Organizational Development Case Study: Coles Supermarket Analysis

This case study analyzes the organizational development challenges faced by Coles Supermarket, a leading grocery retailer in Australia. The study examines the increasing competition, particularly the rise in customer bargaining power, and its impact on profit margins. It explores the need for strategic changes, including restructuring, democratic leadership implementation, and the formation of a dedicated change management department. The research objectives include analyzing key problems, implementing effective management tools, and providing recommendations for organizational development. The findings suggest the development of a strong HR policy, intensive training programs, online strategies to compete with rivals, direct engagement with farmers, and product differentiation to sustain market presence. The study utilizes secondary research and references various academic sources to support its analysis and recommendations, aiming to improve customer satisfaction, increase profit, and achieve operational excellence.

Company introduction
 Coles Supermarket owned by Wesfarmers is leading grocery retailers in Australia
 Although Coles is having enough profitability to sustain in the market, but increasing
competition raise a threat for it’s constant profit margin (David and David, 2016).
 The company has been facing competition in the market and it leads to have increase in the
bargaining power of the customer (Hübner, Holzapfel and Kuhn, 2015).
 As a result, the customers ask for more discounts and better price deals. It leads to have
minimal profitability.
 Now with diminishing profit margin, it is getting difficult to sustain. Now they have to take
some steps toward organizational development to make a fair environment (Ansoff et al.,
2019).
Research objectives
 To analyze the key problems and business challenges faced by Coles
 To ensure effective implementation of management tools to provide effective
recommendations for visible organizational development.
 Mission of the organization is to gain customer satisfaction along with increasing profit and
operational excellence.
Introduction
 Competition amongst the companies has increased.
 Organization needs to develop its strategies to bring change (Morschett, Schramm-
Klein and Zentes, 2015).
 It is a prime responsibility of management to take an appropriate strategic steps to
make organization more visible, flexible a sustainable in the industry.
 The objective is to implement change in the given industry to cop up with the
competition (Jenkins and Williamson, 2015).
Organizational Development
Data collection and analysis
 Data is collected with using secondary research data collection methods. Past
researches and related journals were referred to prepare the study (Hitt,
Ireland and Hoskisson, 2016).
 Coles’ market is facing competition from its local suppliers and hence the
customer seeks for better pricing deal
 Change the organizational structure to gain better clarity about the power
that one holds in the company (Knox, 2015).
 It was found out that democratic leadership will be beneficial at the time
when we aim to implement change in the organization (Lasserre, 2017).
 Coles allowed executing some organizational changes which enables them to
sustain in the market.
 It has been advised to form a new department which would specifically work
for changes (Rashid and Ghose, 2015).
 Several training programs and policies are being analyzed which may bring
positive change in the organization (Goworek, McGoldrick and McGoldrick,
2015).
Findings and implications
 To develop a strong multi level HR policy that will help to gain effective knowledge
and work from the employees (Gao and Su, 2016).
 To start intensive training program to bring and execute the change.
 To develop an online portal and strategies the move against the immediate rivals such
as Amazon (Rosenbaum-Elliott, Percy and Pervan, 2015).
 To deal with farmers directly in order to minimize cost and increase customer discounts
(Goffin and Mitchell, 2016).
 To differentiate the product based on price and quality in order to sustain in the market
(Morden, 2016).
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