Sainsbury's Workplace Culture and Organizational Efficiency Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Sainsbury's workplace culture and its impact on organizational efficiency. It begins with an introduction to Sainsbury's, including its history, market position, and strategic objectives. The main body of the report delves into the management theories applied by Sainsbury's, such as the Schein organizational culture model, and utilizes tools like SWOT and PESTEL analyses to evaluate the internal and external environments. Furthermore, the report applies Porter's five forces to assess the competitive landscape and examines ethical standards and sustainability development within the company. The analysis highlights how Sainsbury's has adapted its strategies, including multi-channel expansion and employee initiatives, to maintain its market position. The report concludes by summarizing the key findings, emphasizing the importance of a positive workplace culture in driving organizational success and offering insights into Sainsbury's strategic approach to management and market dynamics.

Workplace Culture and
its impact on
Organisational
Efficiency

INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................................... 3
MAIN BODY.................................................................................................................................. 3
Introduction about the company............................................................................................ 3
Management theories applied by SAINSBURY'S................................................................. 5
Environmental scanning of company..................................................................................... 8
Ethical standards and sustainability development............................................................... 11
CONCLUSION............................................................................................................................. 12
REFERENCES.............................................................................................................................. 14

INTRODUCTION
Organisational culture is the set of values, cultures, beliefs, policies and etc. which is followed
by an organisation. The organisational culture of any organisation should be such that it gets integrate
with the external environment needs, employees’ demands and also the purpose of an organisation. A
good organisational culture helps the organisation in attracting the good and talented workforce
towards the organisation and also helps in retaining of the competitive advantage in the market place.
The culture of any organisation is set after the proper analyses of both external and internal
environment of the contemporary business environment. This external environment can get analysis by
using the various tools like PESTEL, Porter's five force model and etc. Whereas (Alkhoraif,
McLaughlin and Rashid, 2019) the internal environment of an organisation can get analysed through
the use of SWOT analysis model, VRIO model, Porter's generic model and the so on. After the analysis
of this environment only the strategies are formed by the organisation. For reference purpose this report
has taken an example of a company, Sainsbury's. Sainsbury's company is originated form United
Kingdom country and it serves the areas of UK and Ireland. The company was founded in the year
1869 and has attained the second position in largest chain of supermarkets in UK.
This report discusses about the introduction of company which includes its history, purpose,
organisational strategies, industry size and the so on. The organisational scanning tools like PESTEL,
SWOT, Porter's five models, along with the other management theories and been presented in the
report.
MAIN BODY
Introduction about the company
Sainsbury's company original name is J Sainsbury's PLC. It is considered at the second position
in the terms of having largest supermarket chains in the market of United Kingdom. The company has
the total share of 16% in the market of retailing which considered as a huge success. Sainsbury's was
originated in the year 1869 by John James Sainsbury's with a little shop in the a lane of London
country. The company deals in the retailing market. A total number of 1428 locations the company has
successfully managed to open itself. According to the records Sainsbury's was at number one position
in supermarkets chain in the year 1922 but later the Tesco and ASDA overtook the place and then the
Sainsbury's got at number third position in Retailing industry with the first and second position of
Tesco and ASDA respectively in the year 2003 (Kanapathy and et al., 2017). Later for a while the

