Functional Areas of the Business

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Functional Areas of the Business

The different functional areas within the business of Sainsbury’s are as follows:

  • Customer Service
  • Retail
  • Marketing
  • Trading
  • Finance
  • Human Resources
  • Administration
  • Payroll

I shall not write about what each department actually does within Sainsbury’s:

Customer Service

This is basically the majority of Sainsbury’s workforce.  This involves general duties to be carried out on the shop floor such as checkout assistants which are there for customers to pay for their goods, General Assistants are multi skilled between checkouts and stocking shelves for maximum availability of products for customers.  Stock control is another type of customer service Sainsbury’s have.  This is where levels of stock are checked and the employees working here will order more goods when needed.  Basically customer service explains itself really, it is the way in which employees of Sainsbury’s can be of assistance to customers.  I have given examples of these types of job roles above.

Retail

The retail function of Sainsbury’s I basically like a sales department also.  This department in Sainsbury’s would therefore be responsible for selling items to customers.  Quite often Sainsbury’s would have sales representatives in store to discuss what the customer wants.  The sales department would work closely with a few other departments such as marketing so they can find out what customers want so that they can improve their advertising, Finance as they will handle all the money from sales.  The sales department would need information such as prices of products so that they can inform customers.  They would also need to know if certain stock is available before talking to customers about that product.

Marketing

This function of the business is responsible for identifying the needs of customers and fulfilling the customer desires profitably.  In other businesses sales and marketing may be combined into one department but in Sainsbury’s they are two separate departments.  Marketing in Sainsbury’s is related to investigating customer needs.  This will involve the marketing department in Sainsbury’s to carry out market research to find out what the customers want, where they find it, how they like and what price.  In this case I can tell that Sainsbury’s use their 4p’s of marketing.  For the marketing department to carryout their work they would need information from the sales department to find out what is selling well in Sainsbury’s and what is not.  They would also need information on market research to find out how to sell Sainsbury’s products better and faster.  Sainsbury’s use promotion in many different ways such as they provide a newsletter with special offers on products, they advertise on the television using celebrity endorsement with Jamie Oliver.  He promotes the select rang of ‘Taste the Difference’ goods in Sainsbury’s.  Sainsbury’s also use food testing in stores giving customers the chance to sample different products for free.  

Trading

Trading in Sainsbury’s is known as purchasing/distribution.  The purchasing part of the department has to make sure that Sainsbury’s does not run out of any products that it needs (stock control).  The distribution side is to make sure that Sainsbury’s have their goods delivered to them.  This is very important to Sainsbury’s because without this department there would be no goods in store.

Finance

The finance department in Sainsbury’s deal with all aspects of money within the company.  Sainsbury’s accounts keeps a detailed record of all money paid in and out at present the final balance sheet, profit and loss account and other financial records.  In Sainsbury’s their accounts are stored on computer.  They also control the flow of money into the business.  Within this department there are other functions such as wages which are responsible for supervising payroll.

Human Resources

Sainsbury’s call this department the Personnel Department.  In Sainsbury’s the personnel department are responsible for recruitment, paying off staff, training and development, disciplining and promotion, days off work etc.  Personnel records on employees will store all the information needed by Finance to make to the correct payments to employees.  Basically personnel are there in Sainsbury’s for the welfare of the workforce.

Administration

Administration provides support and services across Sainsbury’s store.  They deal with a lot of things such as faxing, photocopying, document producing, requisitioning of equipment and consumables etc.  This is the central office in Sainsbury’s for handling paperwork.  This department would handle the filing of materials, the company’s mail, word processing and data handling facilities.  

Payroll

Payroll is the function in Sainsbury’s concerned with finance.  This is where the production of payslips for employees is sorted.  This is where taxation and other deductions happen before final payment.  

Customer Service helps Sainsbury’s meet the objectives of:

  • Profit
  • Increasing Sales and Market Share
  • Survival
  • Developing Staff Skills

It is obvious that customer service help Sainsbury’s achieve their objective of ‘Profit’ because this is the department responsible for providing the goods and selling them to the customer.  In return of selling these items to the customer Sainsbury’s will receive money which will add to their profit.  They also help the business to attain the objective of ‘Increasing Sales or Market Share’ as once again they are selling the products to the customer increasing Sainsbury’s sales; however they are not assisting the other half of this objective.  Another objective that the customer service facilitate to is that of ‘Survival’  without the customer service department and the staff involved Sainsbury’s would have nobody to assist customers and whatever queries they have to be dealt with.  Also customers could not purchase their items at the checkout if there were no assistants there.  Finally the objective of ‘Developing Staff Skills’ is met by this department.  Skills such as communication skills and using your initiative are gained here in this department.  Communication skills are gained by dealing with customers and using your initiative has to be used as there is not always someone there to supervise you.

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The Retail department help Sainsbury’s achieve the objectives of:

  • Profit
  • Increasing Sales and Market Share
  • Survival
  • Developing Staff Skills

Retail help with ‘Profit’ as they have to persuade the customers to buy the products and if the customers decide to purchase an item then they are causing Sainsbury’s to make a profit.  This department also help Sainsbury’s with the ‘Increasing Sales and Market Share’ as they once again try to entice the customer to purchase a good and if they are successful in doing so then they are helping ...

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