Leveraging Social Commerce and Agile Practices in a VUCA World Assignment Sample

VUCA Environments for Management Practises Woolworths Group

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Partnership, creativity, and a vital concern for people’s well-being are the hallmarks of this new period. It is essential for a company’s long-term viability that its structure, strategy, and operational processes continue to evolve. Goal-setting, competitive analysis, internal organisation analysis, and strategy evaluation all fall under the umbrella of managent processes (Watson, 2000). Businesses must have a presence on social media platforms because of the significant number of individuals who discover new brands and become loyal to th through technological means (Howard, Mangold & Johnston, 2014). Bennett & Loine (2014) opined that the VUCA environment, which stands for volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity, contributes to the difficulty of analysing, responding to, or planning for sustainable business strategy, a given event or circumstance. Woolworths, a prominent grocery chain in Australia with more than 3,000 shops and 200,000 ployees, is the concern of the current study, which focuses on the challenges Woolworths faces in its strategic operations (Woolworths Group Limited, 2022).

1. Organisational Planning

Woolworths Group has adapted to the ever-changing environment around it. The firm was established on Sydney’s Pitt Street in 1924, with the opening of the first shop (Kasanagottu & Bhattacharya, 2018). Interest from the general public skyrocketed as a result of this. Known as one of Australia’s most reputable and trusted retail brands, Woolworths Limited constantly strives to provide customers with a world-class shopping experience across the country. At the same time, it is the ideal example of an organisation that has seen a significant expansion in the food chain retailing industry in the delivery of both financial services and liquor industries (King & Thobela, 2014). Customers’ needs and expectations have grown, and the company has made significant modifications to meet those needs and expectations. Woolworths’ managent thinks that retailing should not stand still and that it is necessary to accept that consumer choices and buying behaviour must be dynamic. This attitude to change has already been shown by the organisation, not only via the use of mobile technology for cross-country shopping but also in the areas of human resources and the viewpoint of every ployee of the company (Mukonza & Swarts, 2020).

Additionally, Woolworths use social media as a means of promoting its brand and gathering client feedback. Woolworths is reacting to the new age of development by laying the groundwork for guaranteeing that growth and opportunity are available (Kasanagottu & Bhattacharya, 2018). Woolworths’ managent has quickly updated their selling product ideas by adopting mobile technology and expanding accessibility to the its and price fixing methods, all while putting the needs of their customers first. If, for example, a retailer’s its are first sold out in Australia, then they may be ordered online and sent (Mukonza & Swarts, 2020). The firm has begun its online operations to reach as many clients as possible by adopting the positive developments in the retail business environment. In the end, the firm has recognised the necessity to stay up with and understand consumers’ dands and guarantee that retail expansion operates smoothly and fluidly between “physical and virtual” shops to shop in a manner that primarily refers to the most (Wang, 2022). Woolworths has made adjustments to its ployee engagent standards in order to expand its operations. Employees in the company’s human resources department have followed recommended procedures to serve over 18 million consumers, gain their trust, and reward their loyalty.

Regardless of how successful a firm is, it must constantly prepare for the volatile, unpredictable, complicated, and ambiguous condition that is always present. Some of the essential elents that might affect Woolworths’ development in Australian retail include changes in government policies, interest rates and taxes. The COVID-19 epidic was a recent example of a VUCA circumstance that the globe faced (Worley & Jules, 2020). Consumers rushed to stock up on rice, pasta, toilet paper, and cleaning plies in anticipation of a statewide stay-at-home edict, according to a report from Woolworths, driving sales up 11.3% to AUD11.2 billion in the three months leading up to the end of March (Kaye & Ashok, 2020). To deal with the surge in business, Woolworths had to hire hundreds of extra ployees, but the firm now faces rising expenses as the surge in business subsidies. Additionally, a portion of the firm that it plans to spin off is expected to suffer a pre-tax loss of up to AUD35 million every month due to the closure of the company’s pubs. As a result, Woolworths must hire tens of thousands of extra ployees, spend millions on security screens at checkouts, and bear the financial burden of liquidating non-ermarket companies to keep their shelves stocked.

