UK Retail Industry: Pandemic's Impact on ASDA Workplace Transformation

This research project, undertaken for a Pearson BTEC HND in Business Unit 11, investigates the impact of the global pandemic on accelerating workplace transformation within the UK retail industry, specifically focusing on ASDA. The project aims to understand workplace transformation, examine challenges faced by ASDA, and determine the pandemic's influence on its transformation. The research explores the concept of workplace transformation, challenges like employee productivity and financial management, and the impact of the pandemic on ASDA's operations, including the adoption of digital workplace environments. The project outlines the research rationale, literature sources, and planned activities with a Gantt chart for project management. The research seeks to provide insights into the changes in working styles and methods for enhancing the performance and productivity of the UK retail industry.

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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be accomplished in effective and efficient manner. The other challenge which is faced by Asda is
managing financial resources of company. Effective communication is also considered as a
challenge in the time of pandemic as it effects the growth of the company as a whole. Building
effective communication is the key to the pandemic as employees interact through video calls and
e-mails which requires more attention and detailing (Sałek, 2021). Due to pandemic, it becomes
challenging to Maintain fingernail performance of business as they were not able to generate more
and more income in crisis situation. The first challenge is regarded as low productivity of
employees as they do not feel safe and secure to work in the company with the high fear of getting
infected by the deadly virus. Decreased profitability and growth is considered as another challenge
that company faces at the time of pandemic because of complete lock-down which forced them to
shut down their places for some period of time and this has resulted in decreasing their working
capacity (Gerbaudo, 2020). Maintaining safety of employees is another challenge that company
face at the time of Covid-19 situation as they needs to ensure about the health of their employees in
a better manner in order to gain sustainability. Flexible working arrangements is also considered as
a challenge that the company face at the time of pandemic as employees are working from home
they need to ensure that they are getting flexible working situations so that they work with less
tension and anxiety.
How global pandemic has impacted on accelerating workplace transformation within ASDA?
As per the view of McTiernan (2021), with the effect of global pandemic, workplace
transformation has gained importance in the field of retail industry in order to achieve high success
and growth in the competitive market. The workplace transformation has impacted the operations
of ASDA in a positive manner because it helps in dealing with the situation of the pandemic in an
effective manner. Digital workplace environment helps in increasing the efficiency and
effectiveness of working for employees as it helps in dealing with the situation of the pandemic
more appropriately (Verdin and O'Reilly, 2021). When company train and direct employees of the
company in an effective manner in order to increase their knowledge and skills which results in
high productivity and profitability. Asda focus on implementing new technological changes so that
they focus on improving the capability of the employees for better production and growth as it
helps in getting high positing in the competitive market. The global pandemic has influenced the
growth and efficiency of business due to which it becomes difficult to run the business in
appropriate manner. Due to COVID 19, organisation has transform their way of working in order
to run the business in effective manner. The global pandemic has impacted on accelerating
workplace transformation which helps in increasing the growth and performance of business.
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Section Four: Activities and timescales
Activities to be carried out during the research project (e.g. research,
development and analysis of ideas, writing, data collection, numerical
analysis, tutor meetings, production of final outcome, evaluation, writing
the report):
Gantt Chart:
Gantt Chart is the graphical representation which is mainly used in project
management. It mainly focus on showing the activities and tasks which are displayed
against the time. The activities in Gantt Chart is usually represented by bar. Gantt
Chart allows to see what the various activities are, how long each activity is
scheduled to last, when each activity begins and end, where activities overlap with
other activities and by how much and the start and end date of whole project. The
benefit of Gantt chart is that it gives high level of overview of the project to
managers and workers along with time table to finish their work.
How long
this will
take:
(See
Gantt
Chart
below)
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Milestone one: .........................................................................................
Target date (set by tutor): .........................................................................................
Milestone two: .........................................................................................
Target date (set by tutor): .........................................................................................
Section Five: Research approach and methodologies
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
It is the systematic procedure to identify, analyses and interpret information. Research
methodology helps the researcher to attain aim and objective in valuable manner. This section also
helps in knowing the type of information needed in the investigation as per the chosen topic.
Research methodology also helps in maintain the validity and reliability of the research in sound
manner (Sileyew, 2019). This section is further divided into various sub parts which helps in
analysing and collecting information. These components are discussed below with the help of
Saunders research onion framework:
Research philosophy: Research philosophy is divided into two parts which are positivism
and interpretivism. In the current research, researcher will be selecting positivism philosophy. The
main advantage to use this is it will have gathered and use quantitative information in the research
to get accurate result. The data which will be collecting will also help in showing the current trend
and pattern of the research topic.
Research approach: It is a planned process which aids in testing the theories and hypothesis with
the chosen data type. It is classified into two kinds which are deductive and inductive approach. In
the present research, investigator will be choosing deductive approach. The main advantage to use
this is it will evaluate existing theories by the numerical information. This will also facilitate in
showing the relationship between two variables (Leedy and Ormrod, 2019).
Research strategy: It is planned process which contain step of action used to accumulated
information about the thoughts and idea of the researcher. Survey, systematic literature review,
case study, action research and many more are some types of research strategies. In the current
investigation, researcher will be choosing survey strategy. The main reason for this it will
accumulated quantitative data in less cost as well as less time.
Research choice: Quantitative and Qualitative are the two research method. As per the current
investigation, quantitative research will be used. The main reason for this is it will have
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accumulated numerical information in less time. Research objective can be attained in this valid
manner with the help of quantitative information. The data will be obtained in numbers and figure
so that analyse will be done easily (Cantrell, Mariani and Lengetti, 2022).
