Business Consulting Report: Issues Faced by Asda Stores Ltd (BM561)

This report, prepared for a business consulting assignment (BM561), examines the challenges faced by Asda Stores Ltd, a major supermarket chain. The report begins with an introduction to business consulting and provides a description of Asda, including its products, services, and global presence. The main body of the report delves into the issues Asda is facing, such as productivity, innovation, inventory management, reverse logistics, supply chain management, employee collaboration, and employee turnover. The consulting team conducted secondary research, utilizing company websites, magazines, and journals to identify key challenges. The report then presents areas of importance, including competitors, target customers, market segmentation, and market structure, highlighting Asda's position within the oligopoly market. The report identifies the top three issues: supply chain management, employee turnover, and inventory management. The report emphasizes the significance of addressing these issues for Asda's efficiency, cost savings, and profitability. The conclusion summarizes the key findings and recommendations for Asda. References to books and journals support the analysis.

BM561 BUSINESS
CONSULTING

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................3
Description of the client and the issues they are facing...............................................................3
Research.......................................................................................................................................4
Presenting the areas of importance..............................................................................................4
Top three issues faced by the Asda Stores Ltd............................................................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................1

INTRODUCTION
Business consulting can be described as a professional service which is specifically
provided by an expert in a specific field, for instance, operations, finances, marketing, human
resource, public relations and many more. The Present report is based on the study of Asda
Stores Ltd. It aims to determine the issues faced by the Asda Stores Ltd and provides the client
with important areas that should be present in front of them.
MAIN BODY
Description of the client and the issues they are facing
The client of the in the current project is Asda Stores Ltd. The Asda Stores Ltd is a
supermarket chain which is headquartered in Leeds, England. The Asda Stores Lt falls under the
category of retail industry (Agostini, and Filippini, 2019). The organization was founded by
Peter and Fred Asquith and Sir Noel Stockdale in the year 1949. Currently, the organization is
operating at 633 locations all over the world. The company provides its customers with a wide
range of products and services within the market. Its products and services includes offering
grocery, general merchandise, financial services, Asda Mobile, Asda Money, Asda living and
George.
Even though, the Asda Stores Ltd. is one of leading supermarket stores across the globe,
it has been identified that the organization is dealing with a wide range of issues and challenges
within their organization. It has been determined that currently the company has been facing
issues with respect to productivity, innovation, inventory management, reverse logistics, supply
chain management, collaboration of the efforts made the workforce and employee turnover. All
of these issues play an essential role in the smooth and effective functioning and operations of an
organization. However, the lack of ability to collaborate the efforts of the employees within the
company is affecting the growth and profitability of the enterprise. Similarly, the
mismanagement in the supply chain is also affecting the operations of the company to a great
extent. From a long time, the company has not provided its customers with something innovative
that captures the eyes of the customers towards the brand and helps the organization in achieving
their key goals and targets with respect to the enterprise (Babu,. and Viswanathan, ). It has also
been determined that the organization is facing the issue of employee turnover within the
organization. Most of the employees of the company across the globe have been wanting to leave
the job and look for better opportunities for themselves and their own benefits.

Research
The consulting team has conducted a secondary research in order to determine the key
issues and challenges which the Asda Stores Ltd is currently facing within the enterprise.
Secondary research refers to a research which makes use of already available sources of
information in order to collect the relevant data, analyse them on the basis of their understanding
and form the relevant conclusions for the same (Desfonteines, and et.al 2019). Similarly, the
consulting team has also implemented the use of secondary research and data for the purpose of
identifying the flaws within the Asda Stores ltd and also determine the issues faced by the
enterprise currently. For the same, the consulting team has made use of the website of the
company and other relevant websites, magazines, newspapers, journals which had sufficient
information with respect to the same. With the help of these secondary data, the major challenges
faced by the Asda Stores Ltd has been determined. The issues faced by the organization includes
the lack of team work, supply chain management, employee turnover, inventory management,
innovation, reverse logistics, and the productivity of the workforce.
Presenting the areas of importance
Business environment refers to a total of all the factors including the people, competitors,
organizations and other forces that exist within the market place and has the ability to affect the
business operations of an organization. The factors which might affect the business operations or
the areas of importance with respect to the Asda Store Ltd have been explained below:
Competitors
The major competitors of the Asda Stores Ltd include Tesco Plc, Morrison’s, Spinneys,
Waitrose & Partners and Pick n Pay. With the help of the data that is collected on the basis of the
secondary research, it has been identified that the Asda Stores Ltd lags behind from its
competitors on the basis of a number of differences (Erlangga, and Sos, 2020). The major
differences with respect to the company includes quality, availability of products and the
environment of the supermarket stores. It has been determined that the Asda Stores Ltd is unable
to provide its customers with good quality products, a healthy and friendly environment within
the organization which affects the business functioning of the enterprise.
Target customers
On the basis of the secondary research, it has been determined that the Asda Stores Ltd.
targets low and middle class income groups for the purpose of selling their products and also the

