Strategic Information System Report: Woolworths Supermarket Case Study

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the strategic information system (SIS) employed by Woolworths Supermarket. It begins with an introduction to SIS and its importance for organizational success, followed by an overview of Woolworths' organizational background and structure. The report delves into the operational problems faced by Woolworths, including employee issues, team dysfunctions, outdated technologies, flawed strategies, communication gaps, and resource limitations. It then explores the system acquisition method used by Woolworths, specifically the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) model, and presents a sales flowchart illustrating the sales process. The report also touches on control problems within the system and examines accounting software packages. Furthermore, it identifies market leaders and competitors of Woolworths and concludes with relevant recommendations for improvement. The report aims to provide a detailed understanding of Woolworths' SIS and its impact on the company's performance.

Running head: STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEM
Strategic Information System
[Name of the Student]
[Name of the University]
[Author note]

Table of Contents
Introduction:........................................................................................................................3
Discussion:...........................................................................................................................4
Part A...................................................................................................................................4
Organizational Background: Woolworths Supermarket..................................................4
Organizational Structure of Woolworths Supermarket...................................................5
Operational Problems in Woolworths Supermarket........................................................7
A. Issues regarding the employees:.........................................................................7
B. Problems in the team:.........................................................................................7
C. The technologies used are old:...........................................................................8
D. Strategies adopted is wrong:...............................................................................8
E. Insufficient amount of communication:.............................................................8
F. Lack of the Resources:.......................................................................................9
System Acquisition Method in Woolworths Supermarket..............................................9
Sales Flowchart of Woolworths Supermarket...............................................................10
Control Problems in the System of Woolworths Supermarket......................................12
Part B.................................................................................................................................13
Accounting Software Packages in Woolworths Supermarket.......................................13
Market Leaders or Competitors of Woolworths Supermarket......................................14
Relevant Recommendations for Woolworths Supermarket..........................................15

Conclusion.........................................................................................................................16
References..........................................................................................................................16

Introduction:
IS or the Information System can be defined as the organized system which is
used for proper collection, organizing and storing of the any kind of information or data. Besides
this the IS is also used for communicating the various type of data or information. The operations
related to the data is very simple as well as easy by making use of the IS as this produced the
required the data whenever needed (Galliers and Leidner 2014). Strategic information system
can be considered as one of the most important type of information system which is associated
with dealing with different strategies adopted by various organizations. Strategic information
system is an information system which is associated with the helping the organizations in
achieving the various goals and objectives. By adaptation of proper information system an
organization can easily gain a competitive advantage (Arvidsson, Holmström and Lyytinen
2014). It has been seen that most of the organizations has acquired the strategic information
system for the purpose of running their business. Besides this the services and the goods that are
provided by the organizations are having low price along with a better efficiency. Strategic
information system can be considered as one of the salient feature of the information technology
or the information system.
The literature review conducted below is associated with reviewing the strategic
information system and the accounting information system which is used by one of the most
popular supermarket known as the Woolworths Supermarket. This is Australian based
supermarket which is very famous amongst all the citizens of Australia. This report mainly
discusses about the structure of this organization and also provides a wide overview about the
operational problems faced by this organization. The review also provides a relevant and
appropriate system acquisition method along with a flowchart of the whole system. In

Woolworths there exists several problems related to the control process. Additionally there also
exists issues like the fraud and many more. All this issues has been discussed in this review. This
literature review also consists of a second part which mainly focuses upon the accounting
software package used by Woolworth by making use or relevant and proper information. Besides
this in the second part a discussion has been made regarding the leaders of the market along with
the major competitors of this organizations.
Discussion:
Part A
Organizational Background: Woolworths Supermarket
Woolworth is considered as one of the important and most popular grocery store
situated in Australia. This grocery store is associated with various type of goods and services for
the customers and for this reason this is highly accepted in different of Australia and suburbs.
Woolworth started its business operations in the year of 1924 and along with the other
supermarkets this is responsible for forming a near duopoly of all the accountings in the
supermarkets of Australia. About 80% of the grocery market of Australia is occupied by this
organization. The organization is associated with delivering and selling of all the grocery
products which can be considered as one of the specialty of this organization. Their main item
includes the fruits, vegetables and packaged foods along with baby foods, pet foods and other
type of stationary items. Their branches almost exists around all around Australia and New
Zealand. Amongst the branches nine hundred and sixty eight branches are supermarkets whereas
sixteen of them are convenience stores (Cassidy 2016). The shares which this organization is

always on the higher side but in recent days there has occurred a sharp downfall in the shares.
This downfall has occurred due to various reasons and this reasons has been discussed below.
Organizational Structure of Woolworths Supermarket
The structure of an organization can be defined as the different procedure in which
different activities of the organizations which are responsible for achievement of certain
objectives of the organization. This activities might include the allocation of the tasks,
supervision and coordination and many more. The structure of the organization can be helping in
the achievement of the competitive advantage and besides this the organization would be very
much effective, flexible and efficient (Willcocks 2013). Along with this the structure of an
organization is also considered as a perspective by which all the individuals in an organization
have an overview about the environment of the organization (Woolworthsgroup.com.au. 2018).
The structure of the organization can be created in various ways and besides this the structure
also helps in the determination of various modes. And from this modes the operations and all the
performances of the organization are done. The structure also helps in the enabling of the various
responsibility allocation of the employees of the organization. The two structures of the
organization has been provided below:

Fig 1: Management Structure: Woolworths Supermarket
(Source: Woolworthsgroup.com.au. 2018)

Fig 2: Corporate Structure: Woolworths Supermarket
(Source: Woolworthsgroup.com.au. 2018)
The figures which has been provided above shows the management and the corporate
structure of the Woolworth supermarket situated in Australia (Woolworthsgroup.com.au. 2018).
Operational Problems in Woolworths Supermarket
The organization Woolworth’s supermarket has been very much successful in the
market of groceries. Despite of being successful and getting accepted by the customers they have
not been capable of avoiding the various type of operation problems that has occurred within the
system (Majchrzak and Malhotra 2013). The different types of operational problem occurring
within the Woolworths supermarket has been listed below:

A. Issues regarding the employees:
Issues related to the employees is one of the significant issue which exists with the
Woolworths Supermarket. There exists different type of conflicts within the employees which
includes the issues of the supervisors, personal trauma within the mind of the employees and
many more (Hall 2012). All tis problems are mainly responsible for shaking the whole structure
of the organization besides this the problems amongst the employees is also increasing day by
day.
B. Problems in the team:
In order to increase the performance of the organization the teams and the departments of
Woolworths Supermarket should be fully functional in a proper way and by this way the the
success of the organization would be greatly enhances. But the scenario of the organization is not
at all similar (Soudani 2012). Due to the fact that this organization is almost 100 years old, it has
been seen that most of the departments in the organization has become non-functional. For this
reason many of the problems in the organization is hard to mitigate.
C. The technologies used are old:
This is one of the important operational problem occurring inside the organization,
Woolworths Supermarket. The main problem is due to the use of the old technologies and also
the inability of adopting the new technologies for business processes (Simkin, Norman and Rose
2014.). The organization is still associate with the utilization of the traditional technologies and
for this reason they face a major problem in adopting the competitive advantage over the other
supermarkets of Australia.

D. Strategies adopted is wrong:
Next problem related to the various operations of Woolworth includes the use of wrong
strategies for various the business processes (Worrell, Di Gangi and Bush 2013). The strategies
which has been developed by the organization is not sufficient for fulfilling the various long term
goals and the objectives of eth organization and due to this reason the organization has been
suffering huge losses in their business.
E. Insufficient amount of communication:
Another major problem includes the problem related to lack of communication. The
communication gap existing in the operation is very high. There is lack of communication
between the organization and the customers, besides this the customers who are new also might
not be interested in having communication with the organization (Komala 2012). Besides this the
organizations are also not associated with sharing their strategies with the employees and for this
reason the communication gap increases between the staffs and the customers. For this reason a
major lack of corporation also increases within the various divisions of the organization.
F. Lack of the Resources:
The supply of the raw materials and the resources is not sufficient for the purpose of
meeting the demands of the products by the customers (Christensen and Feltham 2012). Due to
this reason the customers are not at all happy with the organization and they are opting for other
supermarkets due to this reason.
System Acquisition Method in Woolworths Supermarket
The supermarket has been associated with undertaking the model of the enterprise
resource planning or the ERP for their various different processes. The ERP is mainly considered
as a category of the business managing software. This ERP is associated with helping in the

process of integration of all the applications in a proper way and this is to be done without any
type of complexities (Dandago and Rufai 2014). By making use of this the organization is
capable of collecting, storing and managing of the data in an easy way and besides this the
organization would also be capable of interpreting the data or information about the various
business activities. The various important activities of the business which might include the
customer relationship management or CRM, procurement management, financial management,
human resource management, production management, logistics management and many more
are the main things which have been integrated with the ERP (Woolworthsgroup.com.au. 2018).
Additionally the different processes of the business have been updated and integrated with the
database. Besides this the database has been maintained and managed by the ERP. On daily basis
the supermarket has to deal with the various business processes and activities (Collier 2015).
ERP has been greatly helping the organization. However maintenance of this method of system
acquisition is very hard as well as costly. Despite of this the software is still used by the
organization for their business as this software is very much beneficial. The processes included
in the business operations of the organization has been streamlined in a proper way with respect
to the ERP and by this the productivity of the organization has improved and the efficiencies has
also increased. The figure provided below shows a clear benefits of eth ERP:

Fig 3: Benefits of implementing the ERP: Woolworths supermarket
(Source: Woolworthsgroup.com.au. 2018)
The figure which has been provided above has been associated with providing a clear
view about the benefits that the organization is getting due to the ERP. The methods shown in
the figure have been substantially integrated with the ERP (Woolworthsgroup.com.au. 2018).
Sales Flowchart of Woolworths Supermarket
The sales flowchart mainly refers to the process of sales that the organization is using.
This flowchart is associated with providing showing all the steps which are included in the
process of sales and besides this the flowcharts is also associated with showing the various
individuals who are involved in the different processes (Demski 2013). The gained outcome of
the various processes is very much related to the various goals and objectives that the