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

This paper presents strategic analysis and solutions aimed at improving business operations at Shivam Groceries and Videos.

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    Page 1 of 36 Strategic Analysis and Solutions for Improving Business Operations at Shivam Groceries and Videos For your capstone project on Shivam Groceries & Videos, write an analysis of the key issues facing the company in three functional areas: Human Resources, Information Technology (e - commerce), and Marketing. Discuss the challenges each functional area is contributing to the company's decline in customer satisfaction and revenue. Then, propose detailed solutions for each area, including strategies for implementation and long - term impact on the business. Your response should be 1200 to 1500 words. Ensure that you support your analysis with relevant theories and practices in human resource management, IT infrastructure, and marketing.

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

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    Page 3 of 36 In this section, a short introduction of the business (client) will be given first that will help to get a gauge about the nature of the company. Then a discussion will be made on the problems or business needs that are needed to resolve. Business Description Shivam Groceries & Videos, located in Marietta, is a grocery store. The company mainly involves with catering to the East Asian community. It carries a variety of spices, fruits and vegetable indigenous to South - East Asian Countries. The products offered by the company include ethnic spices (cloves, cardamom, red chili powder and so on), ethnic cooking oils, ethnic seeds and beans, imported & local Indian sweets and snacks, and small collection of cooking utensils mostly used in preparation of south - east Asian dishes. Setting up store in a busy block, the company usually enjoys a good number of visitors. The target market is usually the ‘desi’ community (Bangladeshi, Indian, Pakistani, and Sri Lankan people collectively) along with a small proportion of other population (mostly American and African - American) looking to cook South - East Asian dishes. The store has a total of 6 employees with 2 people handling the counters and 3 helpers to clean, maintain & stake the shelves, and the owner overseeing all activities. But in the recent time period, it has been being noticed that the number of customers in the store is decreasing over the timer period. The number of customer claims against the company’s service is also increasing. Customers are getting dissatisfied over the time period. Some

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    Page 4 of 36 customers are also urging for online ordering for home delivery. Some major competitors of the company have already installed the system of online ordering. As a part of scrutinizing these overarching problems, company has identified some specific problems on some functional areas of the company. Problem s in Human Resources (HR) Policy The company is lacking of proper HR principles. This results in hampering the operation of the business. Sometimes servicing system disrupts, specially in the holiday when the number of customer increases. As a result, quality of customer services is getting worse over the time period. Majority of the employees are also dissatisfied with the company. Also, the staffs at the store are mostly Indian and have limited English language proficiency. This makes it not only almost impossible for non - desi population to interact, but also makes too difficult to communicate among the desi community too because of the more than 30 - 40 prominent regional languages within the community. If appropriate training programs would arranged for the employees, this problem may not exist. Beside these, a single man is handling every strategic issues of the Shivam Groceries. This creates a problem for that person to effectively deal the company. It is not possible for a single person to over look all the strategic issues of a company without appropriate training program. Problem s in IT Infrastructure and Information Technology Shivam Groceries & Videos have no website. As a result, the company has failed to reach outside of the customers it is already catering to. The company is suffering from losses of current

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    Page 5 of 36 revenues as well as additional sales because of a non - integrated IT System and no front - end ePortals (website, FB or Twitter presence). All orders are in person and face to face. Store does not take any orders over the phone nor does keep items ready for pickup. So, every single customer has to physically come down, find the item and check it out. This makes the store over populated during weekends and after work hours. The customers are claiming that existence of the 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 to find out items. The items are not stacked in any particular order and not labeled. Sometimes it becomes very difficult for the sales person to find out a product when someone looks for an item. Problem s in Marketing Policy Shivam Groceries & Videos has no proper marketing policy at all. The company has no policy of conducting market and customer research. Lack of an advertising/ marketing focus also is limiting the customer and market reach of the store. The number of customers of the company is in declining trend over the last 2 - 3 years. Even level of customer satisfaction is very important for a service company, Shivam Groceries never tries to take attempts for measuring the customer satisfaction levels. A2: Analysis of the three different functional areas that might contribut e to the issues

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    Page 6 of 36 In this part a discussion will be made to analyze how three functional areas - the human resources, e - commerce and Information technology , and marketing are contributing to the issues in the Shivam Groceries. Human Resources Human resource management (HRM) involves evaluating an organization’s human resources needs, finding people to fill those needs, and getting the best work from each employee by providing right intensives and job environment (Heathfield, 2013) . HR M takes a strategic approach to an organization’s recruitment, training, and appraisal system. It has the overall aim of helping an organization achieve its goals. More specifically HRM of a company aims at achieving 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. Human Resources management (HRM) contributes to the success of an organization through increased productivity, enhance group learning, reduce staff turnover, and encourage the employee initiative s . HR system also concentrates on developing a proper leader for the company. The leader will provide a proper direction to the company. HR system arranges appropriate training programs to