Time horizon: It is the time framework which identify the investing timeline of gathering
and analysing information. They are divided into two parts which are cross sectional and
longitudinal. in the present research, researcher will be opting for cross sectional time horizon. The
reason is it will gather data just once and also aids in completing the investigation in short time.
Data collection: There are two data collection method which are primary and secondary data
collection method. In this research both primary and secondary data will be used. Primary data is
the first hand information which gathers fresh data and secondary data is the second hand
information. The source to collect primary data is questionnaire and the source to gather secondary
information are books, journal, magazine, online site and many more (Liamputtong, 2019).
Data analysis: Data analysis is the process of inspecting and measuring raw data in order to
gain useful information. This technique helps in achieving aim and objective in valuable manner
frequency distribution and thematic analysis. In the present investigation, researcher will be
selecting frequency distribution method as it will help in analysis numerical information in quite
easier manner.
Sampling: Probability and non-probability are the method for taking out sample from large
population. In the current research, investigator will be selecting probability sampling. The reason
for this is it will help in selecting respondent in equal and fair manner. The sample size for the
current investigation is 30 employees for ASDA (Roberts, Dowell and Nie, 2019).
Comments and agreement from tutor
Comments (optional)
I confirm that the project is not work which has been or will be submitted for another
qualification and is appropriate
Agreed Name: Date:
Comments and agreement from project checker (if applicable)
Comments (optional)
I confirm that the project is not work which has been or will be submitted for another
qualification and is appropriate
Agreed Name: Date:
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Olofsson, S., Hoveskog, M. and Halila, F., 2018. Journey and impact of business model innovation:
The case of a social enterprise in the Scandinavian electricity retail market. Journal of cleaner
production, 175, pp.70-81.
Helm, S., Kim, S.H. and Van Riper, S., 2020. Navigating the ‘retail apocalypse’: A framework of
consumer evaluations of the new retail landscape. Journal of Retailing and Consumer
Services, 54, p.101683.
Baptiste, M., 2019. No Teacher Left Behind: The Impact of Principal Leadership Styles on Teacher
Job Satisfaction and Student Success. Journal of International education and leadership, 9(1),
p.n1.
Leach, C., 2022. The FMCG Market: Where We’ve Come From, Where We Are Now, and the
Problem We Face. In How to Save the FMCG Industry (pp. 11-46). Palgrave Macmillan,
Cham.
Özgüç, S., Kaplan Serin, E. and Tanriverdi, D., 2021. Death Anxiety Associated With Coronavirus
(COVID-19) Disease: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. OMEGA-Journal of Death
and Dying, p.00302228211050503.
Sałek, W., 2021. Situation of British women’s magazines during the COVID-19 pandemic. Media-
Biznes-Kultura. Dziennikarstwo i komunikacja społeczna, (11), pp.141-153.
McTiernan, N., 2021. COVID-19 and the dynamics of digital transformation: Reshaping the fashion
industry (Doctoral dissertation, Dublin Business School).
Verdin, R. and O'Reilly, J., 2021. A gender agenda for the future of work in a digital age of
pandemics: Jobs, skills and contracts (No. 24). WSI Study.
Gerbaudo, P., 2020. The pandemic crowd. Journal of International Affairs, 73(2), pp.61-76.
Sileyew, K.J., 2019. Research design and methodology. In Cyberspace (pp. 1-12). Rijeka:
IntechOpen.
Leedy, P.D. and Ormrod, J.E., 2019. Practical research: Planning and design. Pearson. One Lake
Street, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458.
Cantrell, M.A., Mariani, B. and Lengetti, E., 2022. A Quantitative Research Study Protocol to
Advance Simulation Science in Nursing Education. Nursing Education Perspectives. 43(2).
pp.103-108.
Liamputtong, P. ed., 2019. Handbook of research methods in health social sciences. Singapore::
Springer.
Roberts, K., Dowell, A. and Nie, J.B., 2019. Attempting rigour and replicability in thematic analysis
of qualitative research data; a case study of codebook development. BMC medical research
methodology. 19(1). pp.1-8.
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Gantt Chart
Milesto
ne
Projectiv
e
Activities
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3
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M1 Project
formulatio
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Project
Planning
M2 Literature
Review
M3 Methodol
ogy
M4 Data
Collection
and
Analysis
M5 Discussio
n of the
results
M6 Report
writing
M7 Presentati
on of the
project to
the Board
of
Directors
Achievement based on Gantt chart (To be completed by students)
Week Activities to achieve planned milestones Tutor’s feedback
and date
W3 Problem formulation and Project Planning
Research Problem and background to the problem
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Research Topic
Research objectives
W7 Literature Review
Key sources of information
W11 Methodology
Choice of methodology
Sampling
Brief description of how data would be collected and analysed
W16 Data Collection and Data Analysis
Data collection
How it was collected
Advantages and disadvantages of the technique
Data Analysis
Technique used to analyse the data
Advantages and disadvantages of the technique
Interpret the results
W20 Discussion of the results
What do the results mean based on the literature reviewed?
Recommendations to solve the research problem
W23 Report writing
Appropriate structure
W24 Presentation of the project to the Board of Directors
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Research Ethics Approval Form
All students conducting research activity that involves human participants or the use of data
collected from human participants are required to gain ethical approval before commencing their
research. Please answer all relevant questions and note that your form may be returned if
incomplete.
For further support and guidance please see your respective Unit Tutor.
Before competing this form, we advise that you discuss your proposed research fully with
your Unit Tutor. Please complete this form in good time before your research project is due
to commence.
Section 1 Basic Details
Project title:
Student name:
Student ID Number:
Programme:
College:
Intended research start date:
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Section 2 Project Summary
Please select all research methods that you plan to use as part of your project:
(Copy and paste the tick where applicable)
Interviews:
Questionnaires:
Observations:
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