Business Decision Analytics: MGT602 JB Hi-Fi Case Study and Analysis

This case study examines the operational challenges faced by JB Hi-Fi, including competition from online retailers like Amazon and the integration of The Good Guys. It analyzes the decision-making processes and tools employed by the company, such as cost-benefit analysis, SWOT analysis, and market research, in response to these challenges. The analysis covers various aspects, including online identity verification, employee well-being, and job training. The study also recommends strategic approaches like emphasizing market research, digital marketing, and employee flexibility. The document provides insights into decision-making models, including decision trees and playback analysis, and their application in addressing the challenges of competition, employee morale, and productivity within the organization.

JB HIFI
Think of 3 Challenge scenarios
 Direct Competition with Harvey Norman
 Competition from online stores such as eBay, Amazon, TaoBao
 Employee’s emotional well-being and on-going job training
About us
JB Hi-Fi faced two main challenges in the past year in terms of operations management, firstly
the entry of Amazon into the market and, secondly the incorporation of The Good Guys worth
$70 million. JB Hi-Fi tried to protect the sales and market shares by letting go on the gross
marginal benefits in the short run, but the question is whether, this plan would sustain in future
as well. Amazon is fairly new to the market and initially started with a low stand but, it will still
be a strong competitor, especially with electronic goods, if it upgrades offers and products.
Though JB Hi-Fi has been successful in implementing retail strategies quite well in the past, still
it needs to be cautious with Amazon, being a giant in retail business. JB-HI Fi is taking a low
stride in implementing the business model to The Good Guys and has reshuffled a new team with
store managers, executive staff and adapted novel remuneration policies. However, if it the
above plan is not successful will have to face some loss. Low price and brand loyalty business
model of JB Hi- Fi can easily be comparable to other companies like Harvey Norman.
Decision making tools and techniques.
Decision making is a very much essential and necessary aspects as well as it refer to the complex
process. It totally depends upon the decision makers by which they can select their own criteria
with effective quantitative techniques which are mainly used to improve and correct overall
decision making quality within the organization. To run a business it requires the ability to create
a good decision making skill. If a wrong decision is taken towards a decision it can affect
wrongly on the business. It is very important on the side of the business owners to take decision
as it constitute certain weigh and continually improve the style of decision making skills. There
are few steps that are followed for an effective communication:
 The choice of alternative
 Weight evidence
 Identify the decision making facility
 Taking corrective actions
 Review the decision and importance
With the help of basic principles the sales manager takes the essential decision for the
business head to take corrective action against any task. The different tools and technique are

used to make general options. The representation are many in many procedure like graph,
carts and models or a combination of these can be uses. Whereas a decision making matrix is
used to evaluate the choices of a decision. With the help of the matrix it is easy to evaluate all
the options to take a decision. While using the matrix or creating a graph or table, all the
options in the first column and all the factors affecting are affected in the first row. In order
to make the decision more effective the challenges faced by JBHIFI in comparison from
other online stores is the absence of their online identity verification (Poveda, 2017).
On the view of the operational manager the decision making tool that is preferred is the
cost benefit analysis. In this decision making tool it consist of the access of cost and the
potential benefits association with different course of action and selecting the action which
results in greater net benefit.
On the prospect of HR manager the analysis of SWOT analysis is important. The
decision is taken on the strategic planning on assessing the strength and weakness of the
business environment and threats and opportunities that are too implemented to reduce the
weakness into strength. It allows the manager to plan and think in the presence of new
competitors and create impact for new generation regulation.
The marketing manager used the market research tool to gather information about
certain task. Such as the preference of potential customers, the current size of the market,
presence of competitors and the state which it is catering its services.
Retrospective decision model can be a suggestion for the business to focus on how the
decision can be made to the makes of the strategies. The attempt of rationalization is the
choice that is made after the business head that they have been made and attempts are made
to justify the decision. This particular model has been developed by Per Solberg. The
inventor of this model made it an observation regarding the job choices with the processes of
graduating the organization and noted that in many cases the candidate identified implicit the
favor. Later the students continued to search for additional alternatives and quickly selected
the best alternatives (Kushal, Ravishankar & , 2010).
The total process is justified through the excuse of scientific rigor that is the decision
which had already been made. The individual candidate becomes convinced that he the
employee is acting rationally and taking a reasonable decision on the important task of the
business organization. The decision making facility as a sales manager in regards to the
working environment of the online store leads to increased employee morale, commitment
towards the organization and engagement with work.
The decision towards the improvement of the production process is taken by designing
and segregating the work among the different level of employees according to the working

