Context of Business: An Analysis of ASDA's Leadership and Strategy

This project offers a comprehensive analysis of ASDA, a prominent UK retailer, focusing on its business context, vision, leadership style, and management practices. The introduction provides a brief history of ASDA, highlighting its evolution from its inception in 1960 to its acquisition by Walmart. The report examines ASDA's vision, which centers on being a best-value retailer, and its transformational and situational leadership approaches. Furthermore, it explores the management practices employed by ASDA, emphasizing communication, target setting, and an open management style. The company-specific analysis delves into ASDA's vision, its emphasis on customer expectations and sustainability, and its leadership development programs. The project also discusses how ASDA adapts its leadership approach to address market changes and employee engagement. The project concludes by providing insights into ASDA's operations, customer service, and employee support systems, offering a detailed understanding of ASDA's strategic approach within the dynamic retail landscape. The project uses the provided references to support its claims and analysis.

Context of
Business
(Project-II)

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
Brief History....................................................................................................................................1
Discussion on Vision, Leadership style and Management Practices...............................................2
Company specific Analysis.............................................................................................................3
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................5

INTRODUCTION
Context of business engage around background of specific business, its framework and
environment which lays impact on successfully carrying out functionalities. This report is based
on ASDA which is providing its services in retail sector within UK. This report contains task
will be organisation based and with a purpose to uncover vision, leadership style and
management practices applied in business. Lastly recommendation will be offered on the basis of
research.
Brief History
Asda was found in the year 1960 in Yorkshire. This inception of retail empire was carried
out by Asquith brother through their merger Association Dairies Company belonging to the same
region. The owners were successfully able to revolutionise GEM (Government Exchange Mart)
through offering both food and convenience items in the same store. This concept garnered huge
success and by 1970, Asda was spread over to 30 stores throughout United Kingdom. However
in the year 1999, This retailer was acquired by Walmart for a whopping £6.7 billion and have
been exposed to economies of scale for its UK based operations.
At presently, This organisation offers their products and services through online and
offline channels inclusive of Super-centres, superstores and living stores and most importantly
supermarkets. The major products and services which are offered by this enterprise includes
Food and non-food items, home & general merchandise, pharmacy as well as opticians. The
supermarkets and list of items is also designed as per specific needs of local market so to add
convenience for the people. Asda at present carries a base of over 18 million satisfied customers
and are growing tremendously day after day. This retail business is considered to be amongst top
3 retail service provider in the country with a sales figure of £22.2bn for the year 2017/2018
(TOP 10 UK RETAILERS, 2019)
This study will be aiming to understand context of business inclusive of their vision,
leadership and management practices along with their application on undertaken retail
organisation i.e. Asda. The reason for undertaking this organisation is that it is one of senior
retailer operating in the country. The company carries its operation to a larger scale with the
help of approximately 145,000 dedicated employees. This organisation have been known to be
more inclined towards its long term strategy than its competitors such as Tesco and Sainsbury's
which focuses on strengthening short term sales. This perspective of company can be considered

as one of crucial reason for undertaking this organisation. The emphasis on appropriate
leadership and core values is high which will be further helpful in understanding crucial concepts
relating to this project. Asda have been acquired by Wal-Mart as a part of their globalisation
strategy, the research on this area will be helpful in identifying how people in multinational
organisation are managed.
Discussion on Vision, Leadership style and Management Practices
Vision
Vision statement of a business states what an organisation intents to achieve in the
upcoming future. The vision of a company also defines reason and purpose for its existence to its
stakeholders. Asda's vision focuses on to be the best-value retailer which exceeds customer
expectations. The purpose behind formation of Asda is to make good and services more
affordable to customers. The company's slogan says “Save Money. Live Better”. This
organisation promotes and positioned itself as one of the value service provider in the market of
United Kingdom. Asda have been known to keenly emphasize upon the identifying and
understanding diverse requirements of customers and fulfilling the same with discounted prices.
Therefore it can be considered that the Vision defines pathway which is to be followed by a
business in order to fulfil expectation of the community and stakeholders involved. This is
considered to be a very crucial aspect as it helps in forming a perception of a business enterprise
and directly influences level of employee engagement.
Leadership Style
Leadership is a considered to be one of the crucial reason behind success and failure of an
organisation. It is defined to be ability of a person to lead/guide a group of individual towards
established goals. The style of leadership is mostly dependent upon the person leading and his
approach to accomplishing a work. For Asda, transformative approach of leadership is mostly
employed. This leadership style focus on creating a positive change to its followers so that
purpose of business is fulfilled appropriately. The emphasis of this approach lies on cooperation
amongst members, ethics and additions of higher human values. Other than this, there is an
occasional use of situational approach to leadership in business operations. This theory have
been offered by Hersey and Blanchard which states that approach to leadership is mostly
influenced by relationship and task behaviours (Ghasabeh, Soosay, and Reaiche, 2015). The
retail industry is dynamic and influential changes are encountered everyday therefore opting for