company was in the third position in the retailing industry. During that time the company acquired
many Safeway shops and one Morrison outlet . They did this because they wanted to expand their
reach in the market. By the end of March 2004 their CEO Davis was promoted to Chairman and Justin
King succeeded him for the position of CEO in the company. That marked change in the company
cause Justin helped the company grow faster. Justin King also formed a three year recovery plan whose
main objective was to make Sainsbury's great again. For this they expanded their business through
hiring new and effective staff members and by acquiring various shops and other outlets. Sainsbury's
also increased the quality of their products and services so that they can increase their market share.
During that period Sainsbury's also started various customer loyalty program so as to retain their
customers. Sainsbury's announced investments in various companies so that they can keep up with the
market pace (Khaksar and et al., 2020). They also had a contract with IBM so that they could upgrade
all their technologies and use latest technologies at that time. As the result of the three years program
the company posted a increase in their sales which solved companies various problems like the
problems related to business distribution system etc. During the time of their development company
also acquired some shops in the areas in which their market share is very low. Sainsbury's also
confirmed a multimillion pound contract with London organising committee of the Olympic and
Paralympic games to be the main sponsor of the 2012 Paralympic games. This gave Sainsbury's boom
in their development as they were dealing in high profile events such as torch relay. With the contract
they were also given exclusive rights of selling the Paralympic merchandise. Sainsbury's was also
split into three parts Sainsbury's supermarket, Sainsbury's bank, Sainsbury's Argos. Sainsbury's
expanded themselves through multi channel expansion strategy (Killett and et al., 2016), which gave a
boom to their business. Although they were expanding, but the cost of expansion was paid by the the
employees. To reduce the cost of operation more than 400 jobs were cut off. This created a sense of
insecurity in their jobs which made all the employees unsatisfied with their job. To remove this tension
Sainsbury's announced that they would increase the base pay rate. This step was taken so that they can
easily retain their employees. Also Sainsbury's during the tension announced that 3500 jobs could go
across its stores. For the convenience of its customers Sainsbury's is collaborating with various
businesses like Starbucks, Zizzi pizza etc. Sainsbury's have also entered the petroleum industry through
Sainsbury's Fuel. Sainsbury's have widened their area of expertise through entering in different market.
Sainsbury's is also giving interim dividend and special dividend to their investors. They are also having
excellent execution to their strategies. Last year they announced that their revenue was more than 2900
cores GBP. Their total retail sales were up by 7.1 percent and their groceries sales were up by 8.2
percent. Sainsbury's most important goal is to be United Kingdoms most trusted retailer. In the span of

150 years Sainsbury's has grown this much only because of their strong strategies and their
implementation. Sainsbury's have expanded this much during modern times was only because they
planned everything for the convenience of their customers like all their stores are having smart shop
self scan. They are also having 12000+ branded products of their own which provides high quality
products at a affordable rate to their customers. They also have launched various loyalty cards and
rewards to retain their customers.
Management theories applied by SAINSBURY'S
Schein organisation culture model
This model is used to analyse the type of culture which is prevailing in the organisation. The model is
comprises of 3 levels, Sainsbury uses this model in followings ways:
Artifact:
The artefacts can be recognised by the people who do not belong to company or insured by the
outsiders. It forms the base or core line about the organisation culture. It includes the physical spaces
which is in the organisation, the language used among the employees, the architecture are the structure
which has been planned for organisation. As in the case with Sainsbury company the language which is
used among the employees is very decent and full of etiquettes. The designing of stores is very
spacious and very much clean. The technology used by the company is also very latest advance that
helps them in effective working (Linnander and et al., 2020).
Values:
They are the basic assumptions or believe which are set in the organisation. If the value of organisation
is good and the opinion which is carry with regard to work employees and environment is also very
favorable then the values are said to be nice. As in the case with Sainsbury Company they have a good
set of values which supports the employees and also the external business environment.
Basic assumptions:
These are the assumptions which are very basic in their nature but a very important when is observed
by an individual. This includes the behaviour organisation has with customers, the type of leadership
which exercises by the managers or the policies and rules which favours their employee welfare are
some examples which comes under this come under this head. As in the case with Sainsbury company
it has been noticed that their basic assumptions are very much strong. The leadership which is exercised
by managers is in such way that motivates the employee to perform the work in full efficiency, the rules

