Foodworks Australia Assignment Help

Nature of the Business, Products & Services

Foodworks basically comes under Australian United Retailer limited that owns and operates a network of supermarkets, and food and convenience stores within Australia. The company basically provide grocery items to local public through its stores that are located on various locations. The company was first incorporated in 1997 and is based in Melbourne.

Foodworks is one of those companies that is truly independent retail group, that is also of significant size in Australia and over the period of time the company has only got bigger, better and stronger (Foodworks.com.au).

Vision, mission and strategy of the business

Mission

The mission for Foodworks is to be able to build the prosperity of its independent retailer members all around Australia.

Vision

The vision for Foodworks it to pride itself in its fresh, contemporary approach towards retail industry while still retaining a friendly and community focussed relationship with its customers.

Strategy

The overall strategy for Foodworks is a bit different as compare to its competitors in the industry. For Foodworks, its branding has been a key focus over the last few months as it focus towards its expansionary strategies – that includes but not limited the development of new store concepts and the roll out of an extended private label range – along with improved core customer recognition (Ferre. J, 2009).

 

With its current strategy the company that only had few numbers of stores has at present got more then 700 associated supermarkets, food and convenience stores spanning every state / territory nationally out of which more then 400 stores operate under the brand of Foodworks (Griffiths. G, 2008). So far, Foodworks business strategy appears to have paid off, the company seemed to have pursued rapid growth over the last 12 months.

Foodworks

Organizational structure

At present the company has over 710 supermarkets that made the company second largest independent supermarket-retailing group in Australia. It won’t be wrong to say that Foodworks overall business model and its organizational structure is one of its kinds in the super market industry (Competitive landscape, 2009). Foodworks is Australian-owned and operated with its shareholder base who are restricted to other retail storeowners and other related parties. The company was initially formed in response to its rapid growth that was a result of merger between Foodworks super market and Australian United Retailers in 2004. By implementing on its strategy the company has been able to steadily and successfully build its business and its brand over the years, especially in last 3 years after the company got merged with Queensland-based Australian United Retailers (Competitive landscape, 2009). It wont be wrong to say that the company was heading towards a brick wall mainly because of the reason of its cooperative structure that it had. As because of this reason various Foodworks retailers wanted to keep control on the company structure. However later on the retailers agreed to restructure the company and were willing to stumped up more than $10 million in internal funding, that exceeded in prospectus target to fund Foodworks various departments including backroom systems, IT and communications, merchandise, marketing and other network expansion (Butler. B, 2010). Over the last couple of years, Foodworks has been able to design a new retail structure that the company calls the ‘perfect store’, however the company won’t open corporate outlets. The new structure of company is that kind of a model that will enable independent retailers to adopt it easily when they refurbish, relocate or open new stores. With the company’s new structure it has already unlocked various opportunities that consist of developing offers of new store locations all around Australian (Margin. F, 2007).

The company has transformed from its cooperative company structure to a model that can easily be considered more flexible and dynamic. Such structure has enabled the brand to match Coles & Woolworths that opens up options for the future of the company. FoodWorks has some similarities to IGA, the brand’s closest competitor. They have similar ancestry, both being created from independent retail stores merging to create supermarket groups. Also, both comprise multiple individual retailers originally trading under some of the same independent chains (Margin. F, 2007). In addition, IGA’s main “home brand” is Black and Gold, a generic food brand that also sells in FoodWorks stores across the country. Items are easily distinguished because of the gold/yellow packaging with the black writing on the item.

Stuck with your Assignment?

Hire Qualified Writers for Assignment Help at Low Price

WhatsApp Get a Quote

Workplace values, ethics & attitudes

For any business Ethics is about putting principles into action. There has to be a consistency between what the company say it values and what its action say it value is a matter of integrity. At Foodworks the company demonstrate their ethics by living their values, this simply means that the company live its values in their daily interactions with customers, vendors, business partners and competitors (Competitive landscape, 2009). The aim of ethics at Foodworks is to identify rules that should govern people’s behaviour and the company goods and services that are worth seeking (Foodworks annual report, 2010). For Foodworks, values are the principle of conduct such as caring, being honest with each other and customers, pursuing excellence, showing loyalty and acting with integrity at all levels of the organization. Most of the employees do agree to the point that all these values are admirable guidelines for having role model behaviour.

The company maintains its success through its four core values. Foodworks has a strong focus on its commerciality, under which the company independent stores have more subjectivity and are more emotionally aware. The second core value at Foodworks is to have continuous improvement and acknowledgement that the company and its management have the capability to always strengthen it. The third core value of the company is to focus on performance and consequences that it may have. To avoid such mistakes and learn at the same time about how to grow as a team and not as an individual. Lastly the fourth value at Foodworks is to have strong emphasises on personal values.

Leadership style

Organizations within any industry need individuals to get the job done and at the same time require services of skilled and experienced leaders, someone who have the ability to effectively control and coordinate with workers and also get the work done properly within the given time frame. Peter Noble was the ex CEO of the company who managed and lead the company for a long time, under the leadership of Peter Noble the company took various bold decisions. However there were few decisions made that proved to be disastrous because of its nature, one such decision was of Foodworks expansion plan. Mr Noble spearheaded the company from its traditional business into a company owned stores, buying almost more then 40 Coles stores last year at an overall cost of over $30 million (Butler. B, 2010).

In general the term leadership is considered as an art, for individuals to be able to become a successful leader one has to be a master of it. However it has been observed on various occasions that the role of leadership can easily be achieved but after achieving it, it is usually hard to maintain it. At Foodworks the company now has a new CEO who can also be considered as a leader, Mr. Rick Wight, as chief executive officer of Australia’s independent supermarket group, Rick is leading more then 600 stores (Butler. B, 2010). The approach taken by Mr. Rick is a bit different as compare to the previous CEO of Foodworks.

Decision making and employee involvement

In general, decision making process can be describe as a conscious process that consist of making choices among one or more alternative, while having the intentions of moving toward some desired level.

For any company an HR approach is a reflection of its corporate policy and other perspectives. However it does not matter on the perfection of HR system that the company has designed unless and until the company properly maintains it (Ferre. J, 2009). At Foodworks, the role of line managers is considered as very crucial mainly because of the reason that they put the designed HR approach into practice. At the same time it is equally important that how employees at Foodworks perceive the HR strategies of the firm, and whether the HR system is providing competitive advantage or not. At times there are decisions that the leaders of the company have to make however if such decisions are backed by shareholders and investors then the leaders feel a bit more relax. In the case of Foodworks, the shareholders of NSX-listed Foodworks have voted almost unanimously in favor of management’s purchase of 45 Cole’s outlets and eight associated Liquorland stores. Such support clearly highlight the fact that decision-making at Foodworks has to be supported by the shareholders and employees at all levels are very much involve in it.

Motivation

Motivation is something that every employee need in his/her job, it can be describe as the forces within a person that affect the direction, intensity and overall persistence in the behaviour. Employee motivation can be achieved through goal setting, providing feedback to employees in the most appropriate manner and by having an environment at work that is appreciated by employees. At Foodworks, the management is very much concerned about having its employees motivated and to achieve that required level from its employees they engage them through various activities (Palmer. D, 2009). One thing in particular is the regular feedback that the company top management that involves store leaders; area managers like to provide employees on. In case if any employee in particular need further help or any assistance then such assistance is offered. At Foodworks its management do accept the fact that every individual has his/her own level of motivation that cannot be achieved with the same assistance and setup. Every store holds a monthly meeting where the best performer is appreciated and if any changes are required from the management that’s also been advised. Another way to get the best out of employees is by setting targets, goals and then keep employees engage towards it (Palmer. D, 2009). The efforts of members are appreciated at all levels of the organization; even the CEO is rewarded against his performance. At Foodworks the board has established a remuneration and nomination committee whose basic role is to develop appropriate remuneration and incentive policies for employees throughout the company.

Team Dynamics.        

Regardless of the nature and size of the company, teamwork is very essential in order to be able to achieve desired level of result. At Foodworks, that is one of Australia largest independent grocery chain, the company has been able to achieve strong sales growth, with the help of its team at all levels of the organization (Palmer. D, 2009).

There are many types of teams that do exist within the structure of Foodworks, for example departmental teams, service teams, advisory teams and so on. It is only because of the hard work of these teams that have achieved the desired results for Foodworks. Especially in country like Australia where there are people from all backgrounds and nationalities, getting them to work in a team is really a big challenge. However at Foodworks, the company encourage multiculturalism and provide all sorts of training and support to create an environment where employees can feel like a family. During the 2008/09 financial years the Foodworks Business Development team undertook a range of activities in order to deliver growth and also to capture potential opportunities for the company and its retailers.

Such activities consist of:

  • Investigating and planning new business opportunities
  • Developing and assisting retailers to implement new store layouts and fit- outs
  • Providing business plans and business advice to retailers

At Foodworks its business development team has continued to evolve into a ‘proactive’ development partner for not only retailers but also for other commercial developers.

Get Assignment Help Now

References: