A Report on Management Levels, Challenges, and Strategies at Staples

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of management levels, challenges, and strategic implementations within Staples. It begins by exploring the core responsibilities of store managers and the various challenges they face, such as communication breakdowns, shifting mindsets, employee hiring, time management constraints, labor standard maintenance, and customer service issues. The report then delves into a critical discussion of store manager characteristics, emphasizing the importance of strategic implementation. It examines Porter's Generic Strategies, including cost leadership and differentiation, and applies Porter's Five Forces framework to assess the competitive landscape. The analysis covers supplier and buyer power, threats of substitutes, and the overall organizational structure. The report identifies obstacles to strategy implementation and concludes with recommendations for improvement. The study aims to provide insights into the management issues of Staples and suggest strategies to improve the company's working excellence.

Management Levels at Staples
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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Discuss the Challenging aspect of a Manager’s Job........................................................................3
Critical discussion with a view to characteristic of Store managers...............................................6
Current Organizational Structure...................................................................................................10
Obstacles of Strategy implementation at Staples...........................................................................11
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................12
References......................................................................................................................................14
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Introduction
Management of store operation is essential for all the business organisations in improving overall
performance as well as increase the sales volume. Nowadays the managers are now more
focusing on strategy implementation that helps them to manage the day to day operations in a
proficient manner (Ramanathan, Subramanian and Parrott, 2017). The main objectives of all the
business organisations are to improve financial profitability and expand the business in a foreign
market for the better brand image. Advancement of technology also provides the company huge
advantages in the store operation, and use of effective information system and key performance
indicators also helps management to ensure better quality and service leads to increase the
number of loyal customers (Ferguson et al., 2017). It is important for the management to
recognise the current position of the organisation and it also helps to understand the
organisational issues efficiently. Identification of the organisational problems helps management
to take drastic actions to recover its position.
This particular study usually focused on the management issues of Staples. The major
responsibilities of store managers are to make effective strategies to manage the workforce
perfectly (Subbarayalu et al., 2018). The managers are facing various challenges during
operation so that this study also signifies some strategic implementation that helps management
of Staples to improve the working excellence of that company leads grab the attention of more
customers.
Discuss the Challenging aspect of a Manager’s Job
Managers need to maintain the workforce effectively to improve overall organisational
performance (Ramanathan, Subramanian and Parrott, 2017). The managers are faced different
challenges such as lack of proper communications, Shifting mindset, hiring employees, lack of
time management, Labor standard management, setting proper goals and objectives for customer
service etc. for that reason management need to conduct training program with all the employees
and managers to enhance the company performance for better operation.
Lack of communication
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Communication between all the departments is essential to manage the overall organisational
operations efficiently. Lack of communication is the main cause of material misstatement, and it
can create different organisational issues in future. In Staples lack of departmental
communication generally reduce the overall performance of the stores (Chereau and Meschi,
2017). According to the viewpoint of Ferguson et al., (2017), communication is the primary steps
that help managers to solve the other organisational issues. Poor communication generally
obstructs the organisational efficiency. In present days, development of technology also
improved the overall communication systems, and without communication, it is not possible for
the employees to complete a work in a successful manner (Hill and Hill, 2017). It can also
reduce the overall efficiency of an organisation. Without effective communication skill, the
managers cannot motivate the employees, and high communicative and collaborative working
environment triggers organisational development (Moran and Morner, 2017). Implementation of
an advanced communication system in the workplace also provides the organisation with huge
competitive advantages in operating market. Improved communication also triggers
organisational innovations and research works leads to increase in sales volume as well as
financial profitability.
Shifting Mindset
The main focus of an employee is to accomplish the task effectively to achieve corporate goals.
The main focus of a manager is to motivate other employees to achieve their task perfectly but
shift the mindset of managers in other direction also demotivates the employees, and that also
hampers the overall organisational performance (Jones, Michelfelder and Nair, 2017). One of the
major responsibilities of managers is to guide and cooperate with the team members in a
pressurised situation, and it generally helps the overall team in fulfilling team goal leads to
effective performance (Badii et al., 2018). In Staple, the managers need to fulfil the basic
requirements of employees to manage the day to day operation correctly and cooperate with the
employees in the pressurised situation and provide motivation also increase the confidence level
of the employees.