and policies are set in favours of employees, proper training and development program is organized by
company for employees so that they can cope up with contemporary business environment and the
other more.
Apart from this Sainsbury's company changes their cultural practice due to COVID- 19 also.
They made the policies in such a manner which resulted into maintaining the physical distance between
the people, taking care about the employee safety, establishment of sanitizers at every floor, making the
policy to wear mask as a compulsory for everybody, also the culture provides more importance to the
virtual meetings.
SWOT Analysis of Sainsbury's
SWOT analysis is a framework of how internal factors may affect the working or decision of an
organisation. SWOT stands for Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, Threats. Sainsbury's is an UK based
organisation which is the second largest chain of supermarket in United Kingdom.
Strength
They retain their loyal customers by providing
them high quality product at a an affordable
rate.
While promoting their brand they provide
their customers attractive offers and they also
give them some loyalty benefits .
Weakness
· To sustain in this competitive market they tend
to reduce their margin so as to provide their
customers with better offer but that will not let
them be in the market for longer period.
·With the increase in competition they are finding
it difficult to retain their old customers as a lot of
them are switching to new comers
Opportunities
·As they have sustained for long 150 years
their loyalty can attract big investors and
collaborators which will help them in
expanding.
·Having loyal customers base they can easily
enter new market with ease.
Threat
· Through a study it is found that a lot of people
love to shop online and Sainsbury's doesn't have
any online portal for the convenience of the
customers .
·Their competition is increasing day by day as
there are lot of new entrants in then market .

Porter's five forces of Sainsbury's
Porter's five forces analysis is a business model that helps to analyse the structure of the
industry and their corporate strategy. Porter identified five forces that play part in shaping of the
industry in the world. Porter's five forces model includes these forces:
Threat of new entrants
The retail industry in UK have fierce and intense competition because of the higher number of
players in the market and Sainsbury's have to compete with the companies like Tesco, Asda etc (Lyu
and Zhang, 2017). The Sainsbury's have strengthen the barriers by focusing on infrastructure and
supply chain framework and by imposing the barriers of cost differentiation and cost leadership.
Bargaining power of the buyers
In context to Sainsbury's the consumers of UK has many options in term of buying so it gives a
upper hand to the consumers of UK to negotiate in prices and get a better deal and also the retail
industry of UK has all the major players in the market so it provides many options to consumers in
order to get quality product within affordable prices.
Bargaining power of suppliers
The Sainsbury's of UK has options of many suppliers which gives the upper hand to the
Sainsbury's to negotiate the prices and to get better deals in order to gain profit. Sainsbury's can easily
negotiate the prices with the suppliers because of the easy availability of the raw materials and many
options of suppliers.
Threat of Substitutes
Sainsbury's have to provide quality products at affordable prices in order to strengthen their
position in the market because in retail industry consumers have online shopping, different modes of
payments, availability of home delivery which makes the competition intense and intensify the threat
from the substitutes like Tesco, Morrison, Asda etc.
Rivalry between existing companies
The Sainsbury's in the UK faces the strong competitive rivalry against companies like Asda,
Morrison, Tesco etc. competes with each other by doing aggressive advertising, innovation and
providing quality products within affordable price range which makes the competition between the

companies fierce and intense (Madhiwalla and Roy, 2018).
Environmental scanning of company
PESTLE Analysis is defined as the business model to explore the opportunities and threats in the
external environment for the organisation. PESTLE analysis includes external factors like Political,
Economic, Sociological, Technological, Legal and Environmental.
Political Factor
Sainsbury's have expanded it's business in the environment of UK by signing international
trade agreements with different organisation. Sainsbury's business is growing in the UK environment
because of the political stability of the government. This sector includes the degree of control the
government can exercise over industries which are present in a country. Some of the examples include
tax, corruption, exchange rates and the so on. Due to covid 19 the Sainsbury company has to implement
various rules in their stores as directed by government. The government has made it mandatory for
companies to organise the sanitizers in the store premises and initiate the distances among two people
in the store. The company has to bring up such Technology and policies which initiate the minimum
touch or contact of humans. The cost of sanitizer’s cleanliness and mask as increases the expenditure
for the company but it was directed by government they need to to follow the rules. Apart from this the
Sainsbury Company is established in UK where the political government is very stable. It has been
noticed that the places where the political government is table their policies and regulations are also
stable. This works as an advantage for any company as they do not need to bring the changes
frequently according to the often changes in rules and regulation said by government (Ogbeibu,
Senadjki and Peng, 2018). This brings an uniformity in the working of organisation.
Economic Factor
Sainsbury's business is a stable business because of the stable economy and in the economic
environment of UK Sainsbury's is expanding their business by increasing their capital and market share
by providing the quality product to consumers. The rise of supermarket chains in the UK have
encouraged Sainsbury's to grow their business and reach out to more and more consumers in order to
gain competitor advantage. This factor includes the economic condition of any region or country. Some
of the examples may include the GDP, unemployment rate, income, disposable income, exports and
imports and much more. As in the case with Sainsbury company, it is establish in the region of UK and

