Strategic Analysis and Solutions for Improving Business Operations at Shivam Groceries and Videos

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Page1of36Strategic Analysis and Solutions for Improving Business Operations atShivam GroceriesandVideosFor your capstone project on Shivam Groceries & Videos, write an analysis of the keyissues facing the company in three functional areas: HumanResources, InformationTechnology (e-commerce), and Marketing. Discuss the challenges each functional area iscontributing to the company's decline in customer satisfaction and revenue. Then,propose detailed solutions for each area, including strategies for implementation andlong-term impact on the business.Your response should be 1200 to 1500 words. Ensure that you support your analysis withrelevant theories and practices in human resource management, IT infrastructure, andmarketing.

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Page2of36Capstone Project: Task 3Name:Shivam Groceries & VideosDecember 12, 2013Table of ContentsA1: Explanation of the problem or business need that is needed tobesolved...............................2A2: Analysis of the three different functional areas that might contribute to the issues................5A2a. Recommended solutions for three functional areas.............................................................10A2b. Recommendation of the implementation resources for the recommended solution............13A.2C Analysis of the long-term financial and organizational impact of the recommendationsmade..............................................................................................................................................19C.1 Five lessons learned from the simulations that helped me to resolve the client`s problems.23C.2 Development of the three long term professional goals.........................................................27C.3 Discussion on how the lessons learned during the MBA training at WGU will supportprofessional goals achievement....................................................................................................32References.....................................................................................................................................36A1: Explanation of the problem or business needthat is needed to solve

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Page3of36In this section, a short introduction of the business (client) will be given first that will help to geta gauge about the nature of the company. Then a discussion will be made on the problems orbusiness needs that are needed to resolve.Business DescriptionShivam Groceries & Videos, located in Marietta, is a grocery store. The company mainlyinvolves with catering to the East Asian community.It carries a variety of spices, fruits andvegetable indigenous to South-East Asian Countries. The products offered by the companyinclude ethnic spices (cloves, cardamom, red chili powder and so on), ethnic cooking oils, ethnicseeds and beans, imported & localIndian sweets and snacks, and small collection of cookingutensils mostly used in preparation of south-east Asian dishes.Setting up store in a busy block, the companyusuallyenjoys a good number of visitors. Thetarget market is usually the ‘desi’ community (Bangladeshi, Indian, Pakistani, and Sri Lankanpeople collectively) along with a small proportion of other population (mostly American andAfrican-American) looking to cook South-East Asian dishes.The store has a total of 6employees with 2 people handling the counters and 3 helpers to clean, maintain&stake theshelves,and the owner overseeing all activities.But in the recent time period, it has been being noticed that the number of customers in the storeis decreasing over the timer period. The number of customer claims against the company’sservice is also increasing. Customers are getting dissatisfied over the time period. Some

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Page4of36customers are also urging for online ordering for home delivery. Some major competitors of thecompany have already installed the system of online ordering. As a part of scrutinizing theseoverarching problems, company has identified some specific problems on some functional areasof the company.ProblemsinHuman Resources (HR) PolicyThe company is lacking of proper HR principles. This results in hampering the operation of thebusiness. Sometimes servicing systemdisrupts, specially in the holiday when the number ofcustomer increases. As a result, quality of customer services is getting worse over the timeperiod. Majority of the employees are also dissatisfied with the company. Also, the staffs at thestore are mostly Indian and have limited English language proficiency. This makes it not onlyalmost impossible for non-desi population to interact, but also makes too difficult tocommunicate among the desi community too because of the more than 30-40 prominentregional languages within the community.If appropriate training programs would arranged forthe employees, this problem may not exist. Beside these, asingle man is handling every strategicissues of the Shivam Groceries.This creates a problem for that person to effectively deal thecompany. It is not possible for a single person to over look all the strategic issues of a companywithout appropriate training program.Problemsin IT Infrastructure and Information TechnologyShivam Groceries & Videoshave nowebsite. As a result, the company has failed to reachoutside of the customers it is already catering to. The company is suffering from losses of current

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Page5of36revenues as well as additional sales because of a non-integrated IT System and no front-endePortals (website, FB or Twitter presence). All orders are in person and face to face. Store doesnot take any orders over the phone nor does keep items ready for pickup. So, every singlecustomer has to physically come down, find the item and check it out. This makes the store overpopulated during weekends and after work hours. The customers are claiming that existence ofthe front-end ePortals will help them to make order without coming to the store.Also, the store itself is fully stacked with all kinds of products and this make it very difficult tofind out items. The items are not stacked in any particular order and not labeled. Sometimes itbecomes very difficult for the sales person to find out a product when someone looks for an item.ProblemsinMarketing PolicyShivam Groceries & Videos has no proper marketing policy at all. The company has no policy ofconducting market and customer research. Lack of an advertising/ marketing focus also islimiting the customer and market reach of the store. The number of customers of the company isin declining trend over the last 2-3 years. Even level of customer satisfaction is very importantfor a service company, Shivam Groceries never tries totakeattempts for measuring the customersatisfaction levels.A2: Analysis of the three different functional areas that might contributeto the issues

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Page6of36In this part a discussion will be made to analyze howthree functional areas-the humanresources,e-commerce and Information technology, and marketingare contributingto theissuesin theShivam Groceries.Human ResourcesHuman resource management (HRM) involves evaluating an organization’s human resourcesneeds, finding people to fill those needs, and getting the best work from each employee byproviding right intensives and job environment(Heathfield, 2013). HRMtakes a strategicapproach to an organization’s recruitment, training, and appraisal system.It has the overall aimof helping an organization achieve its goals.More specifically HRM of a company aims atachieving he following objectives.➢Develop an effective human component for the organization➢Obtain and develop human resources required by the organization➢Use and motivate the employees effectively.➢Create and maintain co-operative climate of relationships within the organization.HumanResources management (HRM) contributes to the success of an organization throughincreased productivity, enhance group learning, reduce staff turnover, and encouragetheemployeeinitiatives.HR system also concentrates on developing a proper leader for the company. The leader willprovide a proper direction to the company.HR system arranges appropriate training programs to

