Implementation of Sainsbury Supermarket’s Strategic Management

Question

Task: It is often noted that implementation is the most difficult aspect of Sainsbury Supermarket’s Strategic Management. With reference to your organization, how might this be the case?

• Discuss strategy implementation issues in the organization.
• Analysis and critique of the benefits and limitations of strategy implementation in the organization.
• Analysis of why implementation might be the most difficult part of the strategic management process in the organization.
• Recommendations on how strategy implementation could be enhanced.

Answer

1. Executive Summary
The report has been assertive when it comes to assessing the importance of the strategic implementation at Sainsbury’s. In the report, the implementation strategy at Sainsbury’s has been evaluated. The report has also reflected on a discussion about the strategy implementation issues. The critical analysis of the benefits and limitations that are associated with the strategy implementation has been an important feature of the report. The report has shed light on the identification of the reasons for which the strategic implementation is considered as one of the difficult undertakings of the strategic management process. The recommendation section highlights the suggestions for enhancing strategic implementation. The findings of the report suggest that the inability of tracking of strategic outcomes through KPI and lack of organization's effort to align the employees with the organizational strategy are the major issues in the strategic implementation at Sainsbury’s. The findings also include that the lack of objective goal development has posed as one of the critical strategic implementation issues.

Title: chosen question:
2. Why is the strategic implementation considered as the most difficult stage in the strategic management?
2. Introduction and Background Information of the Organization
Sainsbury’s is one of the largest supermarket chains in the UK. The organization has been founded in 1922. The annual revenue of Sainsbury’s is ?£ 219 million in 2019 (Sainsbury’s.co. 2020). It has 1428 shops in the UK and has an employee base of 1, 16,400 workers. One of the major products of Sainsbury’s is organic grocery. Sainsbury’s has a market share of 16% in 2018 (Sainsbury’s.co. 2020). The facets of appropriate strategic management play a key role in improving the performance of the organization and improve productivity. The contribution of the strategic implementation is quintessential for the development of the organizational objectives and aims. The use of the resource-based strategic management theory is essential in providing the organization with a competitive advantage.

3. Evaluating the organization’s present strategic implementation
3.1 Analysis and critique of the benefits and limitations of strategy implementation in the organization
Sainsbury’s has been reforming their human capital by developing an on-job training program. The organization has been understood to transform their human capital into a potential asset for imparting a sustainable competitive advantage and has used training as the strategic tools for implementing the strategy of evolving the human capital. It is supported by the fact that Sainsbury’s has opened Convenience Training College that operates 2,000 training courses for improving ICT and behavioral skills of their employees (Sainsbury’ss.co.uk. 2020). This type of strategic implementation is in coherence with the resource-based strategic management theory as the principles of the theory is focused is in converting the organizational resources into a competitive asset. On top of that, Resource-based strategy management theory is understood to make use of tools that transform the resource into a competitive entity and in this case, Sainsbury’s has been using training programs as a strategic tool to convert the resources of human capital. Thus, it can be implied that Sainsbury’s has been developing its strategic implementation of improving human capital skills, by following the Resource-based strategic management theory.

One of the strengths of strategic implementation is that Sainsbury’s has been able to develop annual objectives and resource allocation effectively. It has been supported by the fact that Sainsbury’s has been able to develop the organizational objectives of focusing on Accredited Training internship program as well allocating financial resources to 'You Can Be' initiative through strategic implementation (Cityandguilds.com. 2020).Singh & Singh (2018) have opined that the strategic implementation provides a platform for instantiating the organizational aims and objectives and helps in imparting competitive advantage. Mišanková&Ko?išová (2014) have argued that strategic implementation is beneficial in formulating policies for strategic execution. Thus, the analysis of the contrasting statement highlights that the strategic implementation has assisted Sainsbury’s in developing the objectives of creating accredited programs but has missed out on setting up the training policies. One of the major limitations of the strategic implementation within Sainsbury’s is that their lack of resources. It has been supported by the fact that the organization has been cutting down on their investment in the training programs by 15% (Butler, 2016). Ansoff et al. (2018) have supported that the presence of misinformed decision making in strategic implementation could lead to a shortage of financial resources. Thus, the supporting arguments state that the financial department of Sainsbury’s has been ineffective when it comes to allocating financial resources to the strategic implementation of improving training program and converting human capital.

One of the major strength of using training as strategic implementation is that it improves the skills of the employees and in a sector, which is, labor-intensive in nature, the presence of such intensive on-job training would elevate the potential and improve the organizational prospect of Sainsbury’s. It has been supported by the fact that Sainsbury’s in-store employees have increased the sales by 20% in 2018 (Butler, 2020). Morden (2016) has opined that the use of training programs and session helps in the strategic implementation and imparting competitive advantages. Jenkins & Williamson (2015) have opposed that strategic implementation is hindered if the training programs are ineffective. Thus, the contradictory suppositions imply that the benefits of strategic implementation are significant to the prospects of Sainsbury’s when compared to its limitations. One of the major limitations of the strategic implementation within Sainsbury’s has been the absence of the organizational culture that would promote the growth of strategy, which focuses on the development of the human capital. It has been supported by the fact that Sainsbury’s employees are accