Case Study on Oz Supermarket-Free-Samples -Myassignmenthelp.com

Question: Discuss about the Case Study on Oz Supermarket. Answer: Introduction Oz Supermarket is a retail chain that is new and it aims to reduce the queues during the point of exit. This retail chain only deals in household, non perishable and stationery goods. It has adopted several methods to overcome the problems that other supermarkets face and to improve its efficiency. This report describes about the various ways that Oz Supermarket has adopted to improve its customer service and to decrease the problems that they face by waiting in the queue. This report also gives certain recommendations to further improve the customer service of the Oz Supermarket. Oz Supermarket Oz Supermarket is a retail chain that is new. It has made a new type of set up in order to remove all the problems that people face at the exit queues. They have taken several steps in order to overcome this issue. Oz Supermarket only sells stationery, household and non perishable goods. This is the first step that is taken by the retail chain. The main step that they have taken is the use of an electronic card called PayWave. This is a technology that is based on special RFID (Jia et al., 2012). This supermarket does not give the facility to the customers to pay in cash. The customers are allowed to pay via the PayWave card that is provided to them. The customer needs to wave the card while entering the store. This allows their entry. The trolleys that are provided in the Supermarket have special radio frequency identification reader installed in it. It works in a systematic way. Whenever any customer puts their selected items in the trolley, it gets queued in the billing list. And whenever any customer removes any item from the trolley then that particular item gets deleted from the billing list. Unlike any other retail store the customer does not have to wait in the billing counter for payin g the bill. Here the customers simply exit the store after selecting the items. The total bill amount is deducted from the PayWave card as they move out of the gate. There are new customers who arrive at the store. They do not have the PayWave card. They have to follow another procedure. They have to speak with the front desk people and deposit cash on a temporary basis. They will be provided with a PayWave card for temporary purpose like in the case of tourist and children. They will also get the facility to walk out of the store without waiting in the queue. After the tourists or temporary customers leave the store permanently their cash balance is returned to them. Or in other case the balance can be used by the customers when they return to the store again. They can use that card again for the purpose of shopping in the future. Every item in the store has RFID chip installed in it (De Marco et al., 2012). The extra cost of the RFID is used for the interest of the customers who are in a hurry for some reason. The entire retail store has stations placed at regular intervals. These stations are known as the summary stations. Here the customers can go and check their bill amount when they are in any type of confusion. The shopping summary stations are placed in several locations in a strategic manner. Oz Supermarket has also thought about the parking issues of the customers. They have a system of charging the rate based on the time taken. In the non peak seasons, the customers are charged a lower rate. The parking rate for the disabled people is free. The Oz Supermarket has taken several strategies in an intelligent manner to increase their efficiency and improve the work of the store through customer satisfaction. Recommendations This report provides three recommendations outlining the business operations of the Oz Supermarket. Overcoming the security threats: In this era of information and communication technology, security is a major issue. There are several security threats that can take place. The PayWave card that is used by the retail store is based on information technology. It has cash stored in it. Hacking can be one of the major issues that can take place in this case. Hacking falls under the category of deliberate security threat. Hacking this system can cause loss of money for several customers that visit the store (Coleman, 2013). Oz Supermarket can take several steps to protect itself from any malware attack or any kind of hacking issue (Zhou Jiang, 2012). Security programs that are up to date must be installed in the information system of the store. They should not use any type of Wi-Fi system. This can cause severe issue if the hackers get access to the Wi-Fi. A signature authentication method should be followed for protecting the PayWave card. A safe and secured process used in the market can help the customer satisfaction to improve and to attract more number of customers. The system should install programs to protect itself from any type of spyware (Agrawal Smith, 2013). All these issues can be easy solved by installing antivirus programs and having a strong security policy integrated in the system. Cost reduction: RFID tags that are used, consume huge amount of cost. Different types of RFID tags must be selected depending on the organization needs and requirements (Choi et al., 2012). There are active and passive tags. Oz Supermarket should carry out a proper investigation in order to determine the suitable tag for the retail chain. The speed and range of the passive RFID is more. Active RFID on the other hand has a higher cost as well as performance in comparison to the passive tags. A proper cost analysis should be done before implementing the RFID (Fan et al., 2014). In order to reduce the overhead charge the supermarket can use passive RFID. Cheaper tags will help the store to benefit in a cost effective manner. RFID interference: There can be certain interference that can cause problems in the RFID tags. The noise or electromagnetic wave can block any wave from entering into the RFID tags. This limitation can be resolved or minimized by the Oz Supermarket in several ways. They must check the spectrum of frequencies that are used by the devices in the environment. They should try to gain commitment from the suppliers on the protocols and standards. A trial installation must be done before installing any type of tags (Krigslund et al., 2012). A performance review must be carried out in order to understand the performance of the existing system and the RFID components. The tags must also be aligned with the antennas for better performance of the system. Additional Option to Improve Customer Service One additional option that can be provided in order to improve the customer service in the store is to hire more number of employees and to train them according to their needs. More number of employees is required in case of helping the new customers like tourists to make them understand the process of purchasing that takes place in the store (Sung Choi, 2014). These employees can guide the customers to understand where several items are present. They can even guide them to use the summary stations that are located in various locations. The management team must find out the weak employees and then train them for improving the process of customer satisfaction. More number of employees will reduce the workload of each employee and they will be able to focus on a particular job at a time. This will improve their performance leading to customer satisfaction (Ford, 2014). Engaging more staffs will help the customers to get accustomed to the system and procedure in the Oz Supermarket. The y will find it to be very comfortable to access the systems and understand the procedure. Suggestions to Improve the Business Operations and Services Customer feedback: The purchasing behavior does not explain about their feelings regarding the store. This method can be used in order to understand what the customers want and what the area of rectification is. There can be online suggestion forms that can be filled up by the customers to understand the weakness of the store (Olsson Bosch, 2015). They can take further steps to improve their quality of service and operations. They will be able to find out what the local customers value. They can be asked questions regarding why a particular type of promotion is attractive to them. Any kind of sensitive issue can be tackled in an organized way. Consider a situation where a customer is unable to speak up to the management due to some issue. The feedback system will make it easier for the customers to communicate with the store authority. Strategic planning can be done in order to improve the services and operations of the store. Any organization is able to grow because of their custom er base. Customers bring value to any business. Business deals are successful because of the customer satisfaction. Their feedback is the most important thing (Nacif, 2012). The store will be able to minimize their weaknesses and maximize their strengths. Product quality review: Various products can be reviewed in order to understand the quality of the items. The products can be compared with those of the competitors in order to find out the loopholes and limitations. Innovation is an important step in the quality improvement of the product. In order to survive and grow in the industry the supermarket can improve the products through the process of innovation. The process of continuous improvement is used in this method. The quality of the product must be reviewed in a periodical manner (Goetsch Davis, 2014). A critical method of review must be done to find out the in process and finished goods. The supply chain system of the company must be traced in a proper manner. The review of the product needs to be done in six main areas. The legal areas must include the market authorization of the products. The external complaints issues must be looked into and resolved. The processes must be improved in order to improve the quality of the pr oduct. Testing of products must be done in a proper manner. Any kind of deviations from the product can be resolved in a proper manner. New business models: The Oz Supermarket should include other business models also like online retail websites. The supermarket can create a new website which will be an ecommerce website. There they can sell their products over the internet. Customers can enter their PayWave card ID and given password to log in to the website. Any new customer can register their by applying for the PayWave card. Once they have registered, they can purchase anything online (Laudon Traver, 2013). They will get the scope to view all the products available in the store just by using the internet. The customers will also be able to file any complaint or give a good feedback over the internet through the website. These types of models are implemented for the betterment of the business. ERP software: Enterprise resource planning software can be used in order to improve the efficiency and the operations of the business. Oz Supermarket can use ERP software to reduce the manual strain of the employees (Leon, 2014). It will integrate all the information and make it available to the departments that need the information without any delay. Integrated functioning of all the departments will help the supermarket to improve its efficiency in operations. Several ERP options are available like SAP (Monk Wagner, 2012). This is also a cost saving method. Other software like CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software can be used to help the store to improve the functionality of the store. Conclusion This report concludes that Oz Supermarket has implemented several steps to eliminate the problems that customer face at the queues. They have automated the entire process through the help of RFID technology. This report also discusses recommendations to improve the business operations and efficiency References Agrawal, N., Smith, S. A. (2013). Optimal inventory management for a retail chain with diverse store demands.European Journal of Operational Research,225(3), 393-403. Choi, J. S., Lee, H., Engels, D. W., Elmasri, R. (2012). Passive UHF RFID-based localization using detection of tag interference on smart shelf.IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, Part C (Applications and Reviews),42(2), 268-275. Coleman, E. G. (2013).Coding freedom: The ethics and aesthetics of hacking. Princeton University Press. De Marco, A., Cagliano, A. C., Nervo, M. L., Rafele, C. (2012). Using System Dynamics to assess the impact of RFID technology on retail operations.International journal of production economics,135(1), 333-344. Fan, T. J., Chang, X. Y., Gu, C. H., Yi, J. J., Deng, S. (2014). Benefits of RFID technology for reducing inventory shrinkage.International Journal of Production Economics,147, 659-665. Ford, J. K. (2014).Improving training effectiveness in work organizations. Psychology Press. Goetsch, D. L., Davis, S. B. (2014).Quality management for organizational excellence. Upper Saddle River, NJ: pearson. Jia, X., Feng, Q., Fan, T., Lei, Q. (2012, April). RFID technology and its applications in Internet of Things (IoT). InConsumer Electronics, Communications and Networks (CECNet), 2012 2nd International Conference on(pp. 1282-1285). IEEE. Krigslund, R., Popovski, P., Pedersen, G. F., Olesen, K. (2012). Interference helps to equalize the read range and reduce false positives of passive RFID tags.IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics,59(12), 4821-4830. Laudon, K. C., Traver, C. G. (2013).E-commerce. Pearson. Leon, A. (2014).Enterprise resource planning. McGraw-Hill Education. Monk, E., Wagner, B. (2012).Concepts in enterprise resource planning. Cengage Learning. Nacif, R. C. (2012).Online Customer Loyalty: Forecasting the Repatronage Behavior of Online Retail Customers. Springer Science Business Media. Olsson, H. H., Bosch, J. (2015, June). Towards continuous customer validation: a conceptual model for combining qualitative customer feedback with quantitative customer observation. InInternational Conference of Software Business(pp. 154-166). Springer, Cham. Sung, S. Y., Choi, J. N. (2014). Do organizations spend wisely on employees? Effects of training and development investments on learning and innovation in organizations.Journal of organizational behavior,35(3), 393-412. Zhou, Y., Jiang, X. (2012, May). Dissecting android malware: Characterization and evolution. InSecurity and Privacy (SP), 2012 IEEE Symposium on(pp. 95-109). IEEE.