Business Case Study: An Analysis of Wesfarmers' Strategies

This case study examines Wesfarmers, an Australian company specializing in retail, chemicals, and mining. It highlights the company's commitment to sustainable operations, environmental and social responsibility, and its response to global challenges like climate change. The analysis covers various aspects of Wesfarmers' business, including its approach to community impact, employee welfare, supplier relationships, and consumer product safety. The company actively manages greenhouse gas emissions, supports the Paris Agreement, and adjusts to climate change impacts on its operations and supply chains. Furthermore, the study emphasizes Wesfarmers' long-term value creation through its contributions to shareholders, communities, and employees. The case study also discusses the company's strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities, emphasizing its online sales, customer offers, and commitment to environmental and social responsibility. The document references various studies and reports to support its analysis of Wesfarmers' corporate governance and sustainability performance.

Running head: CASE STUDY ON WESFARMERS
Case Study on Wesfarmers
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1CAES STUDY ON WESFARMERS
Wesfarmers Limited is one of the most famous Australian Company, which is
headquartered in the Western part of Australia, specialising in the retail sectors as also in case of
the chemicals, fertilizers, safety products, coal mining and so on. The business of Wesfarmers is
resilient and the operations as well as the global competition are necessary to be maintained in
case of the outside competition. The organisation is committed to operating in a sustainable
manner and the environmental as well as the social responsibilities of the company are taken
extremely seriously by the company. The different aspects of the business in which the
organisation specialises in are equally important to the authorities in order to remain the global
supergiant it already is and also aims to improve the future performances in order to ensure that
the business is sustainable in the long term. The company authorities as well as the workers are
never undeterred by challenges and perceive them as every opportunity to grow (Jones, Comfort
and Hillier 2014).
The organisation is committed to managing the community as well as the environmental
impact along with the effects on the community. The company provides safe and comfortable
workplaces for the employees. The people working with the organisation are always provided
with opportunities to increase the quality of their overall job performance. The work
environment is inclusive and gender diversity is also an important part of it (Wood, Tony, and
Carter 2013). Strong as well as respectful relationships with the suppliers are encouraged in the
organisation and it also takes full responsibility for the products it sources and the relationships
with the suppliers. The relationships are maintained in a way to always positively contribute to
the communities of operation. The consumers are also provided with safe products so that the
company does not face any complaints from that sector. The intensity of the emissions related to
the business of the organisation is reduced as much as possible in order to have no amount of

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impact on the climate and the changes in the climate might be controlled to a certain extent. The
wastage is also reduced, along with all these requirements the corporate governance of the
organisation is maintained at all times (Daley 2012).
The organisation acknowledges that the World is changing due to the advent of newer
technologies and climate changes of significant magnitude. The rising temperatures, shortage of
water as well as the scarcity of the food supplies are affecting the people (Niesche 2014). Unless
the issues are addressed soon enough, they will severely impact the environment as well as the
public. In order to ensure that the risks and their management will have economic, social as well
as environmental benefits, the company works towards the common goal. The organisational
divisions respond to the climate changes in two specific ways. At first, the green house gas
emissions are managed actively as well as monitoring is done by the company. The cases in
which the emissions can be reduced are done as soon as possible (Islam, Azizul, Jain, and Haque
2016). The organisation always aims to understand the specific nature of the risks that are
created by the climatic change for the businesses and tries to solve the risks immediately. The
Australian commitment under the Paris Agreement towards a global agreement to limit the
magnitude of global warming is supported by Wesfarmers. They support that the global warming
should be kept 1.5-2 degrees Celsius above the pre industrial levels. The organisation believes
that the industry as well as the governments should work together in order to achieve the positive
outcome. The long term policy certainty is a pre-requisite for the decarbonisation to occur
efficiently as well as affordably. The company aims to improve the greenhouse gas efficiency of
their operations in order to reduce their own business costs as well as risks as also the
contribution to the climate change mitigation the company is always responsible as well as
efficient (Akbar, Suraiyah, and Ahsan 2014).

