Management Perspectives of Woolworth-Free-Samples for Students

Question: Critically analyse the roles, functions that managers perform and discuss the challenges and risks they have to address in todays changing Organisations. Answer: Introduction of the company: Woolworth is the company that operates its business in retail industry in Australia. The company has started its business by opening its first store in the year 1924. This suggests that the company is very old and thus have a trust worthy brand name in the market. The company has used many strategies such as acquisition and mergers and made many efforts in reaching the position where it is today(Demirkan, Kauffman, Vayghan, Fill, Karagiannis and Maglio, 2009). It has acquired many small companies and today, it is the largest retailer in the country and has around 31% of the total market share. Woolworth is not only operating in Australia but also paved its way towards the global international countries such India. In India, the company operates by the joint venture with TATA (Wilson,Tucker, Hooker, LeJeune and Doohan, 2008). The company also has its stores in New Zealand and other countries. Management structure and the roles of managers This diagram shows the management structure of the company. It has been analysed from the structure that the roles of managers in the company are very much important and crucial. Without managers, the company cannot survive for long. Following are some of the roles and the functions of the managers in the organisation. Roles: Managers play a very important role in the organisation. The changes in the organisational structure change the role and the importance of managers in the organisation. The first role that has been played by the managers is to act as the leader (Drori, Hllerer and Walgenbach, 2013). Managers have to lead the employees under them and thus they act as the leaders. According to the management structure of the company called Woolworth, it has been identified that the company has different managers for each department. Thus these managers act as leaders for the employees of the different departments. Woolworth operates in the retail industry and thus every store requires a manager to manage the sales staff of the store. They have to directly communicate with the customers as well. This practice forces the store managers to be negotiator (Grewal, Levy and Kumar, 2009). They also play the role of negotiator when the changes in the organisation are occurring. As in case of Woolworth, maintai ning the relation with the suppliers is also very much important for the company and this was done by the managers only. A manager also has top act as the figurehead. Figurehead is the one who is filled by all other members of the company. Functions The major functions of the managers in the company are planning, organizing, staffing, directing and controlling. Al these functions real lost conducted by the managers of Woolworth (Samson and Singh, 2008). The first function that is planning is the process that allows the managers to make the plan for conducting the process or activity in the organisation, organizing refers to allocation and arrangement of the resources and the activities in sequential order. Staffing means recruiting the required human resources, direction means providing direction to the employees and controlling means monitoring the whole process of the organisation. Legitimacy of management and impact of social and political factors on management: Legitimacy of management can be defined as the governance of the management. This legitimacy comes when the social and the political factors affect the management of the company. Woolworths management was also impacted by the outside political and the social environment. The company used to adapt the localization strategy in order to serve the customers of different places with the choice of their products. This is the result of social impact on the management (Harris, Kacmar, Zivnuska and Shaw, 2007). The company also focuses on the diversity of the workforce. As far as the political framework is considered, the company looks for the political stability in the country and believes in maintaining the laws and the legal legislations passed by the country government in regard with retail industry. The management has to make such policies that are in consideration with the legal framework of the country. Challenges and risks faced by them: Challenges faced by the managers in 21st century are large in number. This is because of introduction of new trends, increase in competition and also the changing needs and requirement of the employees. As the case of Woolworth is considered, there are many instances that show that Woolworth managers are facing challenges to handle the staff and thus, making wring decision in managing the organisations (Wahyuni, 2010). Review of the employees of Woolworth suggests that the company is not conscious about the employees and the managers are unable to take care of the bad practices such as bullying that are occurring in the organisation. It has been claimed by an employees from the store of NSW that one of the manager is doing such bullying to the employees thus letting down the company. In general there are many challenges that can be faced by the manager such as diversity. Different needs of employees, training, etc. Thus keeping in mind all these things, it is necessary for the Woolworth managers to take strict action against such unethical practices in the company (Dos Santos, 2011). Organisation culture: Organisation culture of the company can be defined as the beliefs and the values of the company to deal with all the stakeholders. It is the environment of the company and the values that are followed by the company to do business (King and Thobela, 2014). Woolworth is the brand that has value based culture. This company believes in delivery great products to their customers along with the welfare and development of the employees. The people strategy has been incorporated in the company in order to