Impact of Global Pandemic on Workplace Transformation in UK Retail Industry: A Study on ASDA

Pearson BTEC HND in Business
Unit 11 Research Project (RQF) L5
Project Brief
Session: February 2019
Research Proposal Form
Student Name Student ID
Tutor Date
Unit
Proposed title
Impact of global pandemic on accelerating workplace transformation within the UK retail
industry

Section One: Title, objective, responsibilities
Background of the research:
The influence of pandemic has created a great impact on the productivity and performance of
business due to which companies are adopting workplace transformation. In order to sustain in
market for long run, it is important for companies to adopt digital transformation technology so
that they can reach to potential customers and attract them towards the brand. Due to pandemic,
organisations are changing their way of working so that they can survive in the crisis situation and
accomplish their target. The workplace transformation brings new way of working and
technological methods that helps in improving the productivity and performance of business.
Companies are adopting new strategy and thoughts in order to achieve higher market growth and
attract maximum number of people towards the brand. Workplace transformation helps in
increasing the success rate and improving the growth of business. Organisations are shifting
towards digital technology so that they can run their business activity in effective and efficient
manner. The workplace transformation helps in improving the performance and productivity of
business by delivering better services to its employees and customers. It also helps in providing
better services to its customer due to which customer base gets improved. Bringing transformation
within workplace helps in using new methods and tools which leads to better productivity and
performance. Transformation within the workplace helps in improving the skills and knowledge of
employees due to which they give productive results. The chosen organisation for this research is
Asda, it is a retail brand which was founded by Peter and Fred Asquith in 1949. The Headquarter
of Asda is in Leeds, UK. Goal of Asda is to provide best value retailer which exceeds customer
needs. The brand has its strong growth strategy which includes expanding reach online and
physically. Asda is also focusing on bringing innovation and expansion into its products ranges so
that they can gain competitive edge in market. The brand mainly offers their product at low cost
which attracts more and more customer towards the brand. Asda also promotes their brand by
using different promotional channels such as television, media outlets and newspaper. The
competitors of Asda are John Lewis Partnership, Marks and Spencer, Next and many others.
Topic:
To identify the impact of global pandemic on accelerating workplace transformation within the UK
retail industry
Aim: To identify the impact of global pandemic on accelerating workplace transformation within
the UK retail industry: A study on ASDA
Objectives:
 To develop basic understanding regarding the transformation of the workplace in context
with UK retail industry
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 To examine the challenges that ASDA has faced during the period of global pandemic
 To determine the impact of global pandemic on accelerating workplace transformation
within ASDA
Research Questions:
 What is the concept of transformation of the workplace in context with UK retail industry?
 What are the major challenges that ASDA has faced during the period of global pandemic?
 How global pandemic has impacted on accelerating workplace transformation within
ASDA?
Section Two: Reasons for choosing this research project
Research Rationale:
The rationale behind doing this investigation is to identify the impact of global pandemic on
accelerating workplace transformation within the UK retail industry. It includes the basic
understanding regarding the transformation of the workplace, challenges that company has
faced during the period of global pandemic and impact of global pandemic on accelerating
workplace transformation within organisation. The reason behind choosing this topic is that it
due to crisis, companies are shifting their way of working and adopting new ways of working
in order to survive in the competitive environment. Workplace transformation helps in
increasing the profitability and performance of business by attracting more and more talented
employed. By conducting this investigation, the two main perspective of researcher will get
fulfilled such as personal and professional. The current investigation helps in achieving the
personal objective by increasing their ability to learn about the attitude and behaviour of the
people while transforming the workplace. The skills and knowledge of researcher will also be
achieved including presentation skills, analytical skills, research skills, etc. Professional
perspective of the researcher will be accomplished by getting detailed knowledge of
workplace transformation in pandemic. By gaining the knowledge, researcher can conduct the
further investigation in systematic manner. Thus, the research revolves around understanding
the concept of workplace transformation and identifying the challenges which are faced by
company due to pandemic.
Section Three: Literature sources searched
What is the concept of transformation of the workplace in context with UK retail
industry?
As per the view of Olofsson, Hoveskog and Halila (2018), transformation in the workplace
an important role in an organisation as it helps in bringing new ideas and thoughts that results in
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gaining high success and growth in the competitive market. It is basically defied as the driving
force behind the innovative and strategic use of technologies for enhancing the quality of the work
ad for delivering best customer experience. Workplace transformation can be defined as a process
of changing working styles and methods for enhancing the performance and productivity of the UK
retail industry. Transforming the workplace is very important as changing with the changing trends
helps in gaining high market share and customer base in the business market. In simple words,
transforming the workplace is referred as a method that helps the UK retail industry in improving
employees skills, abilities and tools in order to keep up with the consistent changes in the strategy
of the business organization (Helm, Kim and Van Riper, 2020). Effective change in the UK retail
industry mainly helps in improving the organisational and employee productivity and innovation,
improve collaboration among employees, attract talent, increase well-being and health of
employees and reduce costs. It is considered as a driver that helps in innovating, creating, and
transforming the working efficiency of employees so that they achieve the goals and objectives of
the business in an effective manner. Providing flexibility to employees in the working helps in
increasing their motivation and satisfaction level to achieve the objectives of the UK retail
industry. Adoption of new technological changes helps the UK retail industry in increasing the
working effectiveness and capability of the employees so that they result in increasing productivity
and growth in the highly competitive environment. Transforming workplace helps in delivering
better quality of services to the customers which results in gaining high range of customers for
buying the particular goods and services (Baptiste, 2019). The value of the digital workplace
transformation can be derived more easily by understanding and measuring its effect on the
important factors like business metrics, involving employee retention, customer satisfaction and
sales performance in the business market.
What are the major challenges that ASDA has faced during the period of global pandemic?
As per the view of Leach (2022), there are several types of challenges that ASDA face in
the global pandemic situation as it results in reducing the sales and growth of the company in the
competitive market. Covid-19 has brings various challenges for the company which directly
impacts on the overall productivity and profitability of the business. These challenges creates a
great impact on the performance and productivity of business (Özgüç, Kaplan Serin and
Tanriverdi, 2021). Asda faces huge issues while working in pandemic as it becomes difficult to
attract and retain employees and customer. Asda has provide work from opportunity to employees
due to which the issues which are faced by organisation is ineffective communication between
manager and employees. The lack of communication between employer and employees leads to
poor performance and productivity. It is the responsibility of Asda to implement right and effective
technology that helps in reducing the communication gap between the employees so that work can
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