Organisation Background
In 1914, it was opened by GJ Coles in Victoria, Australia and headquarter of Coles in Melbourne. In Australia, Coles has 776 branches and 100000 employees. Coles is the Australia’s leading food retailer. It deals with fruits, vegetables, Dairy Products, poultry products, bakery, baby foods and other products. It offers home delivery to the customers. Main Competitor of Coles is Woolworths who is offering same products as Coles. In 2007, ownership of Coles transfer to Wesfarmers’. A new management team is working to fulfill the demands of customers.
In the year 2014, Coles celebrated its 100th year anniversary of dedication to providing Aussies families’ products and services that they needed for a happy, and healthy life at home for a price that was affordable to them. When the first Coles store was opened the idea comprised of the following; a manager requires a happy home life, staff that are contained, a store that would make him a proud owner, the fellow respect should be earned by the property owner, to acquire all that it a necessity for him to operate a successful business (Coles.com.au, 2015).
The company has been able to commit itself to providing charity to hospitals, reliefs fund for those without jobs and for nursing home from its profit, despite the seasons of tough economies. The founder of Coles believed that it’s the social responsibility of the organization to give charity to those in need. The commitment to social responsibility remains as the one of its responsibility today. The company was becoming innovative and growing as the day goes by. The company was marked by a sense of innovation and fresh thinking. The company took a different approach to introducing the self-service that set the standard of supermarkets. The company introduced catalogues of sales products and made a display of goods that were on sale on a table in the shop centre (Coles.com.au, 2015). The company has totally shifted its course from a variety store as its origin to become the most important food retailer that comprises of all recent logistic, warehousing and system distribution that needed such challenges.
Coles was prompted to introduce its first electronic scanners into its stores. The aim of this scanner was to give customers printed receipts for their purchased items. With the rise and advancement in technology, and the dot-com bubble borne from fast intensification in technology and the initiation of the worldwide web. This a greater step to Coles as it made an adoption of modern technology that modernized tracking of inventory. The saved cost through the introduction of this technology was reinvested into cutting the cost of the 6000 product lines.
Confidence and Growth
The decline of the Australian dollar brought about an influx of economic uncertainty as the interest rates continued to rise. This was an opportunity to Coles as it saw its online channel through a growth period of being the largest foodstuff vendors online in the state. The company reputable a countrywide grid of Coles express service stations that provided consumers with a superior contact to food through its petrol and convenience stores that were new. The company faces stiff competition from other companies such as Woolworths, ALDI, IGA, Costco (Information, Search and Competition, 2017). The emerging issues that affect the company comprise of, and the company amplified emphasis on the sector of agriculture. The need to ensure that the food and grocery code of conduct is successful. Being a food retailer that is the leading in Australia, the company faces challenges of wastage of products such as dairy, bakery, meats and fresh vegetable. Through analysis of the current system to find its faults, it is possible to overcome this problem through an introduction of an inventory system that can track and provide forecast on daily sales. The upcoming development in the labelling country of origin (Sims, 2015). The company approach advertising in a trust worth manner and including claims that are free range.
Coles is a leading food retailer in Australia. It is a public listed company in Australia. Now a day, it is important to reduce primarily dairy, bakery, meats, and fresh vegetables – on daily basis. We hope this will help the company to maximize the profit and sales. Company needs new project which provides solution to solve this problem.
The purpose of the report to analyze present system of Coles and how it will minimize daily wastage. First, report includes a WBS structure and PERT chart which displays the sequence of activities and tasks related to solve the problem. Secondly, a fact-finding plan represents the main requirements which are covered. Thirdly, this report evaluates the current organizational chart and list of objectives which are helpful to conduct interviews of employees and top management. Moreover, some interview questions will be suggested in this report (appendix1) which are useful to obtain information related to the project.
Time management is important to start any project (Atkinson 1999). Effective time management plan is important to divide time between different activities to estimate the total time of the project.
Above Gantt chart represents Critical path and normal path of the project, understand problems of existing system, Project scope and constraints and analyse organisational chart are the critical path which means it is important to finish these tasks on time because if these tasks are not finished on time then other tasks are not finished on time which are dependent on it. It is important to give priority to these tasks.
Challenges and Company Opportunities
Now, two tasks are completed (understand problems of existing system, Project scope and constraints) and only analyse organisational chart will left which is a critical task of this activity. If it finishes on time, then project will finish on time.
It is important to collect information related to the existing system and process of the Coles which is helpful to understand the problems and opportunities. Fact-finding will help the analyst collect information regarding the current system in use in Coles Company. The analyst hopes to find accurate data that will help improve the system to overcome the problem of daily food wastage. Different fact-finding methods can be useful to collect valuable information
Document review is the first method to start a fact-finding process. It is useful to analyse past records of company such as journals, newspapers, blogs, performance reports, annual reports and so on to check the problem of Coles. This technique helps to find out how the current system should work, what are the main risks of existing system. Document review process should include business procedures and strategies too for analysis.
The documentation of the different preserving methods in the company will be reviewed. The refrigerator will be reviewed to check if it’s working as per instruction. The current system documentation will be reviewed too.