ability and skills. The ability to work under the qualified staff during the working hours will
help the employee to learn the best. The innovative technique and procedure directs the
employee to get trained and perform the given task appropriately (Wirth, 2007).
Recommendations
It is a recommendation on part being a business to use the SWOT analysis because it
brings forth the market decision based on the strength, weakness, opportunities and threat. to
use the above model as it helps in a part of the integral organization, different activities can
be undertaken such as outdoor games, team sports, gym membership and exercise groups.
These minute efforts of the company can guarantee the permanent work role of the
employee. The decision towards the employee working hours is made more flexible and the
opportunity of more experiments are permitted and are given scope of multi-tasking.
Similarly other online stores sell the same product but at a lower price which creates a
competition from one online store to another. As a point of a sales manager the decision of
emphasizing a strategy that would enable to shine brighter than the competitors. It is
important to analyze the products which are in demand and to remove the outdated products.
There are few techniques and tools of decision making, those are mentioned below:
Decision Trees: It mainly refers to the tree-shaped diagrams which is generally used to
identifying the proper action in order to show the statistical probability (Methlie, 1995.).
Playback Analysis: Generally it needed lot of time for the investing fund in order to grab break-
even point into the particular project.
According to my opinion decision making tree is the best approach for analyzing the effective
and possible decisions within the company.

Business Plan:
It is known as the description of the future which shows the HR manager of an organization how
they can make plan for particular aspect.
Target market: According to this, HR manager of an organization conduct the survey for
collecting and gathering lot of information in a proper way.
Operations: In this, HR manager makes effective and appropriate plan to identifying their
essential ways for attaining future goals (Sharma, Mithas and Kankanhalli, 2014).
Due to this business plan aspects HR manager face different threats like online shopping and
competitors as well, so that in order to overcome these threats HR manager is required to make
good strategically plan and also needed to apply unique ideas to execute their plan accordingly.
According to Challagalla, (2014), the role of Marketing declares the fundamentals of each
organization, such fundamentals and principles are based on real experiences and in the current
situation the company is in, providing support and guidance to the organization with making
decision. Marketing is a crucial tool which is able to offer a mutual approach involving the entire
organization in the act of decision making. Just emphasizing that the marketing doctrine seeks to
guide all the heads responsible for making decisions in the company in a concise, serious and
principally consistent manner.
An action that must be implemented is through research and analysis, JB HIFI faces large
competitors, and one of the ways to get to know the competitor better (directly or online) is
through research, it is necessary to discover the maximum information and be aware of the plans
of the competition, what your campaigns, strategies, have a database with relevant information
such as customer feedback, anything useful and relevant to know that can put you a step ahead of
the competition.
Digital marketing has arrived with everything, is the great trend, and has several advantages, is
more accessible than other media, making it quite attractive, is measurable, where you can detail,
analyze and follow results, feedbacks, data, unlike the most media which is very limited. We will
make use of social media to promote our business and our products through attractive, effective
and targeted campaigns. So we will detect our hits and also errors. We will basically invest
heavily in social media in such a creative way that it engages our audience by getting closer to
them.
1.Competition faced from online store
The challenges faced by JBHIFI in comparison from other online stores is the absence of their
online identity verification. When the visitors visits the website the portal is not customized and

the information which is available is not corresponding enough. As a sales manager of an
organization the facility of cash on delivery should be implemented. In the competitive
environment the organization should study the online market first and design a strategic planning
of production .
2. Employee’s emotional well-being
The issues that has been identified with the employees of the organization are the working hours
and an exposure to different function. The monotonous work is not always appreciated by all the
employee and the preference is towards handling and working with different task. Being a
representative body of the company the decision towards the employee working hours is made
more flexible and the opportunity of more experiments are permitted and are given the scope of
multi-tasking.
3. On-going job training
The problem recognized in the area of on-going job training is the decreasing level of the
productivity and manufacturing. The reason for low productivity is because the new employee
are not trained as fully-trained or experienced employee and as a result the productivity
decreases . The decision towards the improvement of the production process is taken by
designing and segregating the work among the different level of employees according to the
working ability and skills.
REFERENCE
Books and Journals
Challagalla, G., Murtha, B., & Jaworski, B. (2014). Marketing doctrine: A principles-based
approach to guiding marketing decision making in firms. Journal of Marketing, 78(4), 4-20.
doi:10.1509/jm.12.0314
Methlie, M.R.K.L.B., 1995. ’Knowledge–based Decision Support Systems-With Applications in
Business. Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Sharma, R., Mithas, S. and Kankanhalli, A., 2014. Transforming decision-making processes: a
research agenda for understanding the impact of business analytics on organisations.
Trkman, P., McCormack, K., De Oliveira, M.P.V. and Ladeira, M.B., 2010. The impact of
business analytics on supply chain performance. Decision Support Systems, 49(3), pp.318-327.

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