Importance of creating a strategic fit between organisational goals, an organisation’s structure, and the environment.
#1
Jyoti Thakur
(Last updated )
Using organisational examples, critically discuss the importance of creating a strategic fit between organisational goals, an organisation’s structure, and the environment.
#2
Training Head
(Last updated )
#1
Jyoti Thakur
Using organisational examples, critically discuss the importance of creating a strategic fit between...
The strategic fit helps in evaluating the current performance of a company. It is important to evaluate the extent to which the company is capable of achieving the external demand by using internal resources and capability (Wood et al., 2016). The organizational capabilities are used for generating strategic fitness. The current report highlights the strategic fitness of organizational structure and external and internal market analysis of Tesco. The extent to which the company is able to strategically fit to the external market and utilize the internal capability has been identified. In addition to that the study also reflected the challenges that are faced by the organization in terms of aligning the organization goals and structure strategically and making a strategic fit. Recommendations for the same have also been provided to ensure that it improves the organizational structure and achieve the goals based on internal resources and external environment.
Chosen Company
Tesco is an international general merchandise and grocery retailer which was founded in the year 1919 in London (Son et al., 2018). Initially it was a tea selling organization which eventually from 1994 started leading as a multinational retailer and in the current situation it is the biggest supermarket in the UK having more than 4000 stores operating at different locations. Apart from the UK in other different locations like Hungary and Euro or Poland and even in some Asian countries like Malaysia and Thailand test scores have their presents. As per the annual report of the organization the sales of the company in the year 2021 was 53.4 billion.
Organizational goals of Tesco
The core purpose of Tesco is serving the community and the planet a little better every day. The culture of the organization priorities is 3 significant values which are customers, the community it serves and the entire planet (Alam and Raut-Roy, 2019). The business goal of Tesco is shedding little help that can make a big difference. Every little help is the motto of the organisation that goes beyond helping the customers with effective shopping. It is committed to help customers, community as well as the planet as a whole.
The foundation of Tesco is built on the core values that influence the culture of the company (Awadari and Kanwal, 2019).
Organizational structure
The structure of the organization helps in achieving objective and goal because the structure of Tesco depends on its objective and strategy. The organizational structure enables every employee to contribute to achieving the target within a given period of time. It not only enables effective staff and team management but also ensures that individual roles and responsibilities are generated for the best interest of the company and they are not overlapped for achieving the target (Rosnizam et al., 2020). The strategy of the organization as a result determines the ways in which responsibilities and power are assigned and the ways in which information flows through the organization. The strategy helps as the strategic planning of Tesco ensures that the worker and employee as well as other internal stakeholder or working together for achieving the goals that establish agreement around the intended outcome and evaluate the outcome. In case of any difficulty identify in the process the adjustment in the strategy of achieving the target.
The foundation of Tesco is built on 3 core values that influence the culture of the organization. On top of the core it is the value (Tangboriboonsuk, 2015). Organizational structure in this aspect has a significant role to play in the operation of the company. The product based hierarchical and decentralized structure of Tesco comes with different limitations and benefits. The multinational company has more than 360000 people working. There are three primary groups in the organizational structure of Tesco which are top, mediate and base level management. The Executive Manager is like the CEO order at the top level and in the mediate level it consists of different committees like corporate responsibility committee and audit committee (Alexander, 2020). The mediate level also has a disclosure committee or nomination committee and remuneration committee.
After the board of directors and mediate level committee the base level management of the company have elementary level employees who are also divided on the basis of region. In this level the organizational structure of the company works on the basis of regional managers working at the top and that is further followed by store managers. In a single store the managers are further divided into food trading manager and personnel manager as well as non-food trading manager. In different sections like the ambient food section or fresh food section all the three levels of managers have a number of employees working below (FERENČÍKOVÁ and HRDLIČKOVÁ, 2017). For example under the non-food trading manager other managers belonging to personal assistants and the clothing section managers or electric section managers work.
Environmental analysis
Strength Opportunity
One of the significant strength that the organisation has is large market share and financial turnover. 26.9% of the grocery market share in UK is held by Tesco and the closest competitor of the company is Sainsbury which has 14.9% of the market share. As a result it can be stated that dominance of Tesco in market is unchallenged (Loonam et al., 2018). During the pandemic also the company highlighted a significantly strong performance and it registered 10.5% growth in the year 2021. Particularly by boosting the online say also the growth has been achieved. Continuous Innovation and adaptability of Tesco makes it a winner in the retail sector (Gonen et al., 2017). The effort of the organisation for optimising the delivery scheme in a response of the pandemic has resulted in upgrading the profit. Significant opportunity that is available to the organisation is a growth in the online groceries fields. There has been a massive decline in the employment number particularly belonging to the age group of 16 to 24 (Dhyana and Gupta, 2022). Tesco being one of the very limited places where people are still finding job the higher rate of unemployment is a significant opportunity to the organisation that can help it to acquire the number of employees in fuelling the growth. The measures for preventing the spread of the virus also prevented the common people from stepping out of the house and the restrictions of popularised term trend of buying the groceries from online platforms. 76% growth in the online sales was achieved by Ocado (Sugiyanto et al., 2022). Therefore it can be stated that Tesco also has the significant opportunity of leveraging the online grocery sales Trend. Advancement in the technology like machine learning and artificial intelligence can help the organisation to improve productivity and operation. Competitors like Morrison are partnering with the technology service providing companies (Adewuyi, 2016). Tesco by using machine learning and artificial Intelligence can also deliver and cater street level requirement that can be a game changer.