a single leadership approach is not beneficial for operations. Therefore, Asda have been known
to use variety of leadership approaches to ensure sustainability in operations and fulfilling
requirements of key stakeholders.
Management Practices
Management practices are referred to as set of methods and creativity employed by
managers to ideally manage work systems in the organisation. These approaches are generally
inclined to get the best of out employees supported with appropriate use of support systems and
resources available. Asda, while managing internal resources focuses on aspects such as
communication, setting up of realistic targets and open management style. The managers in such
practices are rewarded with a great responsibility as they have to ensure clarity in roles and
responsibility to employees. Engaging workers in productive tasks and rewarding their efforts
appropriately. All these approaches are helpful in understanding queries and ideas possessed by
employees/internal staff and their resolution ultimately leading to higher productivity. Structured
management practices contributes to greater productivity, profitability and most importantly
innovation. The undertaking of these management practices by Asda are helpful in dealing with
dynamic nature and competitiveness of this industry.
Company specific Analysis
Vision
The company's vision states that they intend to fulfil customer's expectation in most
appropriate manner. Asda identifies itself as the value service provider in the United Kingdom.
To accomplish the same this retailer has been offering hefty discounts on its grocery items so
that needs of prospects is fulfilled in the economical manner (Special Offers, 2019). This
organisation have embedded sustainability to all sectors of its operations. All the actions taken in
the form of waste minimization, appropriate use of water assure that responsibility of the
organisation towards community is being fulfilled (Our operations, 2019). In addition, views and
opinions of customers in being considered through an expert panel to shape the manner in which
operations are carried out. All the food products are offered with ideal application of schemes
and standards which assures that useful information is provided to customers so that decisions
can be formed accordingly. Asda have been known to give complete consideration to distinct
needs and expectation of the prospective buyers. In an attempt to cater large customer base, Asda

gave ventured into electronics segment, personal loans, insurance, travel money and tyres. This
endeavour helps them in fulfilling requirements of a greater distinct customer base.
Leadership Style
Transformational approach to leadership is being employed in the business operations.
Justification of the same is that there is a complete shift in dynamics in retail sector as it have
become more innovative, competitive and technologically advanced. Under such circumstances,
it is most suitable to give managers a chance to be innovative and empathetic so that
sustainability in the business operations could be developed. Asda have been known to
emphasize on leadership and strategic development programs with a purpose to engage
approximately 10,000 managers across the country (ASDA Leadership Program, 2019). This
program was aimed to enhance leadership skills for the future. This strategy of Asda will be
helpful in dealing with contingencies of future and fulfilling vision simultaneously. However
there are time when leaders have to deal with contingencies themselves eradicating autonomy
and democracy. For instance, Due to Brexit there was in a change in market dynamics as prices
of food supplies rose and business had to cut down jobs to minimize losses. Under those
circumstances leaders have to step forward and take these crucial decisions so that needs and
expectations of customers are met efficiently and quickly. As mentioned earlier, this leadership
approach focuses on situation in hand and attempt to deal accordingly so that further losses could
be minimized.
Management Practices
Asda is an organisation which is known to deliver exceptional customer service to its
clients. This organisation have employees working in different sectors such as George, logistics,
supermarkets and home shopping who needs to be taken care of so that organisational objectives
are fulfilled. For instance: Customer delivery drivers are responsible for not only delivering
goods but are supposed to act as an Asda colleague on road. They are provided with Asda's
award winning programme “Best welcome” and further supported with training as per their
individual needs. This organisation also assists its colleagues in saving higher as it provides 10%
on shopping, competitive salary and flexible working practices to add to their motivation and
convenience.

REFERENCES
Books & Journals
Ghasabeh, M. S., Soosay, C. and Reaiche, C., 2015. The emerging role of transformational
leadership. The Journal of Developing Areas. 49(6). pp.459-467.
Online
TOP 10 UK RETAILERS. 2019. [Online]. Available through:
<https://www.retaileconomics.co.uk/top-10-retailers-uk-top-10-retailers>.
Special Offers. 2019. [Online]. Available through:<https://groceries.asda.com/special-offers/top-
offers>.
Our operations. 2019. [Online]. Available through:<https://sustainability.asda.com/our-
operations>.
ASDA Leadership Program. 2016. [Online]. Available
through:<https://www.iedp.com/articles/asda-leadership-program/>.