BUS703: Research Proposal on Big W Retail Performance in Australia

This report presents a comprehensive research proposal analyzing the challenges and potential solutions for Big W, an Australian retail chain owned by Woolworths. The research aims to identify the factors contributing to Big W's declining performance, including competition from other retailers like JB Hi-Fi and Aldi, changing consumer preferences, and the impact of online sales. The proposal outlines a descriptive research design, utilizing a deductive approach and survey methods for primary data collection, supplemented by case study analysis for secondary data. The research will explore the retail market trend in Australia, customer satisfaction issues, and the performance of Big W to propose management strategies such as re-entering the online media market. It also includes details on the sampling technique, proposed data analysis, ethical considerations, budget, and timelines, providing a structured approach to investigate the research question. The report is based on the student's proposal for the course BUS703, focusing on management decisions to address the challenges and improve Big W's financial health. The student aims to attract investors and shareholders to increase the percentage of investment in the business, so that the firm can start their e-commerce business and can deal with the problem of joblessness even after closing the stores of the country.

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Economics for Manager
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Table of Contents
1. Introduction............................................................................................................................3
Purpose and scope..................................................................................................................3
2. Background of the research....................................................................................................3
3. Problem statement..................................................................................................................4
4. Literature review: Secondary data.........................................................................................4
5. Research design and justification...........................................................................................5
6. Details of specific method......................................................................................................6
7. Sampling technique................................................................................................................7
8. Proposed data analysis...........................................................................................................7
9. Ethical issues..........................................................................................................................7
10. Budget..................................................................................................................................8
11. Timelines..............................................................................................................................8
Reference List............................................................................................................................9
Appendix..................................................................................................................................10

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1. Introduction
Purpose and scope
This research would be beneficial to find out the fundamental reasons of getting distracted by
the Aussies towards Big W and hence, based on this research, the management will be
capable to take the best possible decisions for the business of the company. As a result, it can
be stated that the organisation will successfully run its business across the Australian market.
In this respect, the researcher will be going to highlight:
 The background of the discussed problem will be highlighted.
 Discuss the role of management in boosting up the organisational performance level
and in this context, secondary research will be conducted, and the data would be
collected from the articles and journals written by some eminent authors.
 After that data collection and the research methodology will be accomplished for
deriving the best possible solution
 In order to complete the research, the anticipated budget and timeline will be
analysed.
2. Background of the research
Big W is a division of the Woolworths Group, which is an eminent Australian chain for
serves its operation in the discounted departmental store. There are approximately 182 stores
of Big W across Australia and approximately 22000 employees are engaged with the
company (Big W, 2019). Though Big W is one of the most demanded firms by the Aussies
since the last 40 years, however, the parent firm that is Woolworths has planned to close the
venture in the coming three years. Bleier and Eisenbeiss (2015) mentioned that Big W has
incurred a loss of $150.5 million until the year 2017. Besides, the organisation has also
incurred a loss of $110 million in 2019. This is the prime reason of closing 30 to 60 stores of
Big W by Woolworths (Lannin, 2019). Before taking any suitable decision by the
management of Woolworths, it is necessary to highlight the key issues and challenges faced
by the organisation, in this respect, it can be stated that Woolworths would not be capable to
rule out across the industry. In addition, as per the recent research, the customers mostly
prefer to purchase products from JB Hi-Fi or Aldi over Big W for meeting their needs. This is