Observation technique helps to analyse the active working standards and strategies of the system which are helpful to understand the process of system. It is also important to remember to distinguish and check the accuracy to which the useful working methods coordinates the system documentation.
The analyst will gather information also through observation. The analyst will observe the day of the activity mainly daily sales of various products such as bakery, poultry and dairy products in the Coles Company in trying to figure out the course of the problem and try to find the solution.
Questionnaire is the best way to discover valuable information from number of workers and management. It is important to prepare questionnaire before conducting an interview and then analyse the questionnaire carefully to check which question is valid for interview. After that finalise the questionnaire to conduct the interview of Coles management. The analyst will draft a questionnaire for the staff of the Coles Company. The staff will be trusted to provide accurate information regarding the current system that leads to daily wastage of products and refer appendix to see the questionnaire which are helpful to gather information from employees.
Purpose of the Report
The sampling technique is used to examine existing system of Coles to gather actual information from different organisational documents such as Coles annual reports, performance reports, annual sales report, records, operations logs of Coles, records of complaints and so on. There are different sampling techniques which are used by different companies but in this case, random sampling method is suitable to collect information.Research
A research will be conducted on the current system and be compared to the system of competitors. The aim of the research is to find if the supplier, supply products that are almost going bad or what is the main course of the daily wastage of product.
This technique seeks to conduct a face to face interview with the chief executive officers of Coles Company. It is useful to find the facts, requirements and opinion of individuals to solve the problem of Coles. Structured interview can be used in this case. Opinion and answers of individual should be recorded and analysed to collect correct information.
The main purpose is to conduct fact-finding to discuss with you the current system being used in Cole Company. This activity is aimed at gathering information from based on your perspective with the interaction with the system. (Aselstine, 2016) the process will include various methods of fact-finding such as, interviewing the managers, research conduction and survey. The aims of gathering the correct information will help in proving the business process of the system and make it easier for the people using the system.
It is my expectation that the information provides your opinion will be very honest. This is because as users of the system, you are very much aware of the inches of the system.
As part of a fact finding it is of significant importance to remind you that all participant involved in no retaliation will be invested since the act is prohibited and necessary disciplinary action will be taken.
List and roles of executives to be interviewed
Chief executive officer CEO: The CEO is responsible for company operation and strategy. The CEO has full authority over the company. Other time the CEO act as the chairman of board.
Chief financial officer. The CFO is in charge of all the company financial information. The CFO is a member of the board of directors and reports to the Chief executive officer (Theofficialboard.com, 2017). The treasure and the controller do report to the CFO.
Time Management Plan
The chief information officer: The CIO is in charge of all the data assets of the company. In particular, the CIO is responsible for companies’ information system. The CIO reports to the CEO in case of anything.
Chief technology officer CTO. The CTO is responsible for all the strategy to be used in the company technology. The chief technology officer reports to the CEO.
The first objective of the interview will be to interview the chief executive officer and chief technology officer on the record review, procedures, and forms. A review of the records that are existing and procedure of the system with an aim of seeking insight into a system which describes the capabilities of the current system, its activities, and operations.
The second objective of the interview will be on the procedure of modelling requirements. The main aim for these is to find the details of the existing system and find out the necessary desires for the projected system. The requirement is likely to vary from the output which is electronically printed from the existing system.
Thirdly, the objective of an interview will be targeted to the chief financial officer and chief operating officer (Sharma, 2015). The interview will be conducted to know about the system and some of the business processes that can be automated in order to increase the efficiency of the work. Analysing the existing system business process and see it’s functioning. The business process that is still manual can still be automated and the impact on business be analysed. An interview objective on the chief financial officer will be to get his idea of implementing a system that has an automatic accounting instruction upon any business transaction.
Fourthly, the aim of an interview will be targeted to the Grocery head. The interview will be conducted to analyze the selling procedures of Coles and find out the daily sales of various products.
Business process diagram for existing customer
The process to be reviewed in the system is the registration of the new customer before proceeding to make a purchase. Most consumer will consider this as a waste of time and hence they will opt for other groceries vendors. With the growth in technology, the online shopping for Coles Company should be simplified. The most consumer will opt for a system that is user-friendly and easy to use for shopping at the convenience of their homes. If Coles give discount to online customers, then most of the people prefer online shopping. It will be helpful to reduce daily wastage of Coles and also provide discount on those products which are going to expire within 2-3 days and notify registered users. It is the best way to increase the sales of Coles and decrease the wastage.
Work Breakdown Structure
Performing a systematic analysis of the Coles system was to obtain various objectives. First, the reason for conducting system analysis on the existing system was so as to discover means of system design due to conflicting objectives on the previous system. The second objective was in order to achieve the inter-compatibility and purpose unity of the subsystems. Thirdly was to place each subsystem of the main system in its perspective that is properly and context, so that the system as whole may achieve its objectives with the minimum resources available. This, in the end, creates a synchronization of the objectives and the system.
Coles Company has taken a huge step in implementing a business system for the procurement department. Through the deployment of the automated replenishment, this deployment has positively impacted on satisfying our consumer needs and has materially improved the availability and efficiency of the Coles supply chain. The chief technology officer stated that they have are constantly getting products delivered to their stores fresher and in a timely manner.
Coles has numerous changes that are underpinning it to meeting its objectives. Among them is taking advantage of cloud and moving data to the cloud. As much as the company wants to take advantage of this, it is clear that hosting of data on the internal server is cheaper than on the external servers.
While its evident that Coles faces a stiff competition from Woolworths, this is because both companies have a very strong position in the grocery market of Australia. With the emerging signs of both companies to attract consumers to their store through the fresh supplier of products, it is a great idea for the procurement system to be redesigned (Aph.gov.au, 2017). The company has been facing a great challenge of wastage of products due to going bad. The procurement and inventory system has not been able to keep track of and give out a report on the demand for products in various months. A new system that can keep track of them and give out a report of the products sold, products remaining, and monthly forecast should be designed. This will help solve the issue of procuring a lot of goods from the supplier hence leading to wastage/.
Based on all the strategies that were implemented at the start of the report, the recommendation reflects on: in-depth research into what the current view of the system analysis. The requirements needed in order to offer support for human roles in the system. One of the most crucial recommendations the integration between human system and human performance can never be most effective in analysis and design of a system unless it is viewed by all the stakeholders as part of the system process re-engineering, from the beginning of the exploration till the evaluation of the concept. The Coles company system has failed because the humans were put into consideration after the identification of the design problems. This is too late to make changes that are required to produce responsive systems to user needs.
Fact Finding
Coles Company has realized that there is need to put more consideration into the human during the system design face. Majority of commercial software and hardware industries are starting to wake to the realization of success in the commercial requires great attention to the needs of the customers, in order to achieve that success there is an inference for the operation team.
The recommendation to the executive and stakeholder of the Coles Company is that they should understand the human system integration is more important from the start of system design to the last step of the cycle. In the circumstances of putting emphasis on the human system, integration will have a great significance in the system performance. If the human system integration is left out till the stage of testing the system, little percentage improvement can be grasped under the greatest environments and there will be organization risk that the goals will not be satisfied.
Conclusion
Throughout the task of system analysis of the Coles company, the objective behind was to have an analysis of the current competitive strategies through four aspects: quality control of products, cut price, cut down on expenditure on innovation and operation. It was realized that techniques for strategic management accounting which suits operation of the company to be in a dominant position. Taking all those objective under consideration, it provided a clear path of the expectation of the organization.it has been concluded that the user requirement definition should start at the idea of system conception. This will help solve the problem of daily wastage of products such as meat, grocery. Those requirements should act as clear path to offer significant evaluation criteria till the time when the system has been placed to use. Customer survey can be useful to find the solution of this issue because if system analyst knows the need of customers by conducting a survey then he will be able to provide a solution to Coles (appendix 2)
References
Atkinson, R 1999, ‘Project management: cost, time and quality, two best guesses and a phenomenon, its time to accept other success criteria’, International journal of project management, vol. 17, no. 6, pp. 337-42.
Aph.gov.au. (2017). Summary and recommendations – Parliament of Australia. [online] Available at: https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Economics/Completed_inquiries/2010-13/dairyindustrysupermarket2011/report/b02 [Accessed 5 Dec. 2017].V
Aselstine, L. (2016). The Golden Rules of Fact-Finding: Six Steps to Developing a Fact-Finding Plan. [online] Queen’s University IRC. Available at: https://irc.queensu.ca/articles/golden-rules-fact-finding-six-steps-developing-fact-finding-plan [Accessed 5 Dec. 2017].
Coles.com.au. (2015). Our History. [online] Available at: https://www.Coles.com.au/about-Coles/centenary [Accessed 6 Dec. 2017].
Information, C., Search, C. and Competition, C. (2017). COLES GROUP LIMITED Names of Competitors – Companies & Details – Hoovers.com. [online] Hoovers.com. Available at: https://www.hoovers.com/company-information/cs/competition.Coles_group_limited.3a9d18d4f2a00862.html [Accessed 6 Dec. 2017].
Referenceforbusiness.com. (2017). Systems Analysis – organization, definition, business, Project proposal. [online] Available at: https://www.referenceforbusiness.com/management/Str-Ti/Systems-Analysis.html [Accessed 6 Dec. 2017].
Sims, R. (2017). New and emerging issues in the grocery sector. [online] Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. Available at: https://www.accc.gov.au/speech/new-and-emerging-issues-in-the-grocery-sector [Accessed 5 Dec. 2017].
Sharma, P. (2015). System Analysis: Objectives, Reasons and Tools | MIS. [online] Your Article Library. Available at: https://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/management/mis-management/system-analysis-objectives-reasons-and-tools-mis/70388 [Accessed 5 Dec. 2017].
Theofficialboard.com. (2017). Meaning of the most used corporate titles – The Official Board. [online] Available at: https://www.theofficialboard.com/info/main-titles [Accessed 5 Dec. 2017].
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