Weakness Treats
Despite of the strength there are certain weaknesses that the company is facing. For example the lack of inventory management makes the availability of the product very limited. 175,000 fines were paid by Tesco for displaying the product 15 days after the expiry date. Similar issues due to the lack of inventory management have been significantly faced by the organisation (Hashim et al., 2021). Due to panic buying trend of the consumer the shortage of a product to was a significantly every day and. The company is rationing few of its item however it has assured the consumer that the products have an adequate stock for catering the customer and help them to normally by the product (Qing and Cheng, 2019). Provided the fact that the company has avoid range of product it lapse to follow the food safety guidelines and it has significant negative consequences. For example the company issued urgent food recall after discovered the safety issues and defected that endangered the customers consuming it. The relation of UK with the European Union that has created the no-deal Brexit is a leading to the suspension of the free trade agreement particularly for the business is operating in UK with European Union. The adoption of the new regulations can lead the organisation to face difficulties in terms of additional tariff and limited quota (Lehn, 2020). As a result of Brexit the supply chain particularly in the food sector has already been significantly affected by 80%. Due to the restrictions imposed for Brexit and the pandemic at the port of entry the imported goods from European Union to the UK as already be negatively affected in terms of managing supply chain.
Strategies implemented by Tesco
Regarding decision power and layer of management or even other types of structure like a product based and functional there are different types of organizational structure. The organizational structure of Tesco particularly is decentralized. The centralized type of organizational structure is evident when the elementary or lower level of employees has the decision power (Wood et al., 2016). Particularly the organizations in different locations work in this pattern and therefore the head of the store has the maximum power or control for making decisions for different locations in the region. As stated earlier in the United Kingdom only more than 4000 stores are operating and extending in other countries and continents also. As a result it is almost impossible for the company and the committee or the board members to control the entire operation at different locations and implement a similar strategy at every location (Son et at., 2018). As a result the regional manager who has the charge for different regions distributes the responsibility with store managers who are responsible for managing specific stores.
In terms of layers and leaders for management the organizational structure of Tesco is tall and hierarchical. It highlights the fact that the organization has many layers of management that are headed by different leaders. For example the fresh food section manager has the charge of fresh food in the state, which goes to the food trading manager who further communicates and is responsible for reporting to the store manager (Alam and Raut-Roy, 2019). The store manager communicates and has the reporting authority to the board of Tesco highlighting the hierarchical and tall structure of the organization. When it comes to making decisions, the decision's organizational structure highlights the fact that the employees working at different levels have a similar sense of responsibility as a result to which they are comparatively more creative and motivated. The store and regional manager are able to make the decisions which are suitable for the demand and trend among the consumers in the local area (Awadari and Kanwal, 2019). This aspect of effectiveness of the decentralized organization structure highlights that the company is able to achieve the organization goal by focusing on the organizational structure and it maintains its strategic fit.
However, it disadvantages or the extent to which the company is not able to maintain a complete strategy with the organizational structure and the objective is in terms of the fact that the store and local regional manager might not have the appropriate expertise to achieve the consistency in the market provided the objective is in terms of the fact that the store and local regional manager might not have the appropriate expertise to achieve the consistency in the market provided the Retail company is already operating in extreme competitive environment (Tangboriboonsuk, 2015). In regards to the layer and leader of management following a tall and hierarchical organization structure highlight the fact that the company has a greater procession of opportunity which can make it easier for the managers at a different level for performing the best work as the extent of making decision that can best be suitable for the area is provided.
However, the loophole that exist in the company due to which it is not able to make between organizational goal and structure based on the continuously changing environment is that some employees can be comparatively less motivated as the might always not have extended responsibility due to which there level of creativity might not be appreciated or identified in the company. In addition to that any changes which are implemented and decided in the organization can also take a longer time and can be effective very slowly due to the long chain of command.
Strategic fit between organizational goal, structure and environment
As identified from the core purpose of the organization the three valuable priorities are that of the organization including its customer, community and planet. Tesco is an organization which has different target customers and large rupees of target audience every day. For this reason the customers are one of the most significant values for the company (Alexander, 2020). By making customers significant value for the organization the business focuses on understanding the requirement and need of the customer so that it is able to respond and anticipate as per their expectation. A relation between the external market environments to which include the trend of the customers and the organization core value is identified that creates a strategy for the company.
Apart from the customer community is yet another significant value for the organization. Apart from providing clothes and food many other variations of a product and services are made by the organization that focuses on serving the community. For example by providing good jobs and supporting producers and local suppliers it helps the local causes with the help of sustainable development programmes and community initiatives. Focusing on sustainability strategies the purpose of the organization is adjusting the business operation that reduces the negative impact on the environment (Loonam et al., 2018). Particularly in terms of supply chain management the focus is identified to be applied in the organization. In addition to that it also promotes and supports a healthy way of living that creates a strategic fit between the organizational structure and the environment.
Summary
From the above discussion it can be concluded that the long journey as a retail organisation of Tesco has enabled it to rebuild the trust of the brand to the customer and it has made a significant progress. In order to strengthen the brand existence and availability it is investing in different aspect and element which makes the experience of the customer with the brand unique. The opportunity that exists to Tesco is differentiating through services and product by providing the customer with great quality at affordable prices. The decentralized structure that is a followed makes the information process flow effectively and also ensure that the responsibilities are not overlap. However with changing demand of the customers and existing internal and external resources in the current situation Tesco might need to improve the resources and capabilities as a consumers are now a days are ordering products from online platforms and are expecting consistent delivery for greater experience and service.
References
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Alexander, I.N., 2020. The influence of technological innovations on organization's competitive advantage: Case study on Irish food retail company (Tesco) (Doctoral dissertation, Dublin, National College of Ireland).
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