2. Managing Strategy

Like many of the world’s largest retailers, Woolworths has grasped the need for social media to rain relevant to its customers (Rajeck, 2015). Woolworths has been actively using social media to gather relevant information about the target market and penetrate the brand as per the choices of the customers. Additionally, Woolworths use social media to promote its brand and gather customer feedback (Dos Santos, Svensson & Padin, 2013). Having used social media as a tool, the company has explored various platforms to neutralise the company’s negative impact on the market. It has enabled the company to reach out to the customers and know their product preferences. This information can further help the company execute effective strategies to promote the brand in the market. The company tries to create a better customer experience and thus launches several campaigns to draw customers’ attention to the company (Kwayu, Lal & Abubakre, 2018). There has been an enormous transition from traditional e-commerce to social commerce due to global e-commerce sales increasing exponentially over the last decade. This is especially true in the previous two years, which have been particularly hard hit by COVID (Woolworths Holdings Limited, 2022). For example, by 2024, social commerce is predicted to account for nearly 7.8% of all internet retail sales in the United States.

The primary goal of these “social websites” is to facilitate global contact. As a result, it is also used commercially (Alalwan et al., 2017). Woolworths aims to gather information about the social issues that prevail in society by having done an integrated analysis of the target market. The company uses that opportunity to choose the issue to promote the campaigns and deliver valuable output to the organisation. Woolworths uses social media to deepen the company’s engagent with its customers. The strategies to promote the products and interact with the customers are planned according to the marketing insights gathered from social media. The fact that the company deals with retail grocery its makes it essential to know the products’ dands per the customer’s needs. The company has also been found to have taken an interest in the trust that works with Childsafe campaigns. This has made the company create a positive image in the market by showcasing its work on social media and grabbing the customer’s attention. This has also given the company greater scope to focus on by choosing the right target audiences. Thus it can be stated that the formulation and execution of the company’s strategies are done based on the information gathered from social media (Tarsakoo & Charoensukmongkol, 2019).

2.1 Strategies That Managers Can Adopt for Strong Impact on Social Media

The company’s managers can use social media to ensure that it creates better customer engagent and substantially impacts the target audiences. The managers should collect data from social media about the existing customers and the audiences that have been following the company so that they can try to add constructive feedback from the end customers and makes changes accordingly. They should keep an eye on the social media apps to learn about the conversations going on amongst the customers. The managers must also check out the competition in the market and understand the needs and requirents of the target audiences from the social channels. The managers must also incorporate the strategy of influencer marketing tactics as this will help the company grab the attention of potential customers (Li, Larimou & Leonidou, 2021). The managers must also try to research the social channels used by their target audiences to understand the market clearly. By creating a schedule and tracking the correct metrics, the company’s managers can choose the right platform to influence the audiences. They should also make sure that they can be consistent in the market. They should also try to offer a reward to the promoters so that they can have influential marketing.

3. Shaping Organisational Culture

Every indication points to a whirlwind of the invention in the twenty-first century, spurred on by the ongoing digital revolution and the growth of global marketplaces. Despite the present rapid unpredictability and change climate, it is unlikely to ever return to a calm state. Whatever the outcome outside of a company’s control, the increased VUCA it creates for executives makes it more difficult for th to make judgments (Dhir, 2019). Positive complexity is shown by a product that goes viral and becomes a hit on the internet. The best way to lead in a VUCA environment is a challenge for many CEOs. Human connections count as much as or more than physical buildings these days; therefore, many old laws do not hold anymore.

It has become more challenging to draw clear lines between the many stakeholders that comprise a company’s worldwide stakeholder network (Horney, Pasmore & O’Shea, 2010). In order to build and maintain an organisation’s success, a CEO cannot rely on just one tool. Even though most people agree that leaders need to be more agile, very few can identify precise action plans for leadership to become much more agile. Leadership agility helps teams throughout time zones and cultures, and organisational boundaries work together more effectively (Lawrence, 2013). In addition, it maintains an unwavering phasis on ployee dedication and engagent across generational and geographic barriers. Because of this, cooperation between pliers, partners, customers, part-time workers, and consultants is part of the company’s culture.