Hiring Employees
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Hiring experienced employees in the organisation is another major challenge for managers.
Human Resource managers are responsible for hiring employees in the company (Dutse and
Aliyu, 2018). The competition in the job market has increased. In the United States, the rate of
jobless people is very low, and so it is very tough to get the experience candidates. For that
reason, managers need to take various strategies such as offer better opportunities and salaries
than other organisations to grab the attention of experienced candidate leads to effective
operation as well as quick organisational development (Sidhu and Mather, 2017). During the
hiring process, the managers need to take assessment and interviews to select the best one. Not
only educational qualification but identification of employee behaviour is also important to
maintain a good corporate culture that provides the employee's job satisfaction.
Time Management
Management of time during operation is essential for all the retail business organisation to
maintain the regular workforce proficiently. At the same time, complete the project before the
deadline is a huge challenge for all the managers. In staples, the management also needs to
maintain time in operating the retail stores to manage all the duties effectively (Greer, Lusch and
Hitt, 2017). Complete the work before deadline also helps managers to check the work perfectly,
and it also reduces the chances of mistake leads to getting validates outcomes from the projects.
Time is essential for all the business organisation for that reason the management needs to
implement various digital technologies to minimise the project time leads to get high benefits.
Maintain Labor Standards
It is another challenge for Human resource management. HR managers need to evaluate the
performance of each and individual employees and if any problem found than manager needs to
conduct training and skill development program to improve the employee standard. According to
research, it has been identified that the lack of efficient workers also reduces organisational
performance. Identify the problems and area of development for each employee is very tough
work for the managers so that implementation of leadership styles and technical implementation
will help management to gather performance report of individual staffs efficiently. Maintain
labour standard will help managers to ensure good quality services leads to get more positive
feedbacks from customers.
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Effective Customer Services
Customers generally want high-quality products and good services in affordable rate for that
reason it is essential for an organisation to maintain adequate customer service to attach the
customer psychologically with the brand (Greer, Lusch and Hitt, 2017). Managing customer
service is also a challenging task for the manager because managers generally deal with customer
complaints. The managers of staples also faced problems during service operation. The managers
also handled the situation by fulfilling each and individual requirements of the customer. So
these are the major problems faced by the managers of staples during operation of their retail
shops.
Critical discussion with a view to characteristic of Store managers
The primary responsibility of a store manager is to manage the overall operation of a store and
also maintain the workforce of a specific store (Porter et al., 2017). The management of workers
and the entire business is very difficult for that reason it is essential to implement various
strategies to get competitive advantages leads to effective management of the stores. The
strategies are described below to understand the situation better.
Porter’s Generic Strategies
Porter generic strategies also help the companies to get more competitive advantages in
operating market so that most of the business organisations are focused on this strategy (Moraa,
Senaji and Mbithi, 2017). There are three or four generic strategies such as lower cost,
differentiated strategy and focused strategy. An organisation generally selects two types of scope
to either cost leadership or differentiated strategy to get more advantages.
Cost Leadership Strategy
Cost leadership strategy generally signifies the lowest cost operations of an organisation that
provides low-cost advantages to the company (Ze et al., 2018). This particular strategy mainly
depends on size, efficiency, and scope of the organisations for that reason it is essential for an
organisation to recognize its scope and ability to select most leadership strategy otherwise it can
hamper the overall operations. It will be easier for manufacturing organisation to select the cost
leadership strategy effectively but the retail organisation cannot minimise the product price so
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that profit margin is average (Salari and Backman, 2017). In the case of Staples, the product
price is higher, but the product cost is fixed so that the profit margin of this organisation also
average.
