Customer Loyalty
Sainsbury’s have a loyalty card service called the Nectar Card. This card basically monitors customers buying behavior in categories and the brands that they buy. These cards will hold data about the customer’s products and in response a monthly discount voucher is sent for there range of products or a discount on their next shop. These cards will also add up points, for every £1.00 the customer spends two points are added to their card. Every 250 points the customer gets £2.50 of there shop. Alternately the customer can add these points up and redeem them for anything from a TV to a Holiday.
This loyalty service also has magazines e-mailed to registered users. The magazine is called Sainsbury’s Fresh Idea’s that contains discount vouchers and recipe’s for cooking. The magazine also ties into Sainsbury’s motto ‘Try Something New Today’.
This part of the essay will look at the structural dimensions of Sainsbury’s Heaton Park, this structural dimension will be compared to Sainsbury’s Local and how the two same companies differ to each other. The structural dimension that will be looked at will be formalization, specialization, hierarchy of authority, centralization and professionalism (R L Daft 2007, Understanding The Theory And Design Of Organizations). Each section will discuss the importance of each section of the structural dimension.
Formalization
Formalization refers to the documentation in the organization. (R L Daft 2007, Understanding The Theory And Design Of Organizations) These documents refer to the employee’s job description, rule’s regulations, and manuals. All these documents and manuals describe the job descriptions and activities that take place in a department. In Sainsbury’s the type of formalization is high due to Sainsbury’s having many departments with in the store and that each department’s are ran differently. Comparing Sainsbury’s to a local corner shop where there is almost no formalization, Sainsbury’s have rules and regulations that must be followed.
Sainsbury’s have many departments operating in different ways to run the organization. Each employee has there own training manuals on how there department works, each department being different. These manuals contain job descriptions and activities for what happens when certain operations happen with in that department. As a whole Sainsbury’s have manuals and documents that all staff have or should no of, these documents or manuals refer to Health And Safety, Security Training, Fire Training, Service Training and Monthly Update Documents. These documents are important to the employees, in terms of how to do there job properly and most importantly how to do them safely.
Specialization
Comparing Sainsbury’s Heaton Park to a Sainsbury’s Local the division of labor is somewhat different. In a Sainsbury’s Local labor is shared through out the store as it’s a small store and labor can be easily shared, but Heaton Park Sainsbury’s is large store and the division of labor is broken down into departments. Each department have there own separate jobs and each employee in that department have there own separate jobs to perform. Each department have there own manager that divides the tasks up for each employee. With in that department each employee have there own individual task or jobs they perform.
In a Sainsbury’s local the store is considerably smaller to Sainsbury’s Heaton Park, not many tasks are taken out but task that are taken out can be divided out throughout the store, but in the much larger Sainsbury’s the tasks are divided into departments and the departments divide the tasks down for each employee. Each employee have there own job description while an employee in a Sainsbury’s local has many job descriptions and jobs tasks that they carry out.
Hierarchy Of Authority
The type of hierarchy chart that Sainsbury’s use is, best described as wide as the hierarchy of authority is short.
The span of control with in Heaton Park Sainsbury’s is wide. This is because each department have there own manager that employee’s report to before a shifts starts. Each manager of each department reports to the general manager if any problems occur that a department manager can’t solve. If problems are solvable by the department manager then he/she solves it, this is due to the risk of overloading the general manger with problems to solve. Sainsbury’s span of control is wide for this reason making the hierarchy short. Comparing Sainsbury’s Heaton Park to a local Sainsbury’s the span of control will be tall due to Sainsbury’s local would not have many departments and not many department managers. A Sainsbury local would just have a manager that solves most problems and sets out staff routines.
Centralization
Sainsbury’s is best described as being decentralized due to each department manager making there own decisions. These decisions consist of hiring new staff, purchasing equipments that are required for day to day work and setting department goals. Sainsbury’s Heaton Park is decentralized as each department managers have there own level of authority, but major decision that have to be made are always consulted with the head manager.
Decentralized organizations like Sainsbury’s Heaton Park are decentralized because decisions are delegated to the lower level of the hierarchy. Sainsbury’s local or a small convenience store may not be decentralized they are centralized as decisions are made at the top level. This is due to smaller stores not having many departments and just a manager making decisions through these types of stores.
The manager of this Sainsbury’s still has his own level of authority but he deals with the day to day running of the whole store, the overall performance of the store and making sure that this store is complying with the rules and regulations.
Professionalism
Each level of Sainsbury’s employees must have training before working. Before working you must complete a 2day training program which consists of health and safety, fire regulations, customer service and general dos and don’ts.
Going up the hierarchy, the level of professionalism changes, supervisors require extra training this includes role play training. To become a department manger the training required increases this includes how that department is ran and basically knowing the department inside out. Department management training normal takes up to 6 to 12 months.
Becoming a store manager is somewhat different training, the manager must first of all have a degree in business. He will then have training that requires knowing about how the whole organization is run.
The level of formal education and training is high once the employee wants to become a higher level of authority in this organization. Becoming a Sainsbury’s department manager or manger you must have long period of training and education making the professionalism high once you want to become a department manager or anything higher.
Culture Of The Organization
Sainsbury’s culture is an unwritten document explaining there service and what Sainsbury’s expect from there employees. Sainsbury’s have a number of saying such as ‘treat every pound as your own’, this means Sainsbury’s staff need to treat every customer as a potential sale. Other motto’s include ‘try something new today’, this refers to the customers trying out new products or new recipes Sainsbury’s provide there customers. This is also used if products are out of stock and Sainsbury’s try to sell something different but similar to the out of stock product.
All Sainsbury’s also have a same dress code through out there stores. This is the typical orange uniform that is going to change with in the next year to a red, blackish uniform. Each Sainsbury’s also have the same type of shop floor layout as well with the fruit and veg and the front of the store with the deli counters located at the back of each Sainsbury’s stores. This is a consistence layout format for each Sainsbury.
Delivery Department In Relation To Technology
Sainsbury’s have a number of technology functions to keep the running of the store. The delivery system of this store has a real time system of when the delivery van has left the deport to the actual time of arrival to Heat Park Sainsbury’s. On arrival each delivery board are scanned into the system and this scanner reveals what’s on the boards in this particular delivery.
Sainsbury’s also use e-commerce, this Sainsbury’s doesn’t as it dose not have an online system, but other Sainsbury’s do. The e-commerce is used by customers who do online shopping but only a selected number of stores have this facility.
Controlling The Environment
Heaton Park Sainsbury’s domain is isolated from any competitors but a 10 to 15 minute drive away there is a Tesco and a new Tesco being built. There is little competition around and as this Sainsbury’s is situated near a motorway this attracts new customers from near by towns.
The environment around Sainsbury’s attract new customers, this is due to two reason, this Sainsbury’s is located on a retail park that contains an electrical store and also helping Sainsbury’s attracting there customers is that there is a park next to this Sainsbury’s. The electrical store attracts its own customers but when these customers come to the electrical store and see’s a supermarket, these customers might come into Sainsbury to do a quick shop. The other environment condition that attracts new customers is that there is a park opposite Sainsbury’s. Events like concerts happen at this park and may attract customers to buy food and drinks.
When concert takes place in this park department managers have to prepare for a busy day of business meaning Sainsbury’s have to re-organize and have more staff on during these days and have enough stock to provide for there customers. These types of events attract a lot of customers so managers have to re-structure there organization to cope with the potential of these customers coming. Department managers would have to allocate there staff to checkouts to cope with serving the large volume of customers that come. When Sainsbury’s is really busy on these types of days then prioritizing there employee’s and re-organizing where these employee’s are working is vital to keep there customers happy and keep the flow of the business under there control.
This makes this Sainsbury’s an ‘open system’ (R L Daft 2007, Understanding The Theory And Design Of Organizations). Sainsbury’s interacts with the environment around them to survive. It consumes employees, information such as the environmental conditions, this is then transformed into something of value that can be exported back to the environment. In Sainsbury’s case the value that is exported back to the environment is there products and there service to there customers. There output also includes employee satisfaction and there population that makes Sainsbury’s one of the best supermarkets around.
Economic Environment
Sainsbury’s main focus is to provide domestic products to customers. There competitors are not just there rivals such as Tesco, Asda, Morrison’s and Marks And Spencer’s. There are external factors that Sainsbury’s have to consider, the main factors such as the conditions of the economic and customers finance situations.
Recently in the economic environment there’s been a credit crunch. Sainsbury’s re-adjusted themselves to take advantage of this by advertising ‘feed your family for less then a fiver’. This new innovation consisted of Sainsbury’s advertising there meals that were made up with their own basic range. The aim of this innovation was to make customers realize that basic brand range was still as good as the branded items and tasted as nice for just a little amount of money spent.
In the credit crunch many, but not all customers could afford there normal shopping and Sainsbury’s advertised these meals on TV and created little recipe cards containing the meals that you could make for less then a fiver. Sainsbury’s took advantages of this situation and did something that many of there main competitors haven’t done.
To get Sainsbury’s ‘feed your family for less then a fiver’, Sainsbury’s advertised there new innovation. Advertising there innovation on TV, and celebrity Jamie Oliver was in these adverts and there new innovation proved a big success as Sainsbury’s Heaton Park and many other Sainsbury’s, this led to them extended there own basic brand range even wider.
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Conclusion
Sainsbury’s Heaton Park has many departments, each doing there own jobs to keep Sainsbury’s running. As there are many departments Sainsbury’s Heaton Park has a wide hierarchy meaning the authority is shared through out the organization. Each department having there own level of authority. While the authority is wide major decision that cannot be solved by department managers, head managers would solve them or makes these major decisions.
Sainsbury’s deviates the bureaucratic each employee having the same idea of what Sainsbury’s is trying to achieve. Each employee’s have the same training to produce the same level of customer service as each other. Training in Sainsbury’s happens on a regular basis to keep there staff up to date with training. This is important as changes in Sainsbury’s happen on a regular basis so keeping staff trained and up to date with the latest Sainsbury’s training is important.