Woolworths Limited: Change Management Analysis Report MMH356

This report provides an analysis of change management concepts and theories within Woolworths, an Australian supermarket chain. It identifies the need for change due to competitive pressures and declining share prices. The report discusses interventions such as EziBuy and Fly Buys (Woolworths Rewards) aimed at improving customer experience and employee engagement. It also touches on the importance of technology in driving organizational growth and the challenges faced by Woolworths in maintaining customer satisfaction and executive trust. The analysis emphasizes the need for Woolworths to adapt its management practices and organizational culture to ensure long-term sustainability and profitability, highlighting the interventions to address operational inefficiencies and regain customer loyalty.

Running ead C A MA A MH : H NGE N GE ENT 0
Change Management
9/7/2018

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Executive Summary
Woolworths is considered as a grossing retailer amongst the top-20 retailers in the world. The
company accounts for almost the 80% of the retail market in Australia. In other it can be
stated that the company is standing in the retail supermarket with respect to the other
companies or competitors. Change is as essential activity in every organisation irrespective of
the size and nature of the organisation. Therefore, the change management process, is
essentially carried out in every organisation. The changes to be introduced in the management
practices, processes or other activities or functions carried out in organisation needs to be
carefully monitored, evaluated so as to bring positive outcomes. These changes are
determined and achieved with respect to the external environment conditions in the market.
After identifying opportunities for the change, application of important change management
models and theories is vital to achieve milestones set by company. These milestones are set
and attained in terms of the interventions used by the company to improve their services, hold
customers, increase productivity, company brand, thus enhancing the overall organisational
performance. Activities of the change management approach, and processes require the team
leaders or the change management team to focus on the goals set. They also need to consider
the nature and quality of the human resource in the organisation. As introducing change may
be resisted by the employees, which acts as a hurdle in the process. Hence, all these aspects
must be undertaken into consideration while formulating and implementing a change
management plan.

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Contents
Introduction...........................................................................................................3
Need for change in Woolworths...........................................................................4
Interventions.........................................................................................................5
Diagnostic model..................................................................................................7
Planning/Implementation......................................................................................9
Recommendations...............................................................................................11
Conclusion..........................................................................................................11
References...........................................................................................................12

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Introduction
The report brings about the analysis of the change management concepts and theories in the
contemporary organisations. It incorporates the processes, outcomes related with the change
management, describing in detail change management behaviours. The report discusses the
needs or opportunities of the organisation, leading to the change management process. It
further mentions about the interventions, and the recommendations regarding the plans to be
formulated for improving the performance of the organisation. For the purpose, of gaining an
understanding considering change management approach, an Australian supermarket
company has been taken “Woolworths”, which includes all the related aspects (Cameron and
Green, 2015).
Company overview
Woolworths also known as, Woolies is an Australian Supermarket/grocery store chain which
is operated and owned by Woolworths Limited. Founded in the year 1924, Woolworths
accounts for the 80% of the Australian market, and forms a duopoly of the supermarkets
along with the Coles. The company employs about 200,000 people and aims to provide their
customer a better experience, superior service, convenience, and value. The company deals or
specialises in selling grocery items which include vegetables, fruits, meat, and packaged
foods. Ina addition, to the grocery items the company also deals in selling DVDs, pet & baby
supplies, stationery items, and the beauty and health related products (Grimmer, 2018).
Change management approach
Change management approach or the organisational change management is the framework
which incorporates the management of a change in any organisation. The change may relate
to the change in the processes, organisational structure, or the changes in the culture. Every
organisation implements change with respect to the internal and external environmental
conditions in order to become successful in the long-term. The process of change
management is a series of steps which are followed sequentially by the change management
team or the leader in an organisation. The level of interventions, in the change management
process, is associated with the precise and correct identification of the groups. Therefore, the
report states about the change management in Woolworths limited in Australia (Mone and
London, 2018).

