An Analysis of Leadership and Sainsbury's Internal Environment

This report provides an overview of Sainsbury's internal environment and leadership styles. It explores transformational leadership theory, highlighting the role of leadership in departments such as HR, marketing, and finance. The report also conducts a SWOT analysis, identifying Sainsbury's strengths (brand awareness, presence in multiple countries), weaknesses (low R&D investment, high turnover rate), opportunities (expansion in rural areas, increased innovation), and threats (competition, changing regulations). The conclusion emphasizes the importance of leadership in organizational decision-making and recommends improvements in leadership style by encouraging employee feedback and setting positive behavioral examples. References to relevant literature are included.

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INTRODUCTION TO BUSINESS
INTRODUCTION
Business environment is generally mixture of internal as well as external factors which impacts the
operations of organizations directly or indirectly. Sainsbury is retail organization being established in
1869 by John James Sainsbury and headquartered in London, U.K.
This poster gives a brief about leadership theory and internal environment of organization.
Leadership style
Transformational leadership
Leadership is basically the process of guiding as well as influencing behaviour and the activities of
others for accomplishing the specific task goal or objective. The most widely known theory of
leadership is transformational leadership. This is the theory in which leaders mainly works along with
teams for identifying the changes and for designing vision to accomplish goals. In this, leaders mainly
encourage the employees for innovation and helps in their growth (Birt and et.al., 2020). There are various
leadership styles which are followed by organizations like autocratic, participative, democratic
leadership, laissez-faire leadership. The leadership styel which Sainsbury uses is participative
leadership. In this, the management of Sainsbury solicit the input from employees and hence
encourages them to provide their feedback for the effective decision-making.
Departments and divisions
HR department
Although the scope of HR department is wide but the main role of HR department in Sainsbury is to
provide the effective training to employees and retain them and focus on workforce planning. Leadership
plays an important role within this department. The effective leaders in this department in Sainsbury drives
the productivity of employees and hence helps to build the positive environment within organization
(Brondoni,2018).
Finance department
The major role of finance department in Sainsbury is to manage the funds of organization and effectively
plan the expenditure of funds. Besides this, it is also responsible for managing the financial performance of
Sainsbury. Leadership has a great role to play in finance department in this organization. The leaders help
to take the strategic decision for company which will be beneficial for achieving financial goals of
company and provides the clear view of various opportunities and challenges.
Marketing department
Marketing department basically plays a great role within the organization and the
main role of this department is oversee the various sales activities of organization
and thus promote the products as well as take the brand message to the wider
audience. The leadership style as well as leaders plays a prominent role within this
department in Sainsbury. The style of leadership which leaders mainly adopts helps
to motivate the employees for attaining goals and objectives (Allen and Imrie,2016).
Leaders in Sainsbury have a crucial role in motivating as well as encouraging their
team members to attain the sales target. Besides this, leaders are also responsible for
managing the overall marketing budgets.

Internal environment
SWOT analysis
SWOT analysis is the model which helps the organizations in strategic planning by
identifying strengths, weaknesses, threats as well as opportunities.
Strength
The major strength of Sainsbury is its high brand awareness and brand image among
customers which has helped company to achieve competitive advantage. Due to its great
brand image as well as brand recognition. Sainsbury has enlarged its customer base and
thus has helped the company to achieve competitive position. Another strength is its
presence across various countries. Sainsbury is present in more than 42 countries that has
helped it to establish position in market. Due its wide presence, Sainsbury has established
the great economies of scale.
Weaknesses
The major weakness of Sainsbury which has dominated its functions and operations is its
low investment within research and development. The investment of Sainsbury is generally
below average in innovation due to which its innovation intensity is much low. Due its low
investment, company is not able to bring various innovative products as well as services for
customers which has somewhat affected its market position. Another weakness of
Sainsbury is its high turnover rate. In comparison to competitors like TESCO, the turnover
and attrition rate of Sainsbury is generally high. According to the report of 2019, the
turnover rate in Sainsbury has increased from around 32.5% to 43.2% (Allen and Imrie,
2016).
Opportunities
The biggest opportunity available to Sainsbury is expansion in the rural areas. As now even
the villagers have become brand conscious thus Sainsbury has the opportunity to expand its
operations and supply chain in rural areas. Thus, company has the opportunity to take their
brand message as well as their products in the rural areas and attract the customers. Another
opportunity is increasing investment in innovation. Company can increase its innovation
capability by investing heavily in research and development. Sainsbury can even invest a
great amount in building the new online platform and opening different sales channels
(Leadership Styles,2015).
Threats
The major threat which might hinder the position of Sainsbury in market is strong presence
of competitors like TESCO, Asda. Due to their great brand image and competitive
advantage, Sainsbury might face a brunt in market. Another threat for Sainsbury is the
changing legal regulations. As company operates in more than one country thus it remains
exposed to high political changes which might affect it negatively. Thus, this is the biggest
threat which might affect the competitive position of company and hinder its overall
CONCLUSION
It has been summarized that leadership plays an important role within
organization and thus affects the various departments of organization
like HR, Finance etc. Each and every organization adopts different
styles of leaders and the main advantage of leadership is that it helps
organization to take effective decision. Besides this, SWOT analysis is
the model which helps organization to analyse their various capabilities
(Brondoni, 2018). Through this, organizations are able to assess their
competitive position.
Recommendation
Sainsbury can improve its
leadership style by effectively
listening to the feedback of their
employees and what are their
viewpoints on a particular aspect.
Besides this, company can also
improve by changing its behaviour
and encouraging the employees to
give their suggestions by setting a
perfect example of behaviour (Birt
and et.al.,2020).
REFERENCES
Birt, J. and et.al., 2020. Accounting: Business reporting for decision
making. John Wiley & Sons.
Brondoni, S.M., 2018. Competitive business management and global
competition. An introduction. In Competitive Business Management
(pp. 21-42). Routledge.
Allen, C. and Imrie, R., 2016. The knowledge business: A critical
introduction. In The Knowledge Business (pp. 1-20). Routledge.
Online
Leadership Styles. 2015. [Online] Available through:
<http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/leader/leadstl.html>
SWOT Analysis. 2019. [Online] Available through:
<https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMC_05.htm>