Leadership, CRM Innovation, and Idea Generation at Woolworths

This report examines the role of leadership in driving Customer Relationship Management (CRM) innovation at Woolworths, a leading Australian supermarket chain. It discusses Woolworths' CRM innovation strategy, highlighting challenges such as the absence of a core CRM team and the importance of defining CRM strategy processes. The report contrasts shared leadership approaches, which foster innovation, with transactional leadership styles, which may hinder it. Key principles for CRM success are outlined, including strategic alignment, proper application, defining assessable advantages, considering total cost of ownership, and choosing a suitable partner. The report also explores processes for idea generation, such as brainstorming and mind mapping, and the importance of transparent evaluation of ideas, emphasizing the need for alignment with strategic priorities and clear evaluation criteria. The analysis provides insights into how Woolworths can leverage leadership to enhance its CRM system and maintain its competitive edge in the Australian retail market.

LEADERSHIP IN BUSINESS
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Description of Innovator and
Innovation
 Global organizations are contesting intensified
competition and challenges in attaining competitive
advantageous position in the market(1).
 Woolworths renowned as leading supermarket chain
of grocery and fresh food products in Australia
comprises of several loyalty schemes and strategies
for successfully maintaining its market share and
position in the Australian retail market.
Woolworths.com.au. 2018. Woolworths.Com.Au.
https://www.woolworths.com.au/.

CRM innovation strategy
 CRM innovation strategy can be
implemented systematically in order to
raise consumer-related facts and
information.
 These newly developed ideas will further
align new product development (NPD) with
marker demands and needs, further
reducing new product rates.
 Globalized companies are able to
demonstrate extensive reaction to the
demands of buyers who seek new product
innovation.

Challenges experienced in CRM
innovation strategy
Absence of core CRM team- Lack of major CRM team is
regarded as one of the crucial challenge for Woolworth’s is
launching CRM strategy.
However the organisation must employee of course CRM team
which works with the organisation employees, stakeholders,
customer support executive, senior managers along with end
users in order to essentially understand the requirements and
demands.

Continuation
 Defining the CRM strategy processes-The
process to successfully apply efficient CRM
should be highly inclusive to guarantee the
success and attainment of the proposed CRM
project. Woolworths must practice to efficiently
create universal repositories that is accessible
to all which stores all process definitions.

Leadership approach
fostering innovation
 Shared leadership approach- It is essential to
consider that collective and distributed
leadership approach tend to pose critical
challenge to the assumption of formal and
dominant leadership techniques that signified
‘an individual in charge and the others will
follow”.
 However this form of leadership approach has
been identified as a self motivated and highly
interactive factor for employees. Thus facilitating
one another towards the attainment of collective
goals.

Leadership approach
hindering innovation
 Leaders promoting transactional leadership
style is viewed as approaches to sustain
things on pathway during implementation
with low accuracy rate for the stimulation of
creative and innovative ideas.
 Thus incremental innovations might have
developed the propensity to be better
regulated by transactional leaders where as
radical innovations might be led by
transformational leaders in a developed
manner.

Principles of CRM success
 Principle 1- CRM is a strategy
 Woolworths with the purpose to modernize its CRM system must consider
that CRM will continue as an attainable business approach which seeks
improvised strategic alignment of business processes (2).
 Principle 2- Proper Application of CRM innovation success
Woolworths must develop rising value from its CRM innovation method in
order to standardize, modify and refine these processes. In certain cases,
Woolworths is enabling itself to leverage its CRM method to systematize
conformity with shifting regulations, policies and extending the value of its
investment.
Rodriguez, Michael, Robert M. Peterson, and HayaAjjan. "CRM/social
media technology: impact on customer orientation process and
organizational sales performance." In Ideas in Marketing: Finding the
New and Polishing the Old, pp. 636-638. Springer, Cham, 2015

Principles of CRM success
 Principle 3- Define assessable CRM Advantages
Successfully shaping the effect of CRM system of any organization, baselines for fundamental
business assessment measures are required to be designed as an initial point
 Principle 4 Consider Total Cost of Ownership
Enterprise application software costs can be prohibitive to some companies as the major proportion of cost are
‘upfront’ and license fees product, services and induction. All of these however are incurred before the
software illustrates measurable and evaluative business outcomes.
 Principle 5- Choosing suitable partner
CRM solution that corresponds a company's requirements is one of the essential features for applying CRM
strategy. Implementation and supporting a CRM system is further identified as a vital and sizeable project
along with the factors, which in its achievement must be extended beyond the system to the CRM Company
with along with the kinds of supporting services they provide (3).
Jaiswal, Neeraj Kumar, and RajibLochanDhar. "Transformational leadership,
innovation climate, creative self-efficacy and employee creativity: A multilevel
study." International Journal of Hospitality Management 51 (2015): 30-41.

Processes for Idea
Generation
 Brainstorming-This method mostly involved producing a considerable number
of solution for a specific idea with a substantial emphasis on the series of ideas
produced by the innovators in the organisation (4).
 Mind mapping-This method is identified as a graphical method for
visualization of connections between several sections of information and ideas.
In such process, each fact or idea is documented and then related to innovative
ideas to its negligible or major factor idea by constructing an important network
of relationships.
Kalargiros, Emmanuel M., and Michael R. Manning. "Divergent
thinking and brainstorming in perspective: Implications for
organization change and innovation." In Research in
organizational change and development, pp. 293-327. Emerald
Group Publishing Limited, 2015.

Processes for Idea
Evaluation
 Transparent evaluation of ideas- Regardless of the Ideas
which being appraised Woolworth’s must significantly attempt
to make the valuation of ideas through utmost uniqueness
among the decision makers and employees contributing in the
ideation. These metrics are used for measuring ideas must be
associated with Woolworths’ strategic as well as applied
priorities. Clear evaluation of ideas will play an essential role
for supporting employees’ answerability and directing into
prominence of company’s business procedure.
 Evaluation criteria method-Organisations like Woolworths
must aim to cooperate between idea valuations and practice
simple assessment standards like two dimensional effort scale
to circumvent any kind of multifaceted ideas which are likely to
prejudice evaluation towards critical ideas.

Bibliography
 Jaiswal, Neeraj Kumar, and RajibLochanDhar. "Transformational leadership,
innovation climate, creative self-efficacy and employee creativity: A
multilevel study." International Journal of Hospitality Management 51
(2015): 30-41.
 Kalargiros, Emmanuel M., and Michael R. Manning. "Divergent thinking
and brainstorming in perspective: Implications for organization change
and innovation." In Research in organizational change and development,
pp. 293-327. Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 2015.
 Rodriguez, Michael, Robert M. Peterson, and HayaAjjan. "CRM/social media
technology: impact on customer orientation process and organizational
sales performance." In Ideas in Marketing: Finding the New and Polishing
the Old, pp. 636-638. Springer, Cham, 2015
 Woolworths.com.au. 2018. Woolworths.Com.Au.
https://www.woolworths.com.au