Differentiation Strategy
Differentiation strategy mainly refers to the offerings of various types of unique products to the
customers that fulfil the requirements of customers. The products are different than general
products that mean competition is very low (Porter et al., 2017). The organisation also charged
hire for the uniqueness of the products. The quality mainly allows the company to select a higher
price for the product. According to the case study, Staples also provides the business
organisation different unique products and service that are valued by the customers and the
product price of this organisation also high so that selection of differentiation strategy will be
better for Staples. It is important to recognise some internal strength such as good research and
development, experienced product development team, strong sales team and organisational
reputation of the organisation before select this strategy (Ze et al., 2018). According to the case
study it has been recognised that Staples overall situation and brand image is high enough to
select this strategy efficiently. It also provides the organisation higher competitive advantages in
the international retail market.
Figure: 1 Porter’s Generic Strategies
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(Source: University of Cambridge, 2018)
Focused Strategy
Focused strategy refers to the combined set of actions that helps the organisation to deliver
products that serve the requirements of a specific competitive segment. The focused strategy
usually divided into two major segments such as a focused cost leadership strategy and focused
differentiation strategy (Salari and Backman, 2017). A staple can serve the business
organisations different and unique products that fulfil all the requirements of a specific market
segment. It generally signifies the small target regarding customer and market, and it provides
the organisation innovative ways to achieve the lower cost. Staple will get protection from
competition, and it will reduce the possibilities of shifting loyalty that means gain huge
advantages from the market.
Porter’s Five Forces
Michel Porter first introduces this fife forces Framework in, and this tools also helps managers in
analysing the competition of a particular business (Gure and Karugu, 2018). This powerful tool
also helps management to recognise the business environment perfectly. This particular structure
also recognises the overall structure of the industry.
Bargaining Power of Suppliers
Strong bargaining power of the supplier generally increases the price of raw materials, and raw
material quality is also low so that high bargaining power will improve the overall cost of Staples
leads to reduce profit margin (Lind, 2018). Supplier’s bargaining power mainly depends on some
buyers that means if the number of suppliers is low and the buyer is high then they use monopoly
strategy because the buyers don’t have the other option (Leal Filho et al., 2017). For that reason,
High bargaining power can hamper the overall operation of Staples.
Bargaining power of Buyers
The bargaining power of customer mainly depends on some customer and availability of
products that means if the number of customers are few and large products is available in the
market then buyers have the option to choose other retailers (Prins, 2017). High bargaining
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power of the buyers also can hamper the sales of an organisation. Sometimes the buyers are very
price sensitive, and they choose the best one at an affordable rate. In this case, Staples needs to
make unique products to avoid this threat.
Threats of substitute Products
It is one of the major threats of the organisations because some organisation can introduce the
same type of products at low price and that can grab the attention of many customers leads to
reduce sales volume as well as a substantial financial loss (Lind, 2018). At the same time, it will
be very tough for Staples to provide the customer high-quality product and service at a lower
rate, so that introduces of substitute product will increase the competition further. For that
reason, senior management of Staple needs to implement some innovative strategy to avoid this
threat.
Figure: 2. Porter’s Five Forces
(Source: SM Insight, 2018)
Threats of New Entry
The entrance of new similar company with a variety of products in affordable price also can
increase the level of competition in the market, and it will also reduce the number of customers.
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But the market entry cost is very high to that it is tough for the other organisation to enter in this
retail market (Prins, 2017). At the same time, new organisations need more brand image to
compete with existing organisations. So the risk is very low regarding the entrance of new
organisations.
Industry Rivalry
This particular force is one of the major determinants that signify the level of competition. The
same size competitors can hamper the overall business (Klyczek et al., 2017). For that reason,
proper research development is urgent to make the product differentiated to attract more
customers. The management needs to implement various innovative strategies to increase the
number of loyal customers and that will help staples to maintain its sales volume as well as
profitability effectively.
Current Organizational Structure
Staple is one of the largest office product organizations all over the world. The head office of this
company is in Framingham, Massachusetts. The sales volume of this company is increased over
date last twenty years, and profit margin also increased by 9%. This company operated its
business in 21 countries so that overall financial position is good enough to expand the business
in other countries. The main products of this organisation are machines, technological products,
promotional products etc. More than 61000 employees are currently working in this organisation.
