Employee Empowerment, Innovative Culture, and Digital Transformation at Woolworths

The innovation has become one of the major factor for the contemporary business organizations when they are to gain the much desired competitive advantage in the modern world of business. As mentioned by Parris et al. (2016), almost each and every business industries are becoming intensely competitive. The effect of the globalization is playing a key role influencing the intensification of the competitiveness in majority of the business industries. As Payonk, Lyashenko and Kvilinskyi (2015), rightly mentioned that the globalization is introducing some of the important aspects such as the foreign direct investment, cultural assimilation, accurate transfer of technology and the efficient elimination of the trade barriers, the possible evaporation of the market monopoly is on the cards for majority of the multinational corporations. As the new organizations are entering the market in a rapid manner, the existing organizations are facing the threat of the survival and growth.

With precise look at the concept of the survival of fittest, Sowden, Pringle and Gabora (2015), highlighted that the companies are facing the necessity of thinking creatively when they are to deal with the customers for the accurate retention of the customers, when they are to address the unique and diversified demands of the customers and for the development of the unique products that which can become bestseller for the companies. In such situation, the significance of the technological advancement and innovative thinking becomes considerably prominent.  The selected organization for the study, is one of the renowned retail organizations operating in Australia named as Woolworths. Woolworths has tremendous reputation of being one of the front runner in the Australian business market in the incorporation of the technological advancement and innovative ideas in the design of their product and service offerings to the customers.    

Three hot topics about the innovation in the selected company are the employee empowerment, innovative culture and the digital transformation. According to the comments of Goller and Bessant (2017), the capability of the companies in being continuously innovative in their approach of the business management, is largely dependent on three different dimensions such as the employee empowerment, innovative culture and the digital transformation (Goller and Bessant 2017). With a close consideration towards the business operations of the mentioned retail market leader, it is visible that the senior management of the company is continuously striving to tackle the rising the opponents and in doing so, the incorporation of the innovative and creative ideas from the part of the various stakeholders of the company, in their service and product offerings has been the major trend.

Proposed Innovative Product or Service Idea for Woolworths

According to Cohendet and Simon (2015), there is requirement of enormous efforts from the higher authority of the companies when they are to become an innovative and creative company in executing their business actions and in doing so, the companies have the necessity to empower their own personnel. The selected business organization is feeling same sort of necessity as well. The senior management, similar to many scholars, are able to understand the necessity of enhancing the level of expertise and technical knowhow of the employees, for enabling them to participate in creative and innovative thinking. As the management of the innovation in the business operations require great share of expertise of the employees, it is important for the organizations to continuously improve the skill set of their personnel to match the requirements of the innovation. On the other hand, Bouncken, Brem and Kraus (2016), highlighted that contribution of the employees, in the enhancement of the innovative capability of an organization is also dependent on the scope and freedom that they get from the senior management and in such situation, the higher authority of the company is determined to share a certain level of freedom to their employees for their participation and involvement in the creative thinking activities and the decision making process of the organization.

On the other hand, an important hot topic related to the innovation which is affecting the mentioned company is innovative culture. As Eskiler et al. (2016), mentioned that the innovative companies are primarily based on a strong pillar which is innovative culture. Eskiler et al. (2016), further mentioned that the innovative culture contributes towards the appropriate formation of various parameters of a company which leads a company towards being innovative in nature. On the other hand, innovative culture ensures that the employees or the different stakeholders of the company who contribute to the creativity and innovation, are sufficiently motivated and have greater level of involvement with the company. As a result, the senior management group of the company are observed to be take a series of actions for developing innovative culture such as the accurate management of the employment relations, initiation of the employee engagement activities along with a free flowing working environment where the communication will be primarily information in nature (Sinha, Priyadarshi and Kumar 2016). Other than this, the digital transformation in another substantial hot topic related to the innovation in the company. The organization is able to understand the tech savvy nature of their main target market which are the Australian people and that has influenced them to design their presence and business processes with accurate alignment with the technology (Hinings, Gegenhuber and Greenwood 2018).

Alignment with Woolworths’ Capabilities and Potential Health Benefits for Target Markets

The company is striving towards the complete digital transformation of their business processes and that includes the manufacturing, supply chain management, marketing and promotional activities, human resource management and sales management. The shareholders and a major section of the executive team of the company are observed to put strong emphasis on the online business management along with the improvement of their business presence and that reflects the urge of the senior management towards the digital transformation (Nambisan, Wright and Feldman 2019). The digital transformation has contributed immensely towards the enhancement of the innovative capability of the organization.

The goal of the company is to continuously provide top quality FMCG and grocery products to their products. Being one of the major retail organizations in the nation, Woolworths is subjected to immense demands of the daily products (Woolworths.com.au. 2020). According to the business leaders of the company, the ultimate objective of the company is to provide uninterrupted supply of the various products belonging to the categories such as the fruit and vegetable, meat, seafood, deli, dairy, eggs, fridge, bakery, pantry, freezer, drinks, liquor, pet, health, baby, health and beauty, household along with the lunch box, to their customers (Woolworths.com.au. 2020).

With a close consideration towards the goal and the portfolio of the company along with the recent pandemic situation, an innovative product or service will be addition to one of their capabilities which is the company owned mobile application. With a close look at the recent situation in Australia and the substantial spread of the COVID 19 in the nation, an addition to the innovative services of the company is the expansion of their product chain with a new product belonging to the healthcare section which is a package of the one hand sanitizer, one set of gloves mask and a set of gloves for protection against the deadly coronavirus. In order to avoid the customer gatherings for arguably the most essential product during this time, the company is expected to be keep it on sale only at online business platform. The product can be ordered from the mobile application of the company. However, the company is expected to show significant improvisation in linking their product offerings with the socially responsible business activities through creating a COVID 19 webpage in their mobile application. The customers who will order this particular healthcare package, will be required to undergo a virtual health check- up through their mobile application.