develop the employees of the firm. This strategy aims at providing and enhancing the employee engagement in the organisation, enhancing value based leadership. Developing the employees by showing them the career path is also the aim of people strategy (Arli, Dylke, Burgess, Campus and Soldo, 2013). The company also focuses on development of skills and leadership of the people. This requires the company to train the employees. Woolworth ensures that every individual or the employee in the organisations get equal opportunity. The company has implemented the strategy to hire more and more disabled people in the organisation to perform the tasks that can be done by them. The company also focuses on providing remuneration and schemes to the employees and thus organise many programs for the same. This overall discussion suggests that the culture so the organisation is very much employee oriented (Financial Review, 2017). Impact of ethics, values and diversity: Ethics can be defined as the moral principles that have been followed by the organisation or the individual. Ethical consideration is very much important for any of the organisation. This is because ethics provides a behavior framework for the company to be followed. Values at the same time are the beliefs of the company that are also been followed by each and every employees of the company. The last thing is diversity. Diversity can be defined as the variation in the process and the workforce of the company (NewsComAu., 2017). Diversity in culture of the resources and diversity in various processes are t the culture of the organisation as well as the working and functions of the managers in the company. Woolworth is the company that operates its business in various countries and thus has to maintain the ethical framework of each and every country along with its base country. Diversity also needs to be amended at the same time. On culture: Ethics affect the culture of the organisation very much. This is because the organisational culture can be firmed only by considering the ethical principles that needs to be followed by the company. Woolworth is the fir that focuses on maintaining the ethical values in training the employees as well as other stakeholders of the company (Mumbrella.com.au., 2017). As the company is very much dependent on the customers so making the ethical framework for the customers is also the need for the company. This frames the best of the company's organisational structure. Values of the company also have its impact on the organisational culture. As discussed that Woolworth is the vale based company and thus the structure of the organisation is also complementary to it (Keith, 2012). Last factor is diversity; diversity in Woolworth is in the workforce as well as in the process. As the company has diversity in its functions as it affects the organisational culture of the company. Woolworth culture is very much customer as well as employee oriented. This is because the company has to deal with the customers as well as the employee at the same time. Diversity beings innovation in the company and enables the company to bring advancement in the process according to the diversity in its functions and workforce. On managers: Managers play greater roles in the company. This has already been discussed in the above section that Woolworth is the firm that is facing many challenges in terms of management. The factors like ethics, values and diversity affect the managerial functions and roles in the company. Ethics in the company needs to be implemented by the managers only (Digital, 2017). Managers need to consider the ethical issues in framing the plans for the process that needs to be conducted in the organisation. It is also necessary to involve the values of the company. Managers are the one who acts as the leaders and the employees follow the managers. Values of the company are the elements that need to be taught to the employees at the time they enter the organisation. This is the duty of the manager to follow such values nada los ensures that the employees are following the same (Woolworths, 2017). The last factor is diversity. Diversity also affects the managers work. The managers need to implement th e strategies that consider the views of all the employees who have diverse culture and beliefs. Thus it makes it difficult for the managers to handle such workforce who have different backgrounds. This is because the people from different backgrounds have different perspectives and considering the views of all becomes 1impossible. This enables the manager to take the most intelligent decision by hearing the opinions of all the members. Results and conclusion: It has been concluded from the above case study that organisational culture of the organisation gets affected by many factors. It is the basis of nay of the organisation and the factors like ethics, values and the diversity affect the organisations culture., the managers of the organisations are the one who needs to deal with such evolution in the organisation culture,. They play different roles in the organisations such as of leaders, negotiator, motivator etc. They also play many functions such as planning, organisation etc. As far as the companies like Woolworth is considered, it has been analysed that Woolworth is the form that operates in the industry of supermarket or retail market (Financial Review., 2017). This company has its brand image in the country but still face some of the movement issues now and then. This is because of the change in the culture and the external business environment of the place. This commonly believes in value based culture and follows the ethical fr amework properly. Diversity in the workforce and the changing values of the company affect the roles of managers and the organisations culture of the company and they form the basis for developing the culture of the organisation and the managerial functions as well References: Arli, V., Dylke, S., Burgess, R., Campus, R. and Soldo, E., 2013. 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