Implementation Of Supply Chain Information System In Woolworths Limited

The Importance of Digital Support for Business Imperatives

You are to write a report outlining the changes that have occurred in a business due to digital innovation using a work centred analysis approach.

Building a well organized business imperatives and for developing prosperous economic outcome digital support is one of the most important things which are required frequently. From the past two to three years the Australian economy is facing substantial disruption in digital operation and technologies as well (Andreassen 2015). Immanent business models are needed to be developed by the business developers to reduce the issues of different digital disruption. However, both opportunities and threats are also associated to the digital application.

Two different key questions those any organization should highlight before the implementation of digital solution include the way through which the digital disruption are affecting the business organization and in order to minimize the threats countered by the digital changes, different responds those should be incorporated are also developed in this report. The ability for minimizing the organizational complexity, digital operation is needed to be incorporated to the existing system of Woolworths Limited. The Work Centered Analysis (WCA) Framework of Woolworths Limited before and after the implementation of cloud based Supply Chain Information system are elaborated in this report.

From the financial and business review of Woolworths Limited it has been found that many company is facing major challenges due to lack of managerial issues. The product prices and quality should b developed considering the competitive business market. In addition to this, it is also defined that, new strategies would help the company to gain measurable revenue. Based upon the demand of the consumers different additional operational and applications are required to be incorporated to the business background.

This particular case highlights the effective changes those have been highlighted after the implementation of the supply chain management system in Woolworths Limited. From the initial focus on improving a relatively simple business model, over the past 100 years, different business organizations are focusing on developing supply chain management system in their organizations (Applegate 2015). The roots of every operation research and industrial engineering are logistics.  The biggest success occurred when the company developed an integrated supply chain framework for developing the business excellence. It is expected that, if the company focuses on the development of supply chain work center analysis framework then the issues associated to logistics and product delivery would be resolved and reduced.

Woolworths Limited is Australia’s one of the biggest retailers which is facing problems with its supplier’s over than its rival. The regulator and the supplier of the company itself highlighted this particular issue (Evans and Forth 2016). The higher authority of the company is advising the company to focus on improving its existing supply chain management approach. Proper treatment of the supply chain approach would be able to resolve the issues associated to its suppliers. Both the internal and external environment of the company is getting negatively affected with the inaccurate supply chain management system. The Australian business market is dominating due to the digital disruption. In order to resolve these issues the company is willing to implement digitized supply chain management systems in their business organization (Karimi and Walter 2015). It would help the business organization to minimize the supplier’s challenges and other restrictions as well. From the higher competition level, it has been found that, significant level of changes and strategy development is very much necessary for the growth of the existing supply chain management system of the company. Due to lack of proper knowledge and strategies, most of the companies are currently facing huge challenges throughout. Therefore, the issues of traditional supply chain management system would be completely minimized after the development of advanced supply chain management (Knickrehm, Berthon, and Daugherty 2016).  The Information system based supply chain would help Woolworths Limited to gain competitive advantages. Even issues of warehousing and data handling also be developed after the implementation of cloud based supply chain management.  

The Challenges and Opportunities Associated with Digital Application

Goal

Supply chain management system is referred to as one of the most important factors that are strictly required to be considered to extend organizational beyond goal and ability scopes. In order to build and maintain the supply chain network, significant effort from the management head and employees are required. However, in order to resolve this issue the company is willing to implement Information System to their business. After digital disruption different changes are occurred. The goal of this report is to identify the changes those have been highlighted after the implementation of digital supply chain management system.  

Challenges associated to the digital disruption

Certain common issues are there that almost each company faces after the digital disruption. Digital disruption challenges allow the executives of the company to rethink about the business operation and functionalities (Moller et al. 2017). The challenges associated to the digital disruption are as follows:

The system would reduce the number of workers: The number of workers would be reduced after the implementation of supply chain management system. A current report has revealed that, automated system, robotics and artificial intelligence have replaced 40% of jobs in this current 20 years. The business operations are becoming harder with the frequently increasing velocity of technological usage in the businesses (Rauch, Wenzel and Wagner 2016). Even, maintaining the speed for the staffs hiring and training is also getting interrupted after the digital disruption. In order to achieve maximum of productivity the Leaders are required to adopt cohesive and mixed experiences at the same time.

The Pi shaped employee model: This model helps to develop pi shaped model for their business organization. The Pi shaped models are not professionally trained but they have higher level of knowledge at the same time (Riemer et al. 2015). They would have both analytical and data driven capability. For the acquisition of business plan different skills on the business plan are required to be adopted by the management of the Woolworths Limited.

The full stack digital leaders: The full stack digital leader helps to process the skills those are essential for the organizational navigation. It helps to navigate the frequently evolving and shifting technological landscape (Rose, Hawryszkiewycz and Kang 2015). Not only for the leaders but also for operational working specification this particular full stack leader is very much helpful.

While changing the supply chain tradition from the manual to the automated one the company has faced different challenges, those are necessary for the company to overcome. In order to resolve those issues different recommendations are also mandatory to implement and the recommendations are as follows:

Technical experiences: Due to sudden change in digital platform the most important thing on which the team members are required to focus on is the experiences of the employee working for the enterprise. If the platform changes then the employees are required to be aware of the technical changes. Therefore, lack of technical experience, is another difficult thing which is a threat to the company. For resolving this issue, proper technical

The Necessity for Digital Operation Incorporation to the Existing System of Woolworths Limited

Data transfer: While changing the digital platform from one to another it is necessary for the company to transfer data from the server too. During making such change, data might get lost from the server. For resolving the rate of data loss, proper, backup solutions are also required to be adopted by the project manager.

Financial support: Economic threat is another challenge to the company while making digital disruption. While changing the platform the company would be needed to invest more capital to make the new project successful. In order to accomplish the project successfully, digital business transformation, customer value, employee empowerment are required to be considered. In order to resolve these kinds of issues at the project initiation phase accurate budget should be estimated. 

On the basis of the recommendations, a cloud based Information System, should be implemented. It would help the company to store customer information accurately with higher level of security. According to the planned IS, different benefits that might generate include secure location, reduced risk of errors, greater level of productivity, real time data management etc (Whyte 2016).  With the help of the integrated information system the consumers would be able to gain up to date well organized information. Business will grow up by replicating data that would allow restriction for the consumers. Even with the help of Information system the rate of human error will also be reduced accordingly.

Conclusion

From the overall discussion it can be concluded that in order to gain high benefits from Woolworth Limited, Information System is the most effective one to be used. Through processing information set, the capacity of the IS would also increase. The operational and functional ability of the company would also increase. At the initial business processing period, Woolworths Limited had manual management which is not at all helpful however, for gaining high level revenue advanced digitized data management system is required to be adopted. While changing the digital platform there is a huge chance of data loss from the server. In order to reduce these issues, it is necessary for the company to adopt proper Information System for their organization.

References

Andreassen, H., 2015. Strategic responses to digital disruption in the outbound wholesale travel industry: a New Zealand perspective (Doctoral dissertation, Auckland University of Technology).

Applegate, S., 2015. Cyber Conflict: Disruption and Exploitation in the Digital Age. In Current and Emerging Trends in Cyber Operations (pp. 19-36). Palgrave Macmillan UK.

Evans, P. and Forth, P., 2016. Navigating a world of digital disruption. IEEE Engineering Management Review, 43(3), pp.89-97.

Karimi, J. and Walter, Z., 2015. The role of dynamic capabilities in responding to digital disruption: A factor-based study of the newspaper industry. Journal of Management Information Systems, 32(1), pp.39-81.

Knickrehm, M., Berthon, B. and Daugherty, P., 2016. Digital disruption: The growth multiplier. Accenture Strategy, Tech. Rep.

Møller, L., Gertsen, F., Johansen, S.S. and Rosenstand, C., 2017, June. Characterizing digital disruption in the general theory of disruptive innovation. In ISPIM Innovation Symposium (p. 1). The International Society for Professional Innovation Management (ISPIM).

Rauch, M., Wenzel, M. and Wagner, H.T., 2016. The Digital Disruption of Strategic Paths: An Experimental Study.

Rauch, M., Wenzel, M. and Wagner, H.T., 2016. The Digital Disruption of Strategic Paths: An Experimental Study.

Riemer, K., Gal, U., Hamann, J., Gilchriest, B. and Teixeira, M., 2015. Digital Disruptive Intermediaries: Finding new digital opportunities by disrupting existing business models. University of Sydney, Business School and Capgemini.

Rose, J., Hawryszkiewycz, I. and Kang, K., 2015, July. Evaluating Information Systems for Collaborative Wellness. In The Pacific Asia Conference on Information Systems (PACIS). AIS.

Tornjanski, V., Marinkovi?, S., S?voiu, G. and ?udanov, M., 2015. A Need for Research Focus Shift: Banking Industry in the Age of Digital Disruption. Econophysics, Sociophysics & Other Multidisciplinary Sciences Journal (ESMSJ), 5(3), pp.11-15.

Whyte, G.B., 2016. The relationship between sustainable supply chains and economic success in the retail clothing industry in South Africa (Doctoral dissertatio