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the reason, why the management of the organisation needs to take an optimum decision for
the sake of improving the financial health of the business. More specifically, the researcher
will try to find out the required approaches, which will be beneficial for the management for
dealing with the current organisational challenge. As a result, the managers will be capable to
attract more investors, so that they will like to sponsor in the business. In this context, it can
be stated that the goodwill of the parent firm will be the fundamental aspect in attracting the
investors more successfully and the managers will be successful to prevent the closing of
stores. For instance, the managers can increase the investment for staring its venture in online
sales with the rising trend across the country. This is one of the essential approaches to deal
with the issue.
3. Problem statement
It can be stated that with the closing of stores of Big W, a large percentage of employees of
the organisation will be jobless. It will directly affect the economic situation of the country
since a certain percentage of employees will be unemployed. This will be one of the major
reasons for increasing the rate of unemployment in the country. On the other hand, since the
competitiveness in the Australian retailing industry has been rising, therefore, the
organisation needs to fix the problem, so that it can deal with the situation instead of closing
the stores.
4. Literature review: Secondary data
In this section, the researcher is going to analyse the theoretical aspects related to the given
topic for finding out and deriving conclusion after the data collection process. As per the
above discussion, it can be observed that for compensating the financial loss of Big W, the
parent company Woolworths is going to close the stores of Big W, in the next three years.
Based on the following theoretical discussion, the researcher will be able to gather knowledge
and can get an idea about the consequences of closing the stores of Big W by Woolworths in
the future. After finding the anticipated findings, the management can find the importance of
taking an optimum decision for the growth of the organisation in the future instead of cutting
the employees from the business. Before, describing the required schemes and factors for
influencing the management decision of Big W, it is necessary to discuss the retail industry of
Australia precisely.

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The retail market trend of Australia: Retailing sector of Australia has been playing an
essential role in the growth of the economy and it has a large contribution to the country's
economy. According to Farhan (2018), Australian retailing sector is assumed as the largest
sector of employment. For instance, approximately 50% of Australians are associated with
this industry. Therefore, a small change in this sector directly affects the employment sector
of the economy.
Reason of dissatisfaction of the customers: Akbar and Azeemi (2017) cited that both
Woolworths and Coles were playing the role of the duopoly in the Australian retailing
industry. However, Woolworths has ended this market structure when it incurred the loss.
Initially, to deal with the situation, immediately Woolworths thought to implement the cost-
cutting program (Sheedy, 2016). In addition, with the rising of the entry of the new
competitors, the possibility of maintaining the profitability margin would also be started to
decline. It proves that the Australian retailing sector is favourable for the growth of the
businesses. Conversely, if the customers would be dissatisfied with the products and services
of one firm, then they might switch their preferences to the other firms. This is the reason,
why the firms need to take optimum decisions so that the organisation can hold the leading
position by meeting the needs of the target buyers and can make them satisfied.
Performance of Big W: It is evident that Big W has been suffering from huge financial loss
due to the decreasing sales of the Brick and Mortar traditional stores. Sheedy (2016) said that
over time, the sales of the online websites have been rising and it is increased by 29.6% in
2018, while the Aussies were willing to spend their money only 9% in case of buying
products from the traditional outlets (Black, 2019). This is the chief reason for closing 30
outlets of Big W. Therefore, the organisation has announced to sell its products by offering
80% discounts to the customers (Wadelton, 2019). On the other hand, the chief executive of
Big W was asked to resign from her designation (Chung, 2016). The entire situation was
going under control. This is the reason, why the management needed to fix it quickly for
dealing with the financial loss.
Important schemes can be taken by the management: By identifying the issue, the
management can propose to re-start the venture of Big W, in the online media. As per the
rising trend of online purchasing, it can be anticipated that the percentage of incurred
financial loss can be compensated. Though the large percentage cannot be possible to
compensate immediately, however, the organisation has the potential to increase its online