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Page7of36promote leadership quality. Also, HR system focuses on the employees’ skills and competencylevel. Deriving a better customer service depends on the employees’ skills and competency.Inorder to increase the skills and competency of the employees, HR department arranges severaltraining programs.In theShivam Groceries, there is no proper human resources policy. This absence of humanresource policy results in non-evaluation of the resources needs, no attempts to find appropriatepeople to fill those needs, no attempts to ensure getting the best work from each employee byproviding right intensives and job environment. The internaloperationof the store frequentlyobserves disruption. Employees are not managed andcontrolledproperly. Besides this, a singleperson is overlooking all the issues–plan formulation, strategic matters, controlling of thepeople & operation. Even the size of the business is small, but it is not possible forasingleperson to observe & control all theissues.The motivation of the employeesisalso affected dueto lack of proper direction and control along with extra work load in the holidays.Employees arenot also properly trained. Service employees are lacking of proper communication skills.Thislack of communication results in failure of the service employees to provide better service andattract more customers.There is also lack of co-operative working climate due to absence ofproper direction.E-commerce and Information TechnologyThe Information Technology(IT)department of a companyis responsible forplanning,designing,implementation, and supportinga centralized ITinfrastructurethat will enable thecompany to utilize the advantage of information technology and reach to the customers more

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Page8of36quickly & easily(Schneider, 2011). Information Technology is providing a scope to enhance ortransform the business processes. Bycreating aproper Information Technology infrastructure,companies no creating a scope of handing the business operation more smoothly.With theutilization of the information technology, companies are now concentrating on the transactionprocessing system, inventory management,supply chain management process etc.Internet is now considered a great medium for communicating with the customers.Greater webpresence throughFace book, Twitter etc. is now a common attempt of a company. Through thesemedia a company tries to communicate with the customers, brand its products, build customerscommunity, and get customer feedback.E-ecommercecreates a scope ofachievingbusiness objectives by means ofinformationtechnology(benefits of e-commerce, 2007).Ecommerce is carried out on the Internet and hasbecome the vehicle attracting customers exists in Internet industry.Through internet and websiteit is now easier to reach to the customers.People are now getting more busy and tendto preferbuy through the website rather than going to the outside.Shivam Grocerieshave nowebsite.All orders are in person and face to facecommunication.Customersrequirecomingdownphysically, find the itemsandbuy products.As a result, thecompany has failed to reachto the remotecustomers.If there is a web sitethen customer fromthe remote areas could place order for service.Also,the company is also suffering from betterweb presence through otherno front-end ePortals such asFace book, Twitter etc.In a modernbusiness world, a better web presence of a company is very essential.The company islosingtheopportunityof communicating itself to the outside world and creating a positive impression on

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Page9of36the customer minds.Shivam Groceriescould utilize this opportunityof building greater brandimage.The companydoes not consider about thebuilding a proper IT infrastructure and enteringinto the e-commerce market.Due to non-entrance into the e-commerce market, the companyisdepriving from the opportunity of making more revenue.Another problem associated with the company is that thestore itself is fully stacked withdifferentkinds of products. There is no computerized inventory tracking system. So, itsometimesbecomesvery difficult for the serving people to find out the products demanded bythe customers. This createsa negative impression reading the service quality of the company. Ifthere exists a computerized inventory tracking system, then it would be very easy to identify inwhich location the products wanted by customers are available also the check of availability ofproducts become more easy.MarketingMarketing is theprocess of planning, and executing the concepts of pricing, promotion, anddistribution of ideas, goods, and services in order to create exchanges that satisfy individual andorganizational objectives(Mishra, 2013). Marketing process aims atcreating more value forcustomers and building profitable customer relationships.Market research is the process ofgathering, recording, analyzing, and deporting data & information relating to the company’smarket, customers, and competitors. Usually market research is used to determine thecharacteristics ofthe existingmarket segment,suggest opportunities for products and suggestnew segments.Marketing function aims at maximizing of the customer satisfaction. A propermarketing policy tries to determine the customer satisfactions level, and suggests the ways to

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Page10of36improve customer satisfaction.Along with the product & pricing strategies, marketingmanagement focuses on the promotional strategies. Without better promotion, a product orservice will not be well accepted. Marketing management suggests the effective ways ofpromoting a good / service and attracting more customers.There isno proper marketing policy attheShivam Groceries.This lack of market policy resultsin the absence of mechanism for determining the appropriate policies for service, price,distribution and promotional issues.Ignorance of such issuesresults in company’s inability todesigning a better service for the customers, offering a competitive price to the customers,delivering the service to the customers effectively, and communicating the services to thecustomers properly.There isno policy of conducting market and customer research.As a result,the store is failing to understand the customer needsproperly.The issue of customer satisfactionis ignored.As there is no policy of tracking the customer satisfaction level, it will be very hardfor the company to understand where to improve services.Also,advertising/ marketingactivitiesare very limited.The absence of proper advertising & marketing activities results in lesscommunication of the company’s services and less acceptance of services by customers.Thecompany isalso failing tobuildprofitable relationshipwith the customers.A2a. Recommended solutions for three functional areasIn this section, some recommendations for the problems in the three functional areas of theShivam Groceriesaregiven.Human Resources

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