Rather than face-to-face meetings with their team mbers, leaders are more likely to use ail, instant messaging, and other electronic means of contact to keep in touch (Horney, Pasmore & O’Shea, 2010). Much more difficult is the fact that team mbers come from a wide range of backgrounds and experiences, making communication and mutual understanding even more difficult. With practice, successful leaders will be able to handle both the dands of completing a job and maintaining a positive working relationship with ease. Woolworths is a famous brand, but for Rachel Mead, the company’s director of diversity and inclusion, it symbolises a lot more than just a retail giant. With more than 200,000 people worldwide, Woolworths Group is a retail behoth of enormous proportions (Douglas, 2020). Care has always been a meaningful phrase for Woolworths when dealing with a VUCA situation. The team mbers, consumers, and the community are treated with genuine and sincere caring at every opportunity. The various obstacles of 2020, including natural calamities and, of course, the COVID-19 outbreak, have intensified this culture. Because we are a values-driven organisation, we have developed a simple structure for responding fast in times of crisis and making the best choices for our customers, team, and communities. When faced with a VUCA circumstance like the COVID-19 epidic, the corporation, according to Mead, retains its attitude to diversity and inclusion in organisational culture.

4. Managing People

Woolworths incorporates the practice of the VUCA business environment on the managers, which makes the Human Resources Managent process low. As the term, VUCA itself states the four critical features of the business environment that comes with its challenges. Taking into consideration one of the aspects of Topic 9 of the given paper, the behavioural perspective has been pointed out in this paper. The behavioural aspect states the performance criteria of the people working within the organisation.

1. Volatility: The managers try to incorporate a more excellent approach to people managent to make sure that they comply with the internal issues faced by the people and make effective strategies to deal with th. This makes the company have a volatile HRM structure since its steps are unpredictable. The ployers’ rewards and appraisal structure are also taken care of by the HRM of the company, who have the right to make changes in the reward syst depending on the performance of the ployees working in it. The managers have the sole right to make decisions based on the people managent process, thus enabling the company to have a volatile business environment (Rimita, Hoon & Levasseur, 2020).
2. Uncertainty: This framework’s second factor states the company’s nature. The uncertainty in terms of people managent makes the company negatively impact the ployees’ efficiency. This makes the company face ployee turnover at a considerable level. People often find it hard to work in an uncertain environment, which influences the company in the long term. An uncertain feature of the HR effective measurent makes the people have issues in offering maximum productivity to the organisation. This enables the company to have maintained its organisational survival. This makes people look for better alternatives for better career growth. An uncertain and unclear outlook of the HRM team of the organisation towards the people managent enables the organisation to have slow growth in the given sector.
3. Complexity: The HRM team of the organisation has a practical involvent and thus needs to have a clear and straightforward structure that the ployees of the organisation can understand. Woolworth’s having followed a complex structure of HRM, enables the ployees to face issues when dealing with interpersonal conflicts at work. Due to this complexity, the HRM team fails to make the ployees provide adequate recognition for their work when required. In many contexts, the HR managers get to handle risky situations with projects involving the ployee for having followed a complex structure of HRM (Troise et al., 2022).
4. Ambiguity: Ambiguity at work refers to unpredictable tasks assigned to the ployees working there. The HR managers of the company often assign tasks to the ployees that are beyond their expertise in order to train th towards having a flexible job profile. However, this often negatively impacts the organisation in terms of the growth and performance of the ployees, who often fail to meet the expectations of the HR managers with the tasks for not having been skilled enough (Glukhova et al., 2020).

Conclusion

Woolworths has a consumer-centric operation with physical and virtual stores for customer convenience. In this process, their social media manager’s focused messaging may reach out to more prospective community mbers who enjoy or follow a product. As a marketing tool, it may also be utilised to communicate directly with consumers. There will be trendous growth and success in the retail industry if it uses Woolworths’ social media to appropriately interact with its ployees and clients to know their needs and dands. During VUCA situations, the company relies on the concept of care, and the managent leverage the benefit of diversity in organisational culture. However, the HRM of the organisation is currently having performance issues after enormous recruitment caused by colossal customer dand for service.

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