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sales (since the organisation has strong goodwill and brand image in the market). It also helps
to deal with the problem like joblessness of the employees. Furthermore, this is a rising trend,
therefore, as per the research, it can be anticipated that if the shareholders will be going to
invest in the organisation, Big W will also be capable to return back their share within the
proposed deadline. This is how the managers can attract the investors and shareholders to
increase the percentage of investment in the business, so that the firm can start their e-
commerce business and can deal with the problem of joblessness even after closing the stores
of the country.
5. Research design and justification
It is known that explanatory, exploratory, as well as descriptive methods, are three types of
research design. Among these methods, the researcher will be going to choose descriptive
method. As opined by Chan, Cheung and Lee (2017), descriptive method is useful for
determining and analysing the characteristics of the selected sample of the population. More
specifically, the descriptive research method is suitable to accomplish the primary research,
and the information is retrieved based on the responses against the research questionnaires.
On the other hand, the descriptive research method is also beneficial to examine the
reliability as well as the authenticity of the accumulated information from the survey method.
This is the reason; why it can be assumed that following of descriptive research method is
ideal in this context.
6. Details of specific method
In this section, the detailed methods and approaches of the research will be discussed, which
will be followed for data collection and analysis process. This is one of the essential steps of
the research since based on this section; the researcher will derive the outcome of the paper.
Research philosophy: In the opinion of Chung (2016), research philosophy shows the way
the researcher will collect the data for completing the data collection as well as the data
analysis section. It is categorised into three subsections and these are interpretivism,
positivism and realism. The positivism research philosophy will be chosen in this research.
The researcher will accomplish quantitative analysis for finding out the effectiveness of
starting of online venture for increasing the sales and the financial position of Big W and
hence, choosing of positivism research philosophy is suitable. This is also favourable to

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identify the effectiveness of implemented schemes by the managers for attracting the
investors to them.
Research approach: Research approach shows the way, the researcher of this study covers
each of the segments for finding out the resultant. Inductive and deductive are two types of
research approach. Among these two approaches, the researcher will select deductive
research approach for this research. Wadelton (2019) opined that deductive research approach
is justified to choose since it helps to accomplish testing by using statistical tools. However,
one of the limitations of conducting deductive research method is, the researcher is bound to
complete the research work within a short period. Furthermore, Black (2019) made a
counterargument and mentioned that deductive research approach allowed the researchers to
collect a large range of data within the short period of timeline. It helps to successfully
complete the statistical analysis and can derive the conclusion.
Research strategies: Research strategies are such as action research, survey, grounded
theory, experiment, case study analysis and ethnography. It is necessary to select the most
optimum research strategy by the researcher before starting the study. In the present study,
the researcher will use the survey method on the chosen respondents. This is the backbone of
making the primary research and the statistical analysis successful. In addition, for
accomplishing the secondary research analysis, the researcher will select case study. This is
also useful to provide a detailed analysis of the selected research topic.
Time horizon: It is necessary to accomplish and submit the entire project within the
projected deadline and based on the requirements, the researcher needs to categorise the time
horizon into two styles and these are longitudinal study and cross-sectional study. In this
respect, the researcher has decided to choose cross-sectional study since it is necessary to
complete the paper within the limited timeline.
7. Sampling technique
To find out the demand of online purchasing over the online purchasing as well as for finding
out the reasons of dissatisfaction towards the traditional stores, the researcher will conduct
primary research and hence, in this respect, he will collect 60 Australians for accomplishing
the survey. Apart from this, 30 investors will be chosen to find out their reflection and
interest in investing in the management scheme of Big W for its new venture. The data
collect from the respondents will be beneficial to identify the reason of closing the stores of

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Big W. For conducting the survey, the researcher will rely on the simple random sample
technique in order to avoid the biasness in case of choosing of the respondents. A set of 8
questions will be asked and all of the questionnaires will be close-ended. Therefore, the
respondents need to choose the answer from the given alternatives.
8. Proposed data analysis
Based on the trend of the Australian market and after going through the analysis of the other
authors, it can be predicted that the trend of online purchasing will be increased more. The
primary reason for choosing online purchasing is due to its availability across 24/7. The
customers do not need to be present physically to the stores for buying any goods. As a result,
this will be benefitted for the management of Big W to attract the attention of the sponsors or
the investors and they will like to invest in the newly proposed venture by the firm. In order
to maintain transparency, the managers will arrange an official business meet, where both the
loyal customers of the firm and some of the renowned investors will present. This business
meet will provide a clear prediction about the effectiveness of increasing investment in newly
launched venture and in this context, the feedback from the loyal customers will be useful.
The customers will mostly like to incline towards the online shopping.
9. Ethical issues
The researcher will require to keep the collected data private unless taking the permission of
the respondents the researcher will not need to the public the information. Besides, the
researcher will not need to force the respondents to participate in the survey method. Those
who are willing, they will take part in it.
10. Budget
The estimated budget for completing this paper is:
Table 1: projected Budget plan
Category Explanation of the cost Predicted cost ($)
Researcher Cost of travelling 100
Printing cost For printing the questionnaires 80
Cost of data analysis Using of SPSS software 50
Collection of secondary Cost of websites, which are not free 120