Ireland and both these countries has a good record of high GDP. The disposable income of people in
these countries is also very high allowing them to purchase more and the products of high quality also.
But due to covid 19 the economic conditions of UK has gone down as the unemployment rate got
increase, the income of people got decrease resulting in low disposable income. The Sainsbury
companies sale was also very low due to this pandemic reason which does affected their profits and
revenue.
Sociological Factor
Sainsbury's business grabbed opportunity to grow in UK environment by providing the
groceries in easy and fast way because of the busy lifestyle of people and it helps the consumers in
saving their time. Sainsbury's satisfy their consumers by providing them the healthy products which is
currently a emerging trend in the market. It includes the tastes and preferences which are prevailing
among the customer. The company always tries to to cope up with the prevailing preferences of the
customers by performing a market research upon them.
Technological Factor
It is explained by changes in technology, automation of technology, research and development
etc. Sainsbury's have updated their machinery to achieve the competitor advantage over their
competitors and because of the easy availability of resources it makes Sainsbury's production fast and
simple. Due to covid people now consider to shop online and bring all the necessary items or products
directly at home. This has increases the demand for online shopping. The company after the covid has
made their online shopping platform very effective and easy for their customers to use so that they can
shop online. The company has made the technological change after pandemic to decreases the negative
effect upon its overall sales. Apart from this the Sainsbury company also has adopted the efficient and
latest management information system through which they save and store the information related to
their customers so that they can serve them in a better way. The company has the full record of the
customers who are loyal to them so that they can be served in some special way as a repayment for
their loyalty. The information about customers will also help the company to maintain a good relation
with them by by wishing them on festivals, educating them about offers and discount and much more.
Legal Factor
Sainsbury's business in the UK environment is successful because of adhering to the simple and
understandable legal framework and by providing better work environment for labour, which helped
the organisation in achieving it's goal and objectives. It includes the the rules and regulations set by the

legislative department of the country. Sainsbury follows all these rules and regulations and has
successfully attain the confidence and trust of both government and customers.
Environmental factor
Sainsbury's in UK have adopted using eco friendly machinery which results in the reduction of
industrial waste and also providing recyclable poly bags for the consumers to carry their groceries.
Sainsbury's also adopts all the environment friendly measures in the production and selling of products.
The Sainsbury Company at the time of covid-19 did contribute to the society at his end also. They
provided the free wheat and many essential product to the government and also directly to the people
who cannot access for basic food. They also follow all the environmental related rules and regulation
and take the sustainability development very seriously.
Through the SWOT analyses, it is very much clear that the presence of company in UK market is very
strong and they acquire a huge market share in the market place. This works as a merit for the company
as they have that capacity to afford the expenditure incur for the sanitizers and for adopting the latest
technology. This would help them in performing their work with full effectiveness and efficiency.
Although the COVID-19 has caused some losses with regard to the sales of the company, but it can
now be get cope up with selling the products at the company’s online site. COVID -19 has increased
the sales done through online platform, so this has saved the company from more loss as they are
present at the online site. This can also work as an opportunity for the company as they now can
increase their sales and can perform majority of their operations at online platform saving the cost from
physical stores. The threat from competition can be surmounted to the regular analyses of social factor.
Through this factor the company can attain the competitive advantage by providing the products or
services which the customers are looking for. This will also help them in surviving in the market place
and enables them to grow. The Sainsbury company is very big in terms of their operations, bringing the
changes in their activities may not be an easy task to perform for the company but not an impossible
one because of the flexible culture and structure adopted by the company. The company can make the
changes in its internal environment according to the mobility which are taking place in the external
environment. Sainsbury company has the potential to cope up with the external market environment by
taking its internal strengths and opportunities to high.
Ethical standards and sustainability development
Ethical standard refers to the core ethics which an organisation exhibits. The ethical standard
witch Sainsbury company follows includes honesty, integrity and transparency. The company believes

