Study on Sainsbury's in the UK Retail Industry

Introduction

Innovation management is the combination of the management of the process and the change management practice in the organisations, where in the recent era of globalisation, all the multinational corporations and small and medium sized business firms try to renovate their business operational activities in order to establish the organisation uniquely in the market. For gaining high competitive advantage through customer’s retention and running the business creatively, innovation management is crucial. The study focuses on exploring the innovation strategies of the retail firm Sainsbury’s, which is operating across the UK. Through the discussion, it is possible to demonstrate the innovation strategic planning of the retail organisation that they have already adopted in the UK to serve the customers efficiently. If you are seeking insights into innovation management within the context of the business, then you can consider delving into a business dissertation help in place to guide your exploration further. the per also provides a scope to evaluate the innovation process by applying the innovation process model and critically analyse the internal resources and influence of the corporate culture which are crucial factor in enhancing business innovation to meet the organisational objectives.

Organisational background

Sainsbury’s is the second largest supermarket and retail chain in the United Kingdom, after Tesco, with 16% market share. The organisation is efficient to provide the best quality products including hypermarket, supermarket and discounted products in the market. The brands Argos, Habitat, Nectar and TU are collaborating with the business for better operations in the market and the company Sainsbury’s is already successful to expand their business actress the UK through more than 1428 stores. Total numbers of employees of the organisation is approximately 111,900 in the previous year 2020, where the staff members are proficient to contribute positively in the organisation to meet the business objective. The vision of the brand is to be the most trusted retailer where people love to work and shop. The values that the organisation creates are such as living healthier lives, sourcing with integrity, resect for the environment, and create great place to work and positive difference to the social community through managing innovation and creativity. In the previous year, the organisation has generated the revenue approximately £28.993 billion, it is efficient to create values for the customers across the UK by delivering the best quality food products and other necessities at affordable price (Sainsbury’s, 2021a).

Innovation strategies of the company

The organisation focuses in creating values for the customers and overall social communities through delivering the best quality products and managing innovation (Ozcan et al., 2021). In this regard, through technological advancement, creating suitable changes towards sustainability and utilising the organisational resources and capabilities, Sainsbury’s develop innovative strategic planning in order to gain high market share by customer’s retention and the latest innovations of the firm are discussed further.

Digital transformation

In the recent pandemic situation due to COVID 19, the organisation took the initiative to serve the customers through online activities by digital transformation of the business previously, most of the retail transactions were made through the physical stores of the Sainsbury’s, but after such pandemic situation, the organisation adopts the strategy of digitalisation of the business activities to manage the customers online and it further enhances their online sales volume by 87%. It becomes a digital first business in the UK to serve the customers efficiently by providing the quality products to their place within effective time. the FFC strategy includes fast, friendly and convenient become successful where Sainsbury’s focuses on launching the digital application, in which the customers can review their existing products and place their orders to get the quality products within effective time., hence, friendly atmosphere continuous support through the mobile application and fast delivery system are the major success factor of the company in the recent critical phase. The FFC transformation leads to 50 per cent of new online groceries are from new customers with the supermarket now taking over 650,000 orders a week compared to just 370,000 pre-crisis. The quality and diverse range of food items in the company as well as the innovative digital application make it convenient for the customers to order their necessities and get it within effective period of time. Through the online application, the sales representatives and customers service team, provide continuous support to all the clients and it further help the customers to get the best quality products at their doors in such pandemic situation (Sainsbury’s, 2021b).

Food quality management

Helping everyone to eat better is another innovative strategic planning of the organisation, where Sainsbury’s focuses on delivering quality food items at affordable price where in the recent era of globalisation, the customers become concern about healthy living and sustainable eating. The company helps the customers to make healthier choice of food and other items for maximising their standard of living in such critical phase and in this regard, less use of plastic in packaging the food items, easting fresh fruit items and organic products rather than packet or preserved food as well as helping them to recycle and reducing carbon emissions are the major strategic intervention through which the company aims at creating safer world. For creating healthy planet and maximising wellbeing of the individuals, the company promotes to make the choice for the healthy and organic food items, fruits and vegetable and make homemade food to maintain nutrition value and sustainable choice so that the organisation can increase the healthy food habit of fresh fruit and vegetables.