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    Page 7 of 36 promote leadership quality. Also, HR system focuses on the employees’ skills and competency level. Deriving a better customer service depends on the employees’ skills and competency. In order to increase the skills and competency of the employees, HR department arranges several training programs. In the Shivam Groceries, there is no proper human resources policy. This absence of human resource policy results in non - evaluation of the resources needs, no attempts to find appropriate people to fill those needs, no attempts to ensure getting the best work from each employee by providing right intensives and job environment. The internal operation of the store frequently observes disruption. Employees are not managed and controlled properly. Besides this, a single person is overlooking all the issues – plan formulation, strategic matters, controlling of the people & operation. Even the size of the business is sma ll, but it is not possible for a single person to observe & control all the issues . The motivation of the employees is also affected due to lack of proper direction and control along with extra work load in the holidays. Employees are not also properly trained. Service employees are lacking of proper communication skills. This lack of communication results in failure of the service employees to provide better service and attract more customers. There is also lack of co - operative working climate due to absence of proper direction. E - commerce and Information Technology The Information Technology (IT ) department of a company is responsible for planning, des ign ing , implementation , and support ing a centralized IT infrastructure that will enable the company to utilize the advantage of information technology and reach to the customers more

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    Page 8 of 36 quickly & easily (Schneider, 2011) . Information Technology is providing a scope to enhance or transform the business processes. By creating a proper Information Technology infrastructure, companies no creating a scope of handing the business operation more smoothly. With the utilization of the information technology, companies are now concentrating on the transaction processing system, inventory management, supply chain management process etc. Internet is now considered a great medium for communicating with the customers. Greater web presence through Face book, Twitter etc. is now a common attempt of a company. Through these media a company tries to communicate with the customers, brand its products, build customers community, and get customer feedback. E - ecommerce creates a scope of achieving business objectives by means of information technology (benefits of e - commerce, 2007) . Ecommerce is carried out on the Internet and has become the vehicle attracting customers exists in Internet industry. Through internet and website it is now easier to reach to the customers. People are now getting more busy and tend to prefer buy through the website rather than going to the outside. Shivam Groceries have no website. All orders are in person and face to face communication . C ustomer s require coming down physically , find the item s and buy products . As a result, the company has failed to reach to the remote customers. If there is a web site then customer from the remote areas could place order for service. Also , the company is also suffering from better web presence through other no front - end e Portals such as F ace book, Twitter etc . In a modern business world, a better web presence of a company is very essential. The company is losing the opportunity of communicating itself to the outside world and creating a positive impression on

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    Page 9 of 36 the customer minds. Shivam Groceries could utilize this opportunity of building greater brand image . The company does not consider about the building a proper IT infrastructure and entering into the e - commerce market. Due to non - entrance into the e - commerce market, the company is depriving from the opportunity of making more revenue. Another problem associated with the company is that the store itself is fully stacked with different kinds of products . There is no computerized inventory tracking system. So, it sometimes becomes very difficult for the serving people to find out the products demanded by the customers. This create s a negative impression reading the service quality of the company. If there exists a computerized inventory tracking system, then it would be very easy to identify in which location the products wanted by customers are available also the check of availability of products become more easy. Marketing Marketing is the process of planning, and executing the concepts of pricing, promotion, and distribution of ideas, goods, and services in order to create exchanges that satisfy individual and organizational objectives (Mishra, 2013) . Marketing process aims at creating more value for customers and building profitable customer relationships. Market research is the process of gathering, recording, analyzing, and deporting data & information relating to the company’s market, customers, and competitors. Usually market research is used to determine the characteristics of the existing market segment, suggest opportunities for products and suggest new segments. Marketing function aims at maximizing of the customer satisfaction. A proper marketing policy tries to determine the customer satisfactions level, and suggests the ways to

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    Page 10 of 36 improve customer satisfaction. Along with the product & pricing strategies, marketing management focuses on the promotional strategies. Without better promotion, a product or service will not be well accepted. Marketing management suggests the effective ways of promoting a good / service and attracting more customers. There is no proper marketing policy at the Shivam Groceries. This lack of market policy results in the absence of mechanism for determining the appropriate policies for service, price, distribution and promotional issues. Ignorance of such issues results in company’s inability to designing 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 the customers properly. There is no policy of conducting market and customer research. As a result, the store is failing to understand the customer needs properly . The issue of customer satisfaction is ignored. As there is no policy of tracking the customer satisfaction level, it will be very hard for the company to understand where to improve services. Also, advertising/ marketing activities are very limited. The absence of proper advertising & marketing activities results in less communication of the company’s services and less acceptance of services by customers. The company is also failing to buil d profitable relationship with the customers . A2a. Recommended solutions for three functional areas In this section, some recommendations for the problems in the three functional areas of the Shivam Groceries are given. Human Resources

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