Managing Service Relationships: Woolworths Limited Analysis Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Woolworths Limited's service relationships, focusing on their strategies for managing stakeholders, including customers, suppliers, and employees. It examines the company's approach to key strategic issues, such as pricing, customer experience, and operational efficiency, and explores the external environment using a PESTEL analysis. The report details Woolworths' customer portfolio, personnel management, and organizational objectives, highlighting how the company achieves its goals and maintains service relationships. It further investigates the competitive advantages derived from strong stakeholder relationships and offers recommendations for improving service quality through effective communication, trust-building, and ethical practices. Finally, the report addresses demand and inventory management challenges, and provides an overview of service delivery blueprints within Woolworths Limited.

Running head: MANAGING SERVICE RELATIONSHIPS 1

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Institution
Student
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INTRODUCTION
Characteristics of the Nominated Company
Woolworths Limited is one of the prominent companies in Australia with wide-ranging retail
interest all over the country as well as New Zealand. This is the second leading corporation in
Australia in terms of income, after Perth-based merchandising-engrossed company Wesfarmers,
and the succeeding prevalent in New Zealand. Moreover, Woolworths Limited is the biggest
takeout liquor vender in Australia, the most prevalent hotel and betting poker machine operator
in this nation, and in 2008 it was the 19th leading trader globally. The Company’s obligation to
hard work and reliability is unyielding (Woolworths Limited, 2017 ). They are gratified of their
down-to-earth principles and they celebrate their family-friendly standards. Most of the high-
ranking leaders in Woolworths started their occupations with them on the shop floor, and
therefore all these philosophies are knitted into every aspect of its processes, from the sales
counter all the way up to the executive level.
FINDINGS
The relationships with key stakeholders
The primary goal in this business is to ensure customers put them first, across every brand. In
attempt to achieve this core purpose, Woolworths Ltd starts with structuring an outstanding
merchandizing team which pays attention to various stakeholders such as customers, team
members and suppliers (Woolworths Limited, 2017 ). The authentic wellbeing of every
stakeholder is taken into consideration to energize a maintainable future. Comprehending the
safeties and anticipations of its main stakeholders thus plays a critical role in developing those
relations to sustain the formation of a workable value proposition. Shareholder commitment and

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constructing interested party contacts have remained essential to the manner they carry out
business. Some of the investor affiliations are more industrialized than others – suppliers,
employees, customers, and shareholders specially. They have acknowledged that they ought to
have a more unswerving methodology across every stakeholder group and so the Company is
brushing up and solemnizing its attitude to stakeholder commitment (WOOLWORTHS
HOLDINGS LIMITED, 2016).
The Key Strategic Issues That Have Impacted On the Relative Success of Woolworths
Limited
Woolworths has announced various strategies that have contributed immensely to its success in
various dimensions. Lately, the Company has delineated its strategies meant to gain the trust of
its consumers, and upsurge its segment of purchasers’ food spend through lesser prices and
refining every aspect of their shopping. Woolworths Ltd is retaining the customer at the twitch of
everything it undertakes. This strategy has resulted in subordinate prices, more convincing deals,
and grander modernization experience (Md. Mesbah Uddin, 2012).
Woolworths has initiated a strategy to concentrate on three key principles:
1. Offer: Refining the central offer to make sure that consumers put Woolworths Ltd first;
2. Growth: Revolutionizing to satisfy more of these purchasers’ needs; and
3. Efficiency: Forming supplementary customer value by consolidating for success and
implementing the ‘Lean Retail’ classical (AFN STAFF WRITERS , 2015).
Woolworths is already well in progress of executing the first groundswell of this strategy with a
foremost investment platform which includes:

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 Around $125 million of price cutbacks for consumers from January 2015, winning the
Company’s value point to its most reasonable level since January 2014, with much to fall
in place;
 Equating the online prices with store prices;
 An extra 58,000 working hours added every week into stores to boost client service
echelons, to be tailed by an additional 63,000 hours in the subsequent financial periods;
 A further half-day of store echelons added in the short run to shelves through the stock
system to enhance obtainability; and
 A foremost emphasis on enlightening the variety and newness of fruit and vegetables.
According to Woolworths, what is unblemished is that even though subordinate prices are
important, the true combat zone is the general customer experience (Tay, 2010).
External environment in Woolworths
The external environment comprises of various elements that are found outside the frontier of the
business but have the latent to impact all or part of the company (Hueske, Endrikat, & Guenther,
2015). The external environment in Woolworths consists of several sectors such Political,
Economic, Social, Technological, Environmental, and Legal (PESTEL) (Adamkasi, 2016).
 Political: The political situation disturbs the entire retail sector in Australia and as well
the performance of Woolworths by a greater margin. As for example, the Central
Government in has lately introduced a competition policy that thwarts major autonomous
players like Woolworths and Coles in eradicating competition.

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 Economic: A weakening in the economic market state of affairs across Australia has
influenced the productivity of Woolworths considerably, since there has been the
deterioration in the monetary activity in the bazaars of Australia and New Zealand.
 Social: The social issue is also touching the Australian merchandising industry in the
sense that the establishments functioning in this country have to attain sophisticated
communal and municipal development since the new societal inclinations within
consumers infers that they favors highly communally responsible association and through
undertaking social resourcefulness, the traders such as Woolworths generate noteworthy
influence over its clienteles.
 Technological: Woolworths has put into consideration the employability of green
refrigeration technology so that the delicate merchandises can be warehoused for
elongated period of time (Dos Santos, 2011).
 Environmental: An investigation suggests that Woolworths particularly is influenced by
the environmental influences due to the fact that the Woolworth’s winemaking and petrol
productions are posing confrontational extortions on the performance of environment
circumstances and this has consequently impacted the cost-effectiveness performance in
these business’s aspects of the corporation.
 Legal: The legal issue especially carbon tax applied across Australia has similarly
influenced the merchandizing industry and in particular Woolworths (Huang, E, 2007).
Customer portfolio in Woolworths

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As hinted earlier, the overall strategy in Woolworths Ltd is having Customers put the first. Their
team has reunited behind the determination ‘of bringing a little good to all and sundry every day'
and is functioning towards a vibrant strategy to put the customers 1st.
Source: Woolworths Limited, (2017), Strategy and objectives. Retrieved from:
https://www.woolworthsgroup.com.au/page/about-us/our-approach/strategy-and-objectives
[acessed on Oct 8th 2017].
The Drinks business, comprising of BWS and Dan Murphy's, endures to revolutionize the Firm’s
offer to deliver the finest value convenience and value to customers online and in-store as well
(Woolworths Limited, 2017).
Woolworth’s personnel management and its current related performance
A select leadership team comprising of a board of directors has the chief role of maintaining and
increasing shareholder value while at the same safeguarding the general accomplishments of

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Woolworths Group are properly managed. The Panel’s responsibility is to represent and attend to
the interests of stockholders by supervising and reviewing the Firm’s strategies, policies and
performance (Woolworths Limited, 2017). Every Executive works in compliance with the Panel
Charter, which summarizes their supremacies, their accountabilities and how they can best
represent the interests of the stakeholders.
The Company’s Portfolio businesses – BIG W, ALH, and Quantium, have distinct panels, to
empower each one to concentrate on conveying shareholder value. The BIG W crew is gearing
towards their visualization to aid all people of Australia ‘LIVE BIG FOR LESS', and are
tracking an approach to turnaround their trade (Woolworths Limited, 2017).
How Woolworths has achieved its organizational objectives and maintained service
relationships.
The goals and commitments in Woolworths Group cover an extensive assortment of its
shareholders, comprising of consumers, suppliers, team members, as well as the communities in
which Company operates (woolworths holdings limited., 2012). The Stratagem, which the
company first introduced in 2015, makes use of Woolworths’ Corporate Responsibility model of
Planet, People, and Prosperity and it includes the following obligations (ArmstrongQ.com.au,
2017):
 Planet – working for a healthy and vigorous Australia
 People - heartening diversity
 Prosperity – founding the Group on trusted relationships with stakeholders
The following visual aid depicts how Woolworths has achieved its chief organizational goals:

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Source: Woolworths Limited, (2017), Corporate Responsibility. Retrieved from:
https://www.woolworthsgroup.com.au/page/community-and-responsibility/group-
responsibility/corporate-responsibility [on 8th October, 2017]
Service function relationships and Woolworths’ competitive advantage
The immense success of Woolworths is directly related to that of their key stakeholders such as
suppliers, employees, among other as well as the communities they serve. It is the duty of the
organization to manage these function relationships with these shareholders in a manner that take
full advantage of affluence without compromising its corporate responsibilities. Robust

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relationships with its stakeholders has aided in strengthening the competitive advantage of the
organization both locally and internationally.
The CSR undertakings can be comprehended as sources of competitive advantage and strategic
necessity in Woolworths Limited. The most noteworthy classification is the repute/ the brand
name. With the CSR accomplishments Woolworths shall be able to surge its status and develop
its brand name especially when the activity is managed appropriately. Besides, the personnel will
gain benefits from the CSR actions both directly and indirectly, and thus contribute to a more
enthused and productive labour force. The accomplishments shall further contribute to
outstanding quality inputs for the Company. Moreover, the business might relish paybacks such
as augmented knowledge by having these CSR activities. This knowledge can be critical in both
Australian and international competitive battlegrounds.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Ways to improve the quality of service relationships in terms of mutual interest and social
responsibility as well as business ethics
Building robust service relationships is one of the easiest ways of ensuring stakeholder retention,
as instance, customer service and thus reducing their churn. “The main goal as a corporation is to
have service relationships that are not just the best, but LEGENDARY.” In the current
competitive business environment and it is now more imperative for Woolworths than ever to
ensure service relationships which add-value to the general stakeholder experience.
In terms of mutual interest, social responsibility as well as business ethics, Woolworths can
improve the quality of service relationships through various means:
Effective communication strategies: Every communication with a stakeholder is a great
chance to aim at building long-lasting relationships. It is therefore imperative to ensure this

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process is conducted in the best way possible. Woolworths uses numerous communication
channels, and therefore it is crucial to make sure that they are well organized and reliable.
Learning about external stakeholders: All internal publics in Woolworth should have the
mutual of interest of knowing more about their external stakeholders and building a rapport with
them. After the first encounter say for instance after closing a transaction, the salesperson should
continue the conversation and as well think about to add value to them. By continuously learning
about stakeholders after every meeting will go a long way strengthening the relationship and
bond and thus improved services (G Sreedhar, 2016).
Build trust with stakeholders: Ensuring there is strong trust between the Company and other
external parties like suppliers is one of the principal business ethics. It is thus important to be
honest, punctual, and credible whenever handling any interested party.
Managing demand and inventory in Woolworths Limited
Chase, (2016) suggests that the demand management is endeavoring to influence when
customers attend to the facility and capacity or inventory management is ascertaining the firm’s
capability to meet the demand. In the course of operations of Merchandizing Company like
Woolworths Group, demand management can be referred to as the management of the demand
generated for the goods and services of the firm by their customers envisioned to buy the goods
and service in line with their taste and preferences. Preparing and dispensing the customers’
goods and services they want at the time of their spending is the inventory management.
Numerous clienteles visit the stores every day and acquire the goods and make use of the
services rendered in relation to their ease, however, the personnel at Woolworths is incapable of
handling the demand and distribute the goods and service in line with their

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capacity. Comprehending the customer’s demand is not adequate to manage the demand
variation. It as well includes the group's capacity to satisfy the demand. Thus, it is vital for
Woolworths to understand its inventory constrictions in terms of time, equipment, labor, and
facilities.
Blueprints of Service Delivery in Woolworths Limited
A service blueprint according to (Wirtz, 2017)is a working organization tool which gives
guidance on how a given service or product shall be dispensed, stipulating the physical
indication, personnel engagements, as well as support systems or groundwork required to
provide the service across its diverse channels.
The simplest manner to thinking about service blueprints is as a procedure plan that comprises of
inputs, process and outputs.
(Resources) Inputs → (conversion) Process → (finished goods) Outputs
Below is a typical service blue print which Woolworth Ltd can implement in its services
marketer's repertoire