women aging in between the age of 20 to 30 years. The Asda Stores Ltd. prices its products at
reasonable prices as it helps them in attracting the customers belonging to the category of Low
and middle class income groups within the country and help them in enhancing their profitability
and lead to growth and expansion of the organization.
Market Segmentation
It has been determined that the Asda Stores Ltd. segments its markets into a wide range
of products and services which includes financial services, food items, clothing, toys, prices,
income groups of the audience, demographics, home furnishings, fuel and many more of such
products and services within the market (Erlangga, and Sos, 2020).
Market structure
It has been identified that the Asda operates under the oligopoly market structure.
Oligopoly market structure can be described as a market in which there are a large number of
organizations selling the similar products within the market, however, there are only a few
organizations that lead and dominate the market. Similar, is the case with Asda Stores Ltd. as
there are many supermarkets within the United Kingdom, however, only a few supermarkets
which includes Tesco Plc, Sainsbury, Morrison’s, Asda and a few more dominate the market.
Top three issues faced by the Asda Stores Ltd.
The three main issue faced by the Asda Stores Ltd, along with the reasons which makes it
important to address them within the organization have been explained below:
Supply Chain Management
One of the leading issues faced by the Asda Stores Ltd. is the issue of supply chain
management within the organization (Schulman, 2020). The supply chain management can be
described as the whole process starting from acquiring the raw materials for the functioning of
the company till the final products reaches its end user. The whole chain in which various tasks
are involves falls under the head of supply chain management. However, it has been determined
that the Asda Stores ltd has been dealing with ineffective supply chain management within the
company. This issue has been selected because it needs to be solved as soon as possible. An
effective supply chain management of an organization helps the company in enhancing their
efficiency, determining the needs and demands customers and plan the inventory and maintain

the same accordingly (Nakash, and Bouhnik, 2021). This further helps the enterprise in saving
their cost and providing them increase in the profits of the company.
Employee Turnover
One of the most important asset of a business organization is its employees. The
employees are the ones who effectively manages each and every tasks within the company and
helps the organization in achieving their organizational goals and objectives. The strength,
commitment and the dedication of the workforce of a company is a major contributor of the
success of a company. But, unfortunately, it has been determined that the Asda Stores Ltd is
facing the problem of employee turnover within the enterprise. This means that a majority of the
workforce of the organization are planning to leave the job roles provided to them by the
organization because of low salary, incentives, high work pressure and long working hours. This
is an important issue which the Asda Stores Ltd should address and take steps in order to restrict
this from happening or will lead to a great loss to the company.
Inventory management
The ability of an enterprise to determine the market demand associated with the products
offered to the customers within the market and maintain the stock within the organization
accordingly is referred to as inventory management. Effective inventory management of an
organization helps the companies in decreasing their cost associated with the warehouse and
maintaining the inventory within the company (Kuijpers, Simmons, and Van Wamelen, 2018).
Therefore, it is essential for Asda Stores Ltd to determine the demand and maintain the inventory
accordingly as it will help the organization in decreasing their cost and increasing their profits.
CONCLUSION
From the above report, it has been identified that the major issues faced by the Asda
Stores Ltd includes inventory management, supply chain management of the company and the
problem of employee turnover within the organization. The present report also provides a brief
understanding of the market in which the company operates, its competitors, market structure,
market segment, and target customers of the organization.

REFERENCES
Books and journals
Agostini, L. and Filippini, R., 2019. Organizational and managerial challenges in the path toward
Industry 4.0. European Journal of Innovation Management.
Babu, M.S. and Viswanathan, E., An Imperative Study of Customer Satisfaction on Pricing
Strategy.
Desfonteines, L., and et.al 2019, March. Organizational culture of trade enterprises in the context
of modern demographic challenges and applying information technologies. In IOP
Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering (Vol. 497, No. 1, p. 012117).
IOP Publishing.
Erlangga, H. and Sos, S., 2020. The Challenges of Organizational Communication in the Digital
Era.
Kuijpers, D., Simmons, V. and Van Wamelen, J., 2018. Reviving grocery retail: Six
imperatives. Mckinsey, Perspectives on retail and consumer goods Winter, 19.
Nakash, M. and Bouhnik, D., 2021. Challenges of justification of investment in organizational
knowledge management. Knowledge Management Research & Practice, pp.1-11.
Schulman, P.R., 2020. Organizational structure and safety culture: Conceptual and practical
challenges. Safety science, 126, p.104669.
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