolworths:

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Step 1 :Defining the plan for the change process:
The primary plan for the change process is to bring about technological change in the
company that uses customer tools to enhance the satisfaction level of the different customers and
to increase the sales of the company.
Step 2: Identifying the drivers
In the second step., the forces which are driving the change need to be analyzed. These
drivers can be both internal as well as external (Frame & White, 2014).
The internal drivers to change include:
 Outdated technology
 Declining sales
 Need to increase profitability
The external drivers are :
 The changing market landscape
 Changing trend.
Step 3: Identify Forces against Change
In the given step the factors which work against the change that needs to be identified.
For Woolworths the changes are as follows :
 Internal resistors
 Budget constraints
 Resistant from employees (Calel & Dechezlepretre, 2016).

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External resistors maybe:
 Government legislation
 Customer responsibilities
 Partners
Step 4: Assigning scores
For each factor certain scores need to be assigned from one to five which help to
determine the influence that a give factor has on the change plan. The scores then need to be
added up for each side.
Step 5: Analyze and Apply
This analysis can be used to decide whether it is viable to move forward with the change
or to think about more forces which might go a long way in deciding whether to go forward with
the change or to adopt another measure (Goetsch & Davis, 2014). It also helps in identification
of other better factors.
To convert the resistors to the drivers the following steps might be undertaken:
 Training the employees in order to remove their resistance.
 Changing the organizational structure.

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Figure 1: The Forced Field Analysis at Woolworths ( As created by the author)
Quality Management System
Quality Management system can be defined as a set of practices and processes which are
highly focused on the enhancement of customer satisfaction. The given quality management is
aligned with the primary purpose of the organization and all the resources required for it need to
be checked.
As Woolworths does not have a well defined Quality Management system in the last 12
months, the given steps have been suggested to develop a quality management system at
Woolworths:

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1. Clarifying the vision, mission and Values
The vision, mission and values of the organization need to be incorporated in the
employees. This is because the employees form an essential part of the organization and it is
very important for them to ensure that they understand where the organization wants to head
(Ross, (2017).
2. Identify Critical Success Factors (CSF)
The Critical Success factors need to be identified. It is important for the organization to
ensure that the objectives of the firm are met with and the performance based measures are given
to ensure that Woolworths remains on its right path.
Some example CSF:
 Financial Performance
 Customer Satisfaction
 Product Quality
3. Developing measures for the factors
After the CSFs are identified, it is important for the firm to find certain measures so as to
track the progress of the organization. This metric helps the firm to remain on track with the
organizational goals and objectives. For instance, if the CSF is to increase customer satisfaction
then, there should be a goal for that in order to ensure that this objective is properly met with .
4. Identify Key Customer Group

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Woolworths has a well defined customer target group. This makes it important to develop
products which are appropriate for the group (Chanthadavong, 2018). The given customer group
also includes the employees of the organization.
5. Solicit Customer Feedback
The customer feedback goes a long way in determining the success of the given
organization. Only when the views of the customers are taken, will the organization will be
successful in making an effort to offer products to ensure maximum satisfaction.
6. Developing a Survey Tool
A survey tool needs to be developed based on the findings with reference to the offerings
which are most preferable to the given customer group. Various online surveys are available
which help the company to see to it that how the customers are reacting to their products and
how they want to be served (Financial Review., 2018).
The survey needs to target all the customer groups so that it is easy for them to identify
where the company is lagging in order to ensure the company takes time to improve the same.
7. Development of an Improvement Plan
Once the base has been set, it is important for the company to see to it that it starts
developing the aims and objectives and uses SMART goals to achieve its goals.
The goals may be :
 Improving customer purchases
 Improving customer servicing

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 Managing the Performance
8. Conducting re-survey
As the given performance management is of 12 months, after the given steps have been
implemented , after a period of 6 months, a re-survey can be conducted to check whether the
customers are satisfied and the role of the organization have improved or not.
9. Monitoring Change
Once this is done, it is very important for the company to see to it that the Critical
Success Factors are monitored and changed accordingly (Afr.com ., 2018).
As Woolworths start achieving success with respect to this aspect, they can see to it that
the given system is employed at their marketing level as well.
Lastly, they need to check that the technology used is up to date and that the
improvements are supported by it.
Conclusion
Therefore, from the given analysis it can be stated that Woolworths has been trying its
level best to ensure that the company is successful in carrying out the operations of the firm and
to implement the stated change in the organization. As seen from the analysis, the primary
changes that they plan to incorporate in their business are the change related to the technology
used by the firm and to begin using more customer centric technological tools. They also plan to
expand their online business by using various marketing techniques.

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The forced field analysis reflected that the company has more drivers than resistors and that the
change is being accepted by all. Lastly, the quality management system has been suggested
which Woolworths can incorporate to improve their operations

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References
Afr.com ., 2018. Woolworths dives into technology. Retrieved from
http://www.afr.com/opinion/columns/woolworths-dives-into-
technology-20130828-j0gdx
Baldwin, W., & Scott, J. (2013). Market structure and technological change (Vol. 18). Taylor &
Francis.
Calel, R., & Dechezlepretre, A. (2016). Environmental policy and directed technological change:
evidence from the European carbon market. Review of economics and statistics, 98(1),
173-191.
Chanthadavong, A. (2018). Woolworths eyes new technology for next phase of growth |
ZDNet. ZDNet. Retrieved 2 April 2018, from http://www.zdnet.com/article/woolworths-
eyes-new-technology-for-next-phase-of-growth/
Financial Review (2018). Woolworths seeks technology edge after completing $100m Project
Galaxy.. Retrieved 2 April 2018, from
http://www.afr.com/technology/woolworths-seeks-technology-edge-
after-completing-100m-project-galaxy-20150313-143i2z
Frame, W. S., & White, L. J. (2014). Technological change, financial innovation, and diffusion
in banking. The oxford handbook of banking, 271.
Goetsch, D. L., & Davis, S. B. (2014). Quality management for organizational excellence. Upper
Saddle River, NJ: pearson.

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Link, A. (2013). Technological Change & Productivity Growth. Routledge.
Lorenzi, N. M., & Riley, R. T. (2013). Organizational aspects of health informatics: managing
technological change. Springer Science & Business Media.
Monahan, T. (2013). Globalization, technological change, and public education. Routledge.
Ross, J. E. (2017). Total quality management: Text, cases, and readings. Routledge.
Woolworths.com.au (2018). Woolworths.com.au. Retrieved 2 April 2018, from
https://www.woolworths.com.au/