Increasing the agricultural activities for organic vegetables and fruits items available in the market is also fruitful to create safer world in future with healthy dietary habits among the individuals across the social communities (Sainsbury’s, 2021c). Diversify protein and dairy intakes and select healthier options through prioritising the plant protein such as beans and pulses, including two portions of fishes and excluding red and processed options are also crucial to create healthy dietary plan of the customers to live better. Hence, transformation towards healthy eating habits through promoting the dietary planning and organic food items rather than packaged food is another innovation through which the organisation focuses on maximising sustainability and manage to create safer world in future by maximising the standard of living of the individuals. The partnership with Livestock Environment and People (LEAP) supports environmental research projects is also beneficial to maintain agricultural activities and ensure to provide organic food items in the market (Sainsbury’s, 2021d).

Evaluating innovation process model

The innovation process model proposed by Tidd & Bessant (2018) is effective to analyse the innovations of the organisations in order to gain the competitive advantage in the recent era of globalisation. Sainsbury’s focuses on the latest innovations, which are digital transformation of the business and organic food products and healthy eating practice. These two strategic innovations are helpful for Sainsbury’s to grow in the market in such critical phase and generate revenue and sales volume (Tidd and Bessant, 2018). As per the innovation process model, there are 4Ps of innovations which includes product, process, position, and paradigm. Product innovation is the main strategic planning of the organisational leader to maintain innovative products and product portfolio in order to maximise customers values (Nambisan et al., 2017). Through managing the product life cycle and portfolio with diversifying their available products and services, the corporate leader tries to deliver the best quality products and services to the clients across the market. Process innovation is the changed process in the way things are created and delivered to the clients (Tidd and Bessant, 2018). Through technical innovation, developing good internal process and managing the staff are effective for the corporate leader to adopt the process innovation strategy and service the clients uniquely (Pantano and Gandini, 2018). As per the innovation theory, there is positioning innovation, in which the products and services are introduced in a systematic manner to target the customers in the market. It is mainly the promotional activities through which the corporate firms try to launch their brand and products in the market and attract more audiences across the social communities (Savastano and Anagnoste, 2020). Paradigm innovation in particular refers to the strategic changes of the internal organisational process to achieve the future success.

The organisation Sainsbury’s is one of the innovative firms in the recent era of globalisation, which focuses on digital transformation of the business. The organisation launched the mobile application to engage the customers and help them to place orders as per their needs and preferences. Through developing good IT framework, creating the software system and hiring efficient staff in the company, Sainsbury’s is able to implement the strategic innovation planning and make it convenient of the clients to make purchase decision for getting their products at their doors. It is related to the process innovation strategy as per the innovative theory, where Sainsbury’s develops integrated process to deliver the best quality products and services to the customers. The internal process become digitalised through the ICT and ERP software system, where the operation manager is able to handle the suppliers, distributors of final goods, managing stock and warehouse and handling the customers by providing effective updates of the product delivery (Tidd and Bessant, 2018). Hence, the integrated system software of Sainsbury’s is the major success factor where the company invest in process innovation to serve the clients creatively. Through the software system and mobile application, the organisational representatives are able to engage with the clients and guide them to choose the right products as per their requirements, manage payment and handle the delivery system within effective period of time (Sainsbury’s, 2021d).

In addition to this, Sainsbury’s also focuses on product innovation through managing organic and agricultural fresh products. In this regard, product innovation strategy becomes successful for Sainsbury’s through which it is possible for the firm to create safer word and maximise the wellbeing of the individuals. The product diversification strategy and cost leadership practice further help the firm to maintain the stock of the diverse product range at affordable price for creating customers values (Tidd and Bessant, 2018). In the business model, blue ocean strategy is important for the organisations to enhance firm capability and innovation to serve the customers uniquely. As per the blue ocean strategy, the company creates uncontested market, make the competition irrelevant, focuses on differentiation and cost effectiveness, value innovation and attract the noncustomer as well as create and capture the new demand (Sainsbury’s, 2021b). Sainsbury’s also focuses on adopting blue ocean strategy through product innovation, where product diversification towards organic and agricultural products as well as cost leadership practice are helpful for the firm to serve the customers with a divers and healthy product range. It further provides a scope to the firm to attract the noncustomers in the market and create demand for the new customers. The product innovation and diversifying the product portfolio towards healthy product and food habits are helpful for the firm to attract the clients and make effective purchase decision. In this regard, the organisation also promotes the new product and diverse product range in the market through launching the mobile application and managing the organisational official webpage ion order to attract the customers to get the best quality and organic products at affordable price so that they can maximise their wellbeing in long run and stay healthily (Sainsbury’s, 2021f).

Internal resource analysis for innovation strategy

Through Porter’s value chain model, it is possible to analyse the internal resources of the organisation, which are crucial for innovation management (Bodolica, Spraggon and Soueid, 2019). Sainsbury’s is successful to develop primary activities as per the value chain model, which are inbound and outbound logistics, operations, marketing and sales and the customers services. The organisation focuses son ICT and ERP software system for handling their logistics and warehouse, which helps to maintain the product stocks. The customers services and marketing activities are handled through digital transformation of the business, where digital database management system and cloud computing are crucial to handle the client database and manage their activities digitally. The organisation also focuses on developing support activities which are IT framework, firm infrastructure, procurement and human resource management. Sainsbury’s is efficient to develop strong employee base, where the technicians, employees, suppliers and distributors are working collaboratively to maximise the company visions. Sainsbury’s provide incentives and structured compensation to the staff for managing them and creating values for them in long run. Apart from that, internal infrastructure of the firm, managing raw materials and production process are the major success factors to renovate the whole process and ensure product diversification in long run (Sainsbury’s, 2021b).

Influence of organisational culture on managerial approach

Organisational culture plays an important role in managing changes and adopts new innovative process efficiently. The organisational culture and corporate governance of the organisation have crucial impacts on the managerial practice, where the managers and leader are able to manage change and lead the employees towards achieving the future success (Frishammar et al., 2019). Simsbury’s focuses on developing good corporate governance in order to create corporate culture so that it would be possible to provide friendly atmosphere to work with others and maximise the organisational vision. The ethical practice of the firm, such as equality and diversity management, providing equal opportunity to all the staff, managing transparency and accountability as well as fairness in decision making are helpful to create good corporate culture, which provides a scope to Sainsbury’s to manage their staff and lead them towards the organisational success (Sainsbury’s, 2021d).

Additionally, the organisation maintains harmony and freedom to work and continuous encourages the employees to show their creativity to work as a team and contribute positively in the workplace. The corporate leader and the managers of Sainsbury’s are also efficient to maintain employment rules and manage the health and safety of the employees in order to retain them and provide them safe place to work (Sainsbury’s, 2021e). This further helps the organisation to strengthen their employee base as the employees are the major stallholders to deliver the best quality products to the customers. the organisations also focuses on providing high return on the investment of the stakeholders and it is beneficial for the firm to create values for the staff and maintain good corporate culture to work as a partnership working practice. For managing change, diversity, equal empowerment of the staff as well as sharing the information and organisational visions are useful for the firm to renovate the strategies and run the retail operations creatively across the UK retail market (Sainsbury’s, 2021f).

Conclusion

It can be concluded that, the organisation Sainsbury’s is able to renovate their business operations for gaining high competitive advantage and retaining the customers for long run. The company mainly focuses on two strategic innovations, one is product innovation and another is process innovation. The product innovation strategy of Sainsbury’s is to launch and promote the organic products and agricultural food products in order to ensure healthy living in long run. On the other hand, the process innovation is also beneficial for Sainsbury’s to generate revenue and maximise online sales volume though digital transformation of the business. The company is able to maintain their product portfolio, stock and warehouse, manage the suppliers and distributors through the integrated software system, where the whole operations are conducted through digital platform and online activities. The mobile application and organisational website are handled efficiently to support the customers for online shooing in such pandemic situation in order to create values for them, where the clients can make effective purchase decision as per their preferences at affordable price.

Reference List

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Frishammar, J., Richtnér, A., Brattström, A., Magnusson, M. and Björk, J., 2019. Opportunities and challenges in the new innovation landscape: Implications for innovation auditing and innovation management. European Management Journal, 37(2), pp.151-164.

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Ozcan, S., Homayounfard, A., Simms, C. and Wasim, J., 2021. Technology Roadmapping Using Text Mining: A Foresight Study for the Retail Industry. IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management.

Pantano, E. and Gandini, A., 2018. Shopping as a “networked experience”: an emerging framework in the retail industry. International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management.

Sainsbury’s, 2021b. Our business strategy. Retrieved from: https://www.about.sainsburys.co.uk/about-us/our-business-strategy

Sainsbury’s, 2021c. Helping everyone eat better. Retrieved from: https://www.about.sainsburys.co.uk/about-us/helping-everyone-eat-better

Sainsbury’s, 2021d. Our management. Retrieved from: https://www.about.sainsburys.co.uk/about-us/our-management

Sainsbury’s, 2021e. Corporate governance. Retrieved from: https://www.about.sainsburys.co.uk/about-us/corporate-governance

Sainsbury’s, 2021f. Corporate responsibility. Retrieved from: https://www.about.sainsburys.co.uk/making-a-difference/corporate-responsibility

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