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Need for change in Woolworths
Every organisation faces some challenges due to the increasing pressure and competition in
the industry. This requires incorporating change management in the organisational practices
in relation to the internal and external environmental situations. With context to the
organisation chosen, Woolworths there has been a stiff competitive pressure from the other
retailers such as Coles, Mark & spencer’s. The retail sector in the Australia has given
employment to many people. Woolworths is facing some challenges currently in the grocery
business and regarding their share prices. It has been observed that there is showdown over
drop in the share prices. There has been a constant decrement in the share prices of the
Woolworths, which deprived the company to earn profits, i.e. creating the situations of huge
losses. Therefore, Woolworths has made initiatives in utilising the cost cutting measures
which will help the company further to bring back the customers, ensuring customer loyalty.
This situation leads to the losing the potential customers, as they have now switched over to
other companies. Woolworths is failing is achieving maximum customer satisfaction, which
is creating a threat for the future growth and success in the Australian market (Hult et al.,
2017).
Woolworths reported the share price opened weaker at the JSE, after the company reported a
17.7% decline in the earnings per share. This became the major reason for the losing trust in
the management operations by the executives of the company. Besides the decreased share
prices in the market, there is another factor which is affecting Woolworths majorly, i.e. the
attack from the various competitors. As Woolworths is earlier known for providing cheap
products to their customers, and this strategy is now adopted by the companies likes Coles,
Marks and spencer’s, and Aldi from the Germany is doing the same to attract customers
(Wardle and Chang, 2015).
Need and the opportunities in every organisation are enforced with respect to the various
aspects in the business environment. Every organisation need to change to survive and
achieve their goals and objectives both long term, and short-term. Similarly, Woolworths
need to bring and establish change in their management practices, organisational culture to
ensure long-term sustainability and attainment of profits in the future (Carnall, 2018).

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The major changes in the processes of operations and the management practices will
eradicate the losses and the company will regain the profits in the industry. The results from
the past few years has represented that the company Woolworths has been facing the slowest
growth in the 19 years. There has been a management shake in the business of Woolworths,
in terms of food, liquor, and petrol businesses (Santos et al., 2015).
In order to convert the situation of losses into opportunities, the company first need to bring
back the trust from the executive or the higher management level. As many of the executives
left the organisation due to lose of faith in the operations carried out in Woolworths.
Therefore, Woolworths need to implement changes in the management of the operations and
management practices in the organisation. In addition, the subsidiaries of the company are
facing problems struggling in the retail market in Australia. Also, an over-ambitious goal by
the management of the organisation has led the employees to leave the organisation on a
long-term basis. This shift in the structure of employees is mainly due to the disturbance in
the management structure and losses earned due to the ineffective operations (Duvall, 2018).
Woolworths has recently announced of the loss of 400 executive jobs, impacting the
reputation of the company greatly. In a broader sense, Woolworths is losing in terms of
various aspects collectively such as customer relationship, marketing, and loyalty. The
change can be implemented in the organisation in a way that the organisation mainly focuses
upon matching of the resources with the available opportunities in the market. The company
will need to emphasize the need of the customers, and the market situations need to be
considered in order to reduce losses. Woolworths need to bring change in the structure of the
management to satisfy the goals and requirements of the executives as well. The change in
the structure of the organisation also accompanies, the other changes such as establishing the
customer-oriented practices or policies in the organisation, as they would be able to attract as
many customers leading to the attainment of the organisational objectives as a whole
(Booth, 2015).
Interventions
The term interventions in context of any organisation such as Woolworths define about all the
possible and planned activities which are carried out to bring changes in the organisation.
These interventions are intended to restore the company’s operations and improve the
functioning of the organisation. This will ensure the better working efficiency, and

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effectiveness of the organisation in the longer period. Therefore, Woolworth in their
management implemented some of the interventions keeping in consideration all the changes
and challenges faced by the company in the recent years. These interventions in any
organisation can be brought about or introduced by an external agent or the consultant who
may be consulting the client members of the organisation. This can also be introduced by
those who are in the organisation itself and acting as the in-house consultant. Interventions
can take place at the task, process, strategies, system or interface levels or the hierarchy levels
of an organisation. Interventions help an organisation to majorly overcome problems or
challenges faced and achieving the desired future position in the market. With respect to the
above discussion on the decreased share of the company, and the terrible changes in the share
prices, the company implemented some interventions (Financial review, 2015).
Interventions include ‘Technology’, which interconnects people in an organisation, and adds
value to the organisation. In the modern era of e-business, technology plays an important role
in shaping the future growth of the organisations. Customers in every sector of the industry
are more inclined towards the technology upgraded organisation/company. Several pressures
in the Australian retail sector are the making the business organisations face competition and
it has been exemplified by three recent changes. These changes are the emergence of the
competitors, Australia taste, and disruptive technologies. An organisation which lacks in
effective technology system or is handicapped in terms of better technology is assumed to
have less survival years as compared to other firms. With context of the essay it has been
stated that there are two interventions which ensures about the easy and smooth functioning
of the organisation, thus improving efficiency (Borlea and Achim, 2014).
These interventions are described as follows:
 Intervention 1: EziBuy
The mentioned name depicts the intervention by the subsidiary of the company
Woolworths, operating in Australia and New Zealand. EziBuy deals in providing a wide
range of clothing to the customers via online mediums. The company is focused as they
provide their services online and make the products available at the door-step of their
customers. The company is importantly affecting the customers in a positive way, and is
considered as attracting due to the companies’ goals of satisfying their customers. This
intervention was made for the customers to ease their shopping and improve their
experience. Ordering clothes online is considered in the technology intervention typology of