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data
Total cost 350
11. Timelines

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Reference List
Akbar, M. and Azeemi, N., 2017. Factors Affecting Consumers’ Behavior Towards E-Shop
in KSA. American Research Institute for Policy Development, 1.
Big W, 2019. Every day’s a big day. [online] Available at <https://www.bigw.com.au/about-
us> [Accessed 4 October 2019].
Black, N., 2019. The 30 BIG W stores that could close FIRST. [online] Available at
<https://www.who.com.au/big-w-stores-to-close-1> [Accessed 4 October 2019].
Bleier, A. and Eisenbeiss, M., 2015. Personalized online advertising effectiveness: The
interplay of what, when, and where. Marketing Science, 34(5), pp.669-688.
Chan, T.K., Cheung, C.M. and Lee, Z.W., 2017. The state of online impulse-buying research:
A literature analysis. Information & Management, 54(2), pp.204-217.
Chung, F., 2016. Analysts split on the future of Big W. [online] Available at
<https://www.news.com.au/finance/business/retail/analysts-split-on-the-future-of-big-w/
news-story/60a1462832d4865c73ae844ed132084a> [Accessed 4 October 2019].
Farhan, B., 2018. The Largest Australian Retailers. [online] Available at
<https://www.thebalancesmb.com/largest-australian-retailers-2892105> [Accessed 4 October
2019].
Lannin, S., 2019. Woolworths to shut 30 of its Big W stores amid retail gloom. [online]
Available at <https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04-01/woolworths-to-shut-30-of-big-its-w-
stores-over-next-three-years/10958700> [Accessed 4 October 2019].
Sheedy, C., 2016. Woolworths: Is it the end of the duopoly in Australian supermarkets?
[online] Available at <https://www.icas.com/ca-today-news/woolworths-end-of-a-duopoly-
australian-supermarkets> [Accessed 4 October 2019].
Wadelton, B., 2019. Big W clearance sale with up to 80% off All the details you need to
know. [online] Available at <https://7news.com.au/business/finance/big-w-clearance-sale-
with-up-to-80-off-all-the-details-you-need-to-know-c-434431> [Accessed 4 October 2019].

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Appendix
Research questionnaires:
1. Age group:
 18-25 years
 26-33 years
 34-41 years
 42-49 years
 50 years and above
2. Gender
 Male
 Female
3. Do you prefer to shop from traditional stores of Big W?
 Strongly agree
 Agree
 Neutral
 Disagree
 Strongly disagree
4. Are you comfortable with online purchasing?
 Strongly agree
 Agree
 Neutral
 Disagree
 Strongly disagree
5. Do you prefer 24/7 availability in case of online shopping?
 Strongly agree
 Agree

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 Neutral
 Disagree
 Strongly disagree
6. Do you think starting of online venture will be effective to attract your awareness in
investing the business of Big W?
 Strongly agree
 Agree
 Neutral
 Disagree
 Strongly disagree
7. Do the managers assure you to return back your shares within the proposed timeline?
 Strongly agree
 Agree
 Neutral
 Disagree
 Strongly disagree
8. Do you think the official business meet will be effective to give you a clear idea about
the perception of making successful the ecommerce business?
 Strongly agree
 Agree
 Neutral
 Disagree
 Strongly disagree