that they can attain success and growth in the Marketplace when they are very much honest with the
people they are connected to. These people may include the customers, suppliers, employees,
stakeholders, government and etc. The company has made up their policies and structure in such a way
that it integrates with their ethical standards. They believe that when they are honest with their people
the people will in written stay connected with them. And maintaining a strong connection with the
people also helps the organisation in attaining a different type of competitive advantage into the
Marketplace. The options and the operations performed by the organisation is so transparent that the
customers May know about the operations which goes in the company. Sainsbury is very much
particular about the ethical standard and always try to not to break any of these. They stand by on the
policy of thinking about others before and then about the company. The culture which has been set is
such that it gives flexibility to the employees operations and provide happy and comfortable
environment at the workplace.
In the COVID- 19 times also, the company made their policies in their working premises in a view to
keep the safety of the customers and employees. They have fully taken care about the safety and try to
provide a safe environment to the people through their policies and culture formed by the organisation.
The company made it compulsory for the people to wear mask, use the sanitizers before taking entry
into premises, the use of technology which reduces the human touch at this maximum, temperature
checking of the customers and staff members and so on. All these policies where were made
compulsory and become the part of organisational ethical policies.
The company always try to maintain a satisfaction level of their employees because they know that
these are the true asset for them. The people like stakeholders, employees, suppliers, employees and etc
has developed a sense of trust with this company. They feel that they will receive a full level of
satisfaction from Sainsbury as from their past experiences they have successfully meet the
requirements of them. The establishment of ethical standards helps the organisation accountable for
their actions. The benefits of these ethical standards can be as follows:
Facts: The implementation of these ethical standards helps the organisation in giving particular
directions to their actions. The company actions are formed with regard to the ethical they can establish
for themselves. For example, Sainsbury will not try to hide any policy or operations from its employees
as they believe in the policy of honesty. They have implemented this policy as one of their core ethical
standard. Through this they will not even perform any activity which would lead to the break of trust
about the company among employees.

Improves the relationships: The implementations of ethical standards help the company in improving
the relationships with the people who are associated with the company. The ethical standard enables in
maintaining the relationship with the employees, customers, stakeholders and so on and this ultimately
benefits the company at least. Building up of the relationship helps in increasing the goodwill among
the market, builds up the creditability, and retention of loyal people with the company. All these factor
helps the company in long run also.
Apart from this the policies and the operations are set in such a way which brings the sustainable
development in the organisation. The sustainability development refers to the development of all those
parties which are in contact with organisation. Sainsbury has realised that in this competitive world
they can retain themselves through the sustainability development only and for this they have formed
their policies in such way which brings growth and development to all the people or resources. The
sustainable development has benefited the organisation in following way:
Increase in profit: the company has notice huge increase in their profit through the sustainable
development. The employees and the customer along with the stakeholders are so happy and satisfied
as their respective goals and objectives get timely fulfilled by the organisation.
Increase in performance: through the application of sustainability development Sainsbury has notice
an increase in the performance of the company. They have noticed that the productivity of their
employees has got increase as their motivation and satisfaction level also get increased simultaneously.
The Company now able to recognise the need and motivational factors of the employees and
successfully provide them with the same. This increases the values and honesty among the employees
towards the organisation and force them to willingly perform good in their work.
Increment profitability and lessen costs: Doubters of sustainability guarantee that sustainable
strategic policies eat into corporate benefit. Advancement of sustainable strategic approaches fits
proficient activity that smooths out exertion and preserves assets, which improves worker profitability
and diminishes cost. Diminishing expense likewise includes energy preservation procedures that can be
as straightforward as killing superfluous lights and protecting dividers to more complex endeavors, for
example, establishment of geothermal warming and cooling frameworks.
Increment business capacity to consent to guideline: With all the conversation with respect to
environmental change, decreasing energy assets, and natural effect, it's nothing unexpected that state
and national government offices are ordering guidelines to secure the climate. Incorporating
sustainability into your business will situate it to meet changing guidelines in a convenient way.