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the change management in the company. In simple terms, the goals of the interventions
were to improve technological advancements and the benefits to the customers in the
Australian marketplace. Thus, the interventions used by the Woolworths stated about the
practices needed to be included in the management of the company. As the company aiming
to provide best services to their customers can only achieve this aim by focusing on the
improvement of the overall experience to their customers. Henceforth, Woolworths adopted
these interventions in order to give their customers best experiences in every aspect
(Doppelt, 2017).
 Intervention 2: Fly Buys (Woolworths reward)
The second type of the intervention used by the company is the rewards given to the
employees i.e. the human resource in the organisation. Woolworths which included the
human resource intervention is considered as a necessary step in the overall efforts made in
the organisation. It is the most attractive reward system implemented by the company to their
customers. This included giving discounts to their loyal customers, and introduction of
various themes. The goals behind these interventions are to hold their customers for a longer
time-period, which helps in the overall services. Use of the redemption schemes such as
money-off shopping, exclusive member-deal, and the other schemes helped Woolworths in
making good customer tally. The reward system in the company is considered as an effective
strategy to pay back to the loyal customers, thus maintaining healthy customer relationships
(Olstad et al., 2016).
The intervention of the human resource and establishing an effective customer relationship is
focused with respect to the intervention termed as ‘Fly Buys’. Thus, intervention
implemented by the Woolworths, stated about giving rewards to that customer who bring
their personal bags for shopping. An organisation in order to survive and emerge successful
in the industry amongst their competitors, need to accelerate in terms of the resources mainly
emphasizing on the human resource. Hence, it is clearly understood that the reward points is
the beneficial strategy to create an advantage over the competitors by taking care of the
customer’s convenience specially (Pulker et al., 2018).
Diagnostic model
With context to the interventions implemented in the organisation, and the problems
identified which were related to the technology and achieving and maintaining customer
relationships. A business diagnostic or the diagnostic model refers to the activity or the tools

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used required for different jobs. In a broader sense, diagnostic model is the framework for
identifying, analysing, and interpreting data in a given context to assess the possible needs.
Employees in an organisation need something which drives them to work with their best
ability and potential to achieve desired goal. In most cases, the employees are motivated
with their salary and compensation. However, it may not work in every case, some
employees need more than compensation/pay provided by the organisation (Ainsworth and
E., 2016).
With respect to the intereventions the holistic diagnostic model used by the Woolworths to
improve their product delivery and developing effective employee and customer
realtionships. The holistic diagnostic models includes everyone in the organisation as well as
identifies and assess the strengths, weakness, threat and the opportunities at every level of the
organisation. This will also include the systems i.e. finance, production, marketing,
operations, and IT alongwith the traditional aspects in the organisation (Woolworths group,
2017).
The diagnostic model in the company Woolworths, in relation to the interventions such as
‘EziBuy’ and ‘FlyBuys’, is 7s diagnostic model, developed by McKinsey designed to help an
organisation evaluate and improve performance. There are various elements of the 7s model,
which includes structure, system, staff, style, skills, and shared value (Dong et al., 2015).
(Source: Mindtools, 2018)

