E-Business Report: Officeworks' Use of AI for Competitive Advantage

This report examines Officeworks, an Australian retailer, and its e-business operations. It details the company's current operations, including its dominance in the stationery and office supplies market, online sales, and supply chain management. The report emphasizes the importance of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Officeworks' survival in a competitive market, particularly against companies like Amazon. It discusses various AI applications by Officeworks, such as integrating Google Assistant for voice-activated shopping and leveraging data analytics for improved customer experience and personalized services. The report highlights the benefits of AI in enhancing customer engagement, optimizing online sales, and reducing operational costs, ultimately providing a competitive edge. It also covers the implementation of advanced analytics and data-driven decision-making within the company, along with future recommendations for continued growth and sustainability.

Running Head: MANAGEMENT 0
E-BUSINESS

MANAGEMENT 1
Table of Contents
Introduction..............................................................................................................................2
Current operations of Officeworks.........................................................................................3
Important of Artificial Intelligence for survival of Officeworks.........................................4
How Officeworks use Artificial Intelligence..........................................................................5
Conclusions and Recommendations.......................................................................................7
References.................................................................................................................................8

MANAGEMENT 2
Introduction
Officeworks is Australia top supplier and retailer of office products and solutions for corporates,
education and home requirements and was incorporated in 1994. The parent corporation of
Officeworks is Wesfarmers Group. The company has a national footprint with functioning in more
than 160 retail stores across every territory and state. In addition, there are more than 7000 team
members in the country (officeworks.com.au, 2019). Through its update website, the company
offers more than 40,000 products.
Considering the company values, Officeworks is dedicated to helping consumers make greater things
happen by delivering the extensive product ranges at lowest prices. Most Officeworks stores
including following department such as print & copy, technology, stationery, furniture and art and
craft supplies. The major strength of the company is bulk purchase that offers the company an edge
over price. The company also has a strong online and phone sales presence and its products are
being offered on rent basis too.
In relation to opportunities, the company can emphasis more on school supplies and they can also
offer designer furniture for home and office use as it will help the company to include more
customer base in its targeted segment. Officeworks already established its strong presence in
Australia and therefore to achieve economy of scale, the company can try to reach its nearby
markets such as South East Asia and New Zealand. With regards to enlarging the product portfolio,
the company can also bring toys and other children entertainment section as it would draw the
interest of mothers in the household to purchase products from Officeworks.
This report discusses existing operations of Officeworks and why artificial intelligence is important
for Officeworks survival. It also discusses how Officeworks uses artificial intelligence to improve its
performance and marketing competitiveness. Here, it starts with the current operations of
Officeworks.

MANAGEMENT 3
Current operations of Officeworks
At present, Officeworks dominates Australia $12 billion stationery and office supplies segment and
while staking its claim on number of other categories. The company not only offers basic office
supplies like notepads, pens, paper and ink but also sells more than 30,000 different products
(McCauley, 2017). This means that the retailer has become a destination for a complete range of
shoppers also for both artists and mothers. In the technology category, drones also being flying out
the doors in align with digital cameras, educational robots and home security arrangements.
Currently, Officeworks has the greatest online sales in consideration with any Australian retailer i.e.
17 per cent.
In relation with operation management, Officeworks and GRA have developed new business
planning functions involving noteworthy improvements to system and processes integrated to
various IT platforms. For an organisation like demand planning each product at every place distinctly
associates to more than 1.8 million estimates on a everyday root and therefore, the company needs
both sophisticated business processes and planning systems (gra.net.au, 2013). Together with
Officeworks, customer service undertaking and various channels to marketplace in relation with
having a big issue, but one that provides great benefits. What Officeworks has attained will
substantially enhance the consumer experience while decreasing cost of operation and excess stock.
The competitive pressure from international companies like Amazon is required Officeworks to
become progressively receptive to consumer requirements and empowering a bottom-up demand
driven planning procedure in attaining this.
Officeworks also associated with GAINS to build the corporate planning functions comprising
necessary developments to systems and processes with the combination of GRA flagship planning
and forecasting applications and related IT platforms. At present, Officeworks offers consumers with
some effective option to shop i.e. through online, store or by smartphones. With having truly
demand driven supply chain, the company offers customers what they needed and at lowest prices
and through multiple channels to market. Partnership with GAINS helps support Officeworks to
enhance the consumer experience while decreasing cost of operation and excess inventory.
Other than this, Officeworks also implements MDM platform with Stibo Systems to benefit to
manage the product information considering its sales networks. This arrangement helps Officeworks
with a sole origin of data across the 20, 000 products it sells including the retail stores, online web
assets, direct mail, social media, mobile commerce applications and B2B sales networks (Talevski,
2015). After fully implementing the system, it will also enable Officeworks to develop, sustain and