According to research data it has been recorded that in the financial year 2016, revenue of this
organisation was $20.17 billion. The mission of this organisation is to be the leading office
product retailers all over the world, and this organisation wants to expand its business in other
countries to enhance its financial condition (Leal Filho et al., 2017).
Organizational Structure Advantages and Disadvantages
The structure of Staple generally divided into
three major parts such as North American
Commercial, North American Stores and
Online shops and Staples international store.
The North American commercial mainly
The implementation of this system also helps
this company to record specific information
with a view to financial transactions. This
particular system also assists the managers and
auditors to avoid material misstatement in
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repress the 33% of Staples business and North
American stores, and online shops represent
49% of staples business, and 18% of total
business is international business (Staples,
2018). At the same time, Staple mainly used
the Management action planning system in the
organization and the management and
departmental staffs mainly reviews this MAP
workbook.
financial reports. Divide the overall
organizational structure in three parts also
helps management to maintain day to day
workforce and to record all the information
efficiently (Morrow et al., 2007).
One of the major disadvantages is lack of
effective centralize operation. The
management can face problems due to lack of
effective communication between the
departments.
Staples mainly follow the hierarchical
organisation structure and management
organised the stores grouped into bigger
categories of a separate region. The vision of
this company is to serve the customer better
quality products and service to increase the
number of loyal customers (Blakeman, 2018).
The environmental record of Staple also good
for that reason the company has the
opportunity to expand the business in the
foreign market. The advertising segment of
staple also high enough to grab the attention of
many customers leads to more financial
profitability.
The hierarchical structure generally provides
benefits to both the employees and company. it
also helps Staples to maintain managerial
integrity leads to effective management
operations (Morrow et al., 2007). Diverse
workforce generally improves the skill and
knowledge of all the employees.
The major disadvantages of Hierarchical
organizational structure is lack of
communication between the department and it
also makes change slowly so that flexibility is
very poor.
Obstacles of Strategy implementation at Staples
The current organisational situation of Staple is good but the senior management needs to
implement some innovative strategies to trigger the overall sales of this organisation, and it will
help the organisation in efficiently maintaining the overall business (Klyczek et al., 2017). There
is different obstacle that company can face during implementation such as lack of resources, lack
of proper planning, poor skills of the team members and resistance to change process.
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Lack of Resources
Adequate resource is required for every business organization to manage day to day workforce
perfectly. During strategy implementation organization needs different resource such as both
technical resources and human resources (Blakeman, 2018). According to case study it has been
identified that organization is very poor in utilizing it resources and that generally hampers the
strategic implementation process.
Lack of Planning
The higher management needs to conduct a meeting and needs to make proper planning by
selecting suitable methodologies (Leal Filho et al., 2017). Selection of effective planning mainly
helps the organisation to recognise its basic weakness. For that reason implement of strategy
without preparation also increases the chances of future risk and fit can hamper the overall
organisational position.
Poor Team-Member Skill
It is vital for all the business organisation to recruit experienced staff in the organisation for
improving overall organisational performance as well as financial profitability (Prins, 2017). It
has been recorded that a lack of proper training and skill development program generally
hampers the overall position of Staples. The management needs to measure the performance of
each and individual employees and needs to provide training by requirements.
Conclusion
From above study, it has been identified that the management of Staples Group is facing
different challenges regarding the effective management of the organisation. So that implement
diverse strategy in the organisation generally provides the company with huge competitive
advantages in operating market leads to sustainable organisational development. Apart from that,
evaluation of Porter’s generic strategy and five forces will help this company to gain more
advantages by recognising the market environment effectively. At the same time, this
organization mainly follows hierarchical structure in the organization and the overall structure is
divided into three parts according to operations. This organizational structure also provides the
organization competitive advantages. Due this structure Staple also faced some problems so that
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implementation of strategic ideas and effective communication will help this organization to
improve further in this operating market. There is the different obstacle such as resistance in
change, lack of resources, lack of proper planning and decision making etc. that hampers
strategic implementation of Staples, so these strategies are essential to recover the organisational
position as soon as possible.
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