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 Structure- this elements define how the units in an organisation are interrelated, it tells about
the sequential form of data which forms the basis of the organisation.
 System- this element is focused upon defining and determing how the work should be done
or the manner of carrying out various activities and functions in an organisation.
 Staff- this is one of the most important element in every organisation. Simililarly
Woolworths puts greater emphasis on their employees.
 Style- The elements defines about the leadership styles adopted by the management o the
organisation, as it affects the oiverall performance of the organisation.
 Skills – this states about the skills required in the organisational members to achieve the
goals and objectives, every organisation needs skilled employees in order to become
efficient and effective in the long run. Skilled employees also relate to the organisational
behaviour as employees forms the basis of other functions.
 Shared value – An organisation which is based on the fair values and beliefs tend t grow and
sustain for the longer term. The shared value of the organisation is also defined well by their
mission and vision statement (Gökdeniz, Kartal and Kömürcü, 2017).
Planning/Implementation
The change management process is the process or sequence of steps that is applied by the
change management leader or the project leader, to bring change in organisation. It has been
analysed from the above discussion on the change management process that in every
organisation change is constant and necessary to sustain in the competitive market. It is
irrespective, of the other factors operating in the external and internal environment of the
organisation. Caused by the advancement of technology, improvements in the customer
service delivery or the restructuring or reorganisation, change is always taking place. As it
necessary, it is considered important for the growth and profitability prospects of the business
(Pulker et al., 2018).
With the context of the company, Woolworths Australia, change has been inevitable for the
organisation, because of the losses earned past few years. In fact the company has been
facing the situation of loss currently which essentially requires change in the organisation in
every aspect. To implement the change management in Woolworths, there have been several
interventions used by the company in order to facilitate and improve their services, to attract
customers and regain their position in the Australian supermarket (Cummings and Worley,
2014).

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The interventions used by Woolworths were EziBuy, and Fly Buys, therefore to achieve the
milestones determined by them requires a proper planning and implementation process, in the
organisation. Planning an implementation to achieve the desired goals and the milestones set
focuses on the key areas of the organisation. It means the overall goal of the company is
achieve a specific standard of proficiency in a specific time-period. The plan for the change
management interventions in the company is a series of steps which are as follows:
 Identify the measures to be taken: The utmost aspect of the process of attainment of goal
is that the goals should be measurable. The work done by the change management
leader in the stage ‘A’, defines the base for the practice. The data will help in defining
the measures for the achievement of milestones set by interventions. To identify those
measures, look for the lowest performance scores.
 Evaluate the information of the measure given in Stage ‘B’: Stage B provides the
resources and the practical steps to be used as information for the implementation of
intervention plan. As with the case, interventions such as Ezibuy, and Fly Buys,
information must be evaluated effectively (Financial review, 2017).
 Creating a challenging goal with the set deadline: The change management team or the
leader must have to find and locate sources to achieve challenging goal, within a fixed
deadline.
 Get the acceptance from the staff and other members: It is essential step for the
organisational members to be aware of the change in the processes of organisation. A
change management leader must first take the acceptance from the staff by organising a
general meeting of these members to give information regarding the change
management plan.
 Establishing an intervention plan: Given the set measures through the plan, the staff,
and leader needs to propose strategies towards the goal achievement of the interventions
(Waddell et al., 2016).
 Goal commitment from the staff: An organisation deals with humans, who are resistant
to change and easily reject the new goals set in the organisation. Therefore, the goal may
be dropped in the middle of the process, which can be improved by the managers or
leaders. They can conduct weekly meetings, explaining them about the plan’s
effectiveness. In addition, they can also provide them, additional resources if required
(Goel et al., 2017).

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 Provide Feedback: The Company must have two types of data, i.e. before and after the
intervention plan. In case the data collected after the intervention does not shows the
improvement, then more data should be collected, shared with the team.
 Rewarding team efforts: The last step of the procedure is to reward the efforts put by the
team members and appraising them to work with the same motivation further
(Herzberg, 2017).
Recommendations
 Developing a structured model in daily working to improve productivity.
 Establishing the customer-centric policies, to improve customer relationships.
 For both the intervention, EziBuy and Fly Buys their implementation and
sustainability in the future must be improved by making these practices permanent in
Woolworths.
 Focusing on the implementation of the online customer services.
 The company needs to focus on attaining competitive edge over other competitors.
 The company should direct all the resources in a direction towards the achievement of
the goal. It will help Woolworths in establishing a well- known customer brand.
Conclusion
To conclude the above discussion, it has been analysed that implementing change in the
organisational practices and processes, is a critical process. The change is the result of a
number of issues and opportunities in the external environment of the organisation. These
needs are then supported by the application of interventions in context to the company. Every
organisation has own diagnostic model, which further states about the plan for change
management. The company focuses on the planning and implementation of the goals, set by
the interventions as a major process. Hence, the overall change management process is a
complex, time-consuming and a vital process which determines the organisations ability to
achieve sustainable competitive advantage.