MANAGEMENT 4
eliminate products through its corporation and channel of suppliers. It will also enhance consistency
and quality of data.
Considering all, Officeworks will be at the head of the enterprise who priory administer its data
supply chain, converting information about its products, staffs and its positions into strategic data to
win the encounter for consumer attainment and retention. The store currently helps as a second
fulfilment hub in Victoria and allow one day delivery to nearby region. It is very significant for
Officeworks as because more than 20% of complete sales now arise online (McIlvaine, 2019).
Important of Artificial Intelligence for survival of
Officeworks
With the rise of digital innovations and technologies, various opportunities are moving around the
enterprise enabling them to reach their customers in more effective way. Some of these
technologies are boosting the way of new pace of communication such as rise of social media and
artificial intelligence (Barrett et al, 2015). Integrating artificial intelligence is one of the most
innovative solutions in present communication patterns backed by various interfaces and algorithms
(O'Leary, 2013). Many business enterprises mainly at top scale are using this technology for shaping
consumer behaviour and perception to influence the decision making process. As per the report by
PwC, it is projected that AI will add $15.7 trillion to the global economy by 2030 and makes products
and services better (pwc.com, 2019). This also indirectly helps in the business survival of many
enterprises considering the competitive business scenario.
The brick and mortar retail industry are not in good moment right now and much of the disorder in
this sector comes from the fact that consumers are seeking a treating and richer retail experience
that decreases friction. Officeworks being operating in retail industry required to comprehend and
align themselves with the expectations of the customers in order to raise profitability and consumer
loyalty. One of the revolutionizing technology is AI that influences and revolutionize consumer
behaviour as data in retail industry is increasing exponentially in terms of value and variety and more
significantly – value. As per various studies, retailers that adopt AI today have the potential to
increase their operating margins by 60 per cent (Manyika, 2011). Before adopting artificial
intelligence model, Officeworks required to build meaningful dialogue with each individual consumer
that integrities their shoppers desired level and mode of engagement. Being an Omni-channel
organisation, AI can benefit Officeworks to shift their business forward with continuously refining,
improving and expanding its utility for retail and therefore, increase the company sustainability in
the longer run.