Elevator Pitch to Woolworths’ CEO

As one of the main tactic to stop the COVID 19 elaborated by the World Health Organization is continuous self- assessment and aggressive testing, the formulation of the virtual infrastructure for testing health condition of the customers will play a pivotal role in enhancing the contribution of the company towards preventing the spread of the deadly virus amongst the citizens of Australia society. Along with that, the company is expected to share the data of health check- up directly to the Australian department of Health to strengthen their database and to ignite the process of recovery. Other than this, the new addition in the product portfolio of the company will be delivered to the door steps similar to the practice of the online delivery of the grocery and FMCG products from the part of the company. Hence, it is evident that the innovative product and service which will be offered to the customers through the online presence of the company, is accurately streamlined with the capabilities of the company.

 

With a closer consideration towards the recent situation in Australia and across the globe due to the severe impact of the Coronavirus, it is evident that each of the citizens of the nation are facing the necessity of acquiring the healthcare protective kits. The target market or the general citizens of the nation are observed to be exposed to the COVID 19. As a result, the healthcare service providers are exposed to an abnormally increasing demands. As the government of Australia along with the eminent health care bodies such as World Health Organization, have repetitively asked the citizens to protect themselves from the detrimental impact of the pandemic, the demands of the quality protection gears is also increasing in a substantial manner. Hence, the demands developed amongst the people of the nation regarding the healthcare product is evident with their comments and reviews in various social media platforms of the company. With accurate utilization of the strong social media presence of the company in the social media platforms such as the Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest and YouTube, the company is expected to manage the user involvement (Woolworths.com.au. 2020).

Considering the probable time, the development of the webpage in the mobile application of the company is expected to take 30 days as the introduction of the proposed virtual COVID 19 evaluation platform from the part of the company will be executed with active consultation between the senior management of the company and the Australian Health Ministry. Hence, the approval for the webpage development is expected to take 30 days’ time. On the other hand, the company will formulate a business tie up with Stay Safe for the supply of the hand sanitizers, 3M Company for the smooth supply of the top quality N95 masks along with Foil Republic for the sufficient and accurate supply of the hand gloves (3m.com 2020). As a result, the company is expected to receive the supply within 30 days as majority of the healthcare related companies have no option other than delivering their material way earlier than the scheduled normal time. Hence, the probable time for the company to introduce the health package with accurate synchronization of the virtual COVID 19 health check- up facilities will be maximum of 45 days.

Considering the costing, the shareholders and owners of the company are expected to invest 5 million Australian dollars for the appropriate launch of the new product. The costing will include the product approval expenditure, the expenditure of assembling, labelling, packaging, human resource costing associated with the process and marketing and sales of the product. Considering the resources, the most vital resources required for the product is the infrastructure of the mobile application of the company. As the virtual COVID 19 check- up with the help of the mobile application is mandatory for the customers who want to purchase COVID 19 Protection Package, the role of the mobile application is substantially crucial. On the other hand, the company is expected to utilize their supply chain resources in an accurate manner for receiving smooth supply of the above mentioned three products from 3M Company, Stay Safe and Foil Republic. In addition to this, the company is expected to employ their marketing and sales team for promoting the new product through utilizing the social media platforms, business website of the company and the offline marketing channels of the company. At the same time, the public relations team of the company are required to initiate awareness development campaign for their new virtual COVID 19 evaluation facilities and for developing the awareness amongst the general people regarding the detrimental impact of the COVID 19.

The research and development team of the company along with the IT team of the company are expected to formulate paper prototypes for the product (Duh et al. 2016). A paper prototype of the product in the mobile application is presented below:

With the help of the above mentioned departments of the company, the organization is expected to test the prototype with the active participation of a real user, facilitator, a human computer and observer (Geisen and Bergstrom 2017). With the intervention of the above mentioned group of individuals, the company is expected to conduct the usability testing of the new product for testing the human interaction with the user interface (Geisen and Bergstrom 2017).

 

(Information: Revenue of Australian Pharmaceutical Industries Limited in Australia from 2015 to 2019 (in million Australian dollars))

(Information Courtesy: Statista.com. 2020)

The functional departments to be associated with the product launch are operations team of the company, IT team of the company, Research and Development team of the company, supply chain management, packaging and labelling team of the company, sales and marketing team of the company. The operations team of the company is required to persuade the shareholders regarding the feasibility and profitability of the product with information of current demands of the selected product with the rapid spread of COVID 19 along with the above mentioned information of the revenue growth of Australian Pharmaceutical Industries Limited in the nation. Along with that, the IT team and Research and Development team are responsible for the research and launch of the new product. On the other hand, supply chain management, packaging and labelling team of the company are liable for ensuring smooth supply and packaging of the product and the marketing and sales team is responsible for the promotions and sales of the product (Govender 2017).

Conclusion:

On a concluding note, it is evident that Woolworths is conducting a sustainable business in Australian retail business and is primarily affected by three hot topics related to innovation which are employee empowerment, innovative culture and digital transformation. With application of innovative capability, the company is expected to introduce a healthcare protection package comprising of mask, hand sanitizer and gloves. The recent demands of these products have the ability to make the package a bestseller for the company. In addition to this, the company has the potential to portray high level of corporate citizenship with the virtual COVID 19 checking platform aligned with the package.   

References: 

3m.com 2020. 3M Company. [online] Available at: <https://www.3m.com/>

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