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With the growth of the global population, the continued development of the emerging
economies depends on the access to the affordable energy. Renewables as well as the lower-
emission fossil fuels are to form an integral part of the generation of the energy mix throughout
the transition to a low emission of the global economy.
The company adjusts to the climate change in order to manage the increased weather
volatility, the extreme weather events, the higher average temperatures, as also the vdriuer
climates may all possess the potential to impact the operations as well as the supply chains in a
variety of ways. The focus was increased on the robustness of the businesses against the climate
changes as well as its integration. The business continuity plans are essential in order to ensure
that regions will get supplies even in times of extreme weather conditions. The company ensures
that biodiversity as well as flora and fauna are protected, in order to meet the conditions for the
environmental approval. The company also successfully maintains its responsibility towards the
maintenance of the natural resources. The investment in the coal assets is responsible as well as
all the standards are maintained. Apart from reducing their own greenhouse gas emissions, the
customers are also assisted by organisation in avoiding the harmful emissions of the greenhouse
gases (da Silva 2012).
In addition to this, the Wesfarmers organisation is committed to creation of the value for
the shareholders, communities as well as employees for more than a century. The long term
value creation is possible in case a positive role in played in the communities served by the
organisation. The sustainability as well as social responsibility consists understanding as well as
managing the ways in which the community is impacted. It is also ensured that value will be
created in future. The company is committed to minimising the own footprint as well as
delivering the solutions which assist customers as well as the community to do the same. The

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continuous improvement of the company’s performance is evident from the sustainability
performance of the organisation.
The organisation being a market leader is always under the scanner for any type of
critical decision they take. Since the experiences related to the Australian areas are limited, the
low geographic presence acts against the company. On the other hand, strengths in the
organisation include the sales through online formats, the special offers as well as discounts in
order to suit the customers and also huge number of stores.
Opportunities for citizens of Australia are provided by the Wesfarmers and more than
half of their created wealth is distributed as salaries, wages as well as in case of employee
benefits. The greatest competitive advantage of the company lies in their services made available
to the people and also the contribution to their careers.
The company uses the water resource as well as manages the waste responsibly as the
reduction of the waste helps in creating environmental as well as business benefits for the
organisation’s different divisions. Wesfarmers participates in the surveys related to carbon
emission and also the surveys related to the forests in order to show their responsibility towards
the environment. There are several instances of non-conformity to the environmental laws, but in
case of Wesfarmers no major harm, injury or prosecution has been reported.
The principles which the company aims to follow comprise social, economic,
environmental as well are consistent with the principles of integrity, honesty, fairness as well as
respect. It is essential for every worker and individual in the Wesfarmers Company to act with
honesty, integrity, and they should also be accountable for all sorts of decisions. The
organisation’s responsibility to all the shareholders as well as the financial markets needs to be

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maintained at all times which is followed by the Company without any scope for complaint. It is
always imperative to maintain the privacy as well as the confidentiality of the information
pertaining to the business records of the organisation. The conflicts which might arise in the
company due to different sorts of interests need to be managed at all times to ensure smooth
running of the company. The authorities always ensure that these factors are kept in mind at all
times. The resources of Wesfarmers should not be misused at any time and it is always ensured
that the information systems are kept safely and not tampered with. The business relationships
should be maintained at all levels which in reality are always maintained.
From the available sustainability reports as well as the relevant information on the social
as well as corporate responsibility, it can safely be said that the Wesfarmers organisations
maintains all the required parameters for being a global supergiant. It needs to maintain its
operations in a similar way in order to retain the position as well as the requirements necessary to
balance the environmental as well as the social needs. The climate changes and their impact also
should not be ignored.

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References:
Akbar, Suraiyah, and Kamrul Ahsan. "Analysis of corporate social disclosure practices of
Australian retail firms." International Journal of Managerial and Financial Accounting 6, no. 4
(2014): 375-396.
da Silva, Matthew. "A broad business challenge-Sustainable Company of the Year." Ethical
Investor 98 (2012): 14.
Daley, Jason. "THE GAME-CHANGERS." Entrepreneur-Irvine (2012): 92.
Islam, Muhammad Azizul, Ameeta Jain, and Shamima Haque. "A preliminary analysis of
Australian Government’s Indigenous reform agenda ‘Closing the Gap’and corporate
accountability." In Key Initiatives in Corporate Social Responsibility, pp. 341-354. Springer
International Publishing, 2016.
Jones, Peter, Daphne Comfort, and David Hillier. "Environmental and Social Programmes and
Rapidly Growing Retailers." Economia Seria Management17, no. 1 (2014): 5-17.
Niesche, Christopher. "Creating a future of opportunities." Company Director30, no. 8 (2014):
16.
Wood, Tony, and Lucy Carter. "Shock to the system." Grattan Institute, December (2013).