MANAGEMENT 5
With using AI in their internal environment, machine learning can help Officeworks to a great level
by using massive volume of data related to products and price and therefore AI advanced algorithms
can effectively gain information through various patterns and it finds relating to price, products and
sales (Davenport and Ronanki, 2018). Officeworks is running competition from Amazon which is a
multinational company having its own cloud infrastructure and already adopted AI technology and
products. Therefore, AI can help Officeworks to run numerous simulations with discovering patterns
where the most experienced products groups and companies cannot manage to catch (Dirican,
2015).
As Officeworks also has an online channel, implementing AI will also lead the company to boost its
online sale even with medium business model. The first benefits of integrating AI to the online
channel of Officeworks includes creating a customer-centric search by enabling developers to focus
on visual elements and leverage machine learning in conjunction with present pre-built models. This
will not only help business to survive in the competitive environment but also provides an edge over
the competitors with offering way to customers to easily find the required items or products. For an
online channel, personalisation is very important for undertaking multi-channel approach
(Koutsabasis et al, 2008). AI algorithms and engine constantly monitor all devices and develop
universal customer view. It can help Officeworks to view enables e-commerce retailers to provide a
unified consumer experience across all platforms and reduce a lot of steps for both sellers and
buyers.
The offline store in retail industry is also needed to be integrated with revolving technology such as
AI and RFID as many new entrants from global market are coming with new strategies to target
domestic market of particular segment. Officeworks have around 160 retail stores in Australia and if
the company invest both in Robotics and AI, it can offer customer a great way of satisfaction and
recognition. For example, tall robot assistance backed with AI algorithms can greet customers in
Officeworks stores and source relevant information and could also support employees in the story
related to inventory management. Such steps can help Officeworks to reduce operating cost and
source to the capital to other areas such as marketing and research and development. All this will
lead to providing competitive edge over its competitors and mainly Amazon who is planning to
dominate Australian market with its new office products and other categories.
How Officeworks use Artificial Intelligence

MANAGEMENT 6
The parent company of Officeworks i.e. Wesfarmers has developed an advanced analytics centre to
operates with its various departments and build out their advanced analytics capabilities. They also
identified the top three strategic priority for the group with an objective to develop the advanced
analytics team from zero to 20 data scientists, data engineers and business translators (Bennett,
2018). The key focus is to enhance data driven process of decision making among various
departments to enlighten innovation and creativity and being involved in everything including
machine learning models. It also includes gaining understanding and awareness of various aspects of
artificial intelligence.
In relation with capabilities of the research, Officeworks has added voice-activated device Google
Assistant to its shopping options in 2017, enabling consumers to add products to shopping lists and
place orders on its webpage (Samios, 2017). In collaboration with Google, such capabilities are used
with Google Home and Google Home Mini products and also with various android and iOS gadgets
with saying ‘Ok Google, speak to Officeworks’. With it, Australians can search more than 35,000
product on online channel and 165 stores across the nation. Some of the resulting conversation with
Officeworks goes something like this – “I need to buy printer paper” then it replies, “Okay, are you
after A3, A4, or A5 sized paper?”. It was also reported that customers have “responded positively to
Officeworks for office and home range” and this benefit the firm with more than 250% rise in sales in
the category annually.
Hence, embedding AI help Officeworks to allow consumers with adding of new products into their
shopping lists easily and look for relevant product information and even assessing availability of
product in the store. The consumer experience and e-commerce manager of Officeworks stated that
this integration of the retailers committed to delivering an “every-channel familiarity”. This shows
that they are offering consumer to engage with the brand anywhere and anytime and thus offers
accessibility aspect of marketing.
The head of operations in Officeworks also stated that the future of retail will be highly influenced by
voice as it is the next stage of how individual can explore and interact with brands. At present, 20%
of search on Google is made via voice and by 2020, it will grow to over 50% by 2020 Officeworks
launches voice driven Google Assistant service (Christian, 2018). As Officeworks use this medium
early, it will help the company to ahead of its competitors.

MANAGEMENT 7

MANAGEMENT 8
Conclusions and Recommendations
Officeworks is doing great in Australia with offering and increasing its products line to the
consumers. However, due to change in business scenario and competition across the retail industry
from last few decades, it is important for the company to undertake various steps to ensure its
sustainability while influence consumer shopping behaviour to both online and offline channel. AI
can have far reaching impact in improving business life cycle of an organisation and therefore also
could also benefit Officeworks to support in its long term growth. In this way, Officeworks can
effectively use AI technology to offer superior services to its customers and gain customer loyalty
with significant investment into the new technology.
In relation to recommendations, Officeworks can retain more part of the profit to invest in the
research and development division of the organisation as it could help the company to gain holistic
view of the business environment of Officeworks. Customers are also more engaged with
smartphone and mobile applications to connect with the online channel of any enterprise. This can
provide opportunity to use latest technological applications such as chatbots so that the company
can improve its consumer interaction point and ultimate boost the online sales. As Officeworks is
also facing competition from various international companies such as Amazon, it is recommended to
the company to go for market development strategy and expand into emerging countries which
have high potential for the new business and e-commerce segment. By going with this, Officeworks
can gain competitive edge over local or domestic firms offering same categories of products to the
clients or customers.

MANAGEMENT 9
References
Barrett, M., Davidson, E., Prabhu, J. and Vargo, S.L. (2015) Service innovation in the digital age: key
contributions and future directions. MIS quarterly, 39(1), pp.135-154.
Bennett, T. (2018) Business Buy-In Critical For AI Success, Says Wesfarmers Data Scientist [ONLINE]
Available from: https://which-50.com/business-buy-in-critical-for-ai-success-says-wesfarmers-data-
scientist/ [Accessed 27/09/2019].
Christian, R. (2018) 50% Of Google Searches Tipped To Be Via Voice By 2020 [ONLINE] Available from:
https://www.channelnews.com.au/50-of-google-searches-tipped-to-be-via-voice-by-2020/
[Accessed 27/09/2019].
Davenport, T.H. and Ronanki, R., 2018. Artificial intelligence for the real world. Harvard business
review, 96(1), pp.108-116.
Dirican, C. (2015) The impacts of robotics, artificial intelligence on business and
economics. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 195(1), pp.564-573.
gra.net.au. (2013) GRA Partners with Officeworks [ONLINE] Available from:
https://www.gra.net.au/news/2013/07/18-gra-partners-with-officeworks [Accessed 27/09/2019].
Koutsabasis, P., Stavrakis, M., Viorres, N., Darzentas, J.S., Spyrou, T. and Darzentas, J. (2008) A
descriptive reference framework for the personalisation of e-business applications. Electronic
Commerce Research, 8(3), p.173.
Manyika, J. (2011) Big data: The next frontier for innovation, competition, and productivity [ONLINE]
Available from: https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/mckinsey-digital/our-insights/big-
data-the-next-frontier-for-innovation [Accessed 27/09/2019].
McCauley, D. (2017) How Officeworks grew from a single store in Melbourne to a $1.5 billion ‘mini
Bunnings’ [ONLINE] Available from: https://www.news.com.au/finance/small-business/how-
officeworks-grew-from-a-single-store-in-melbourne-to-a-15-billion-mini-bunnings/news-story/
3051b93e53c4466501d8cd940d380970 [Accessed 27/09/2019].
McIlvaine, H. (2019) Officeworks’ massive new store was designed with online shoppers in mind
[ONLINE] Available from: https://www.insideretail.com.au/news/officeworks-massive-new-store-
was-designed-with-online-shoppers-in-mind-201903 [Accessed 27/09/2019].

MANAGEMENT 10
officeworks.com.au. (2019) About Us [ONLINE] Available from:
https://www.officeworks.com.au/information/about-us/who-we-are [Accessed 27/09/2019].
O'Leary, D.E. (2013) Artificial intelligence and big data. IEEE Intelligent Systems, 28(2), pp.96-99.
pwc.com. (2019) Highlights [ONLINE] Available from: https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/issues/data-and-
analytics/publications/artificial-intelligence-study.html [Accessed 27/09/2019].
Samios, Z. (2017) Officeworks launches voice driven Google Assistant service [ONLINE] Available
from: https://mumbrella.com.au/officeworks-launches-voice-driven-google-assistant-service-487185
[Accessed 27/09/2019].
Talevski, T. (2015) Officeworks implements MDM platform [ONLINE] Available from:
https://www.arnnet.com.au/article/574754/officeworks-implements-mdm-platform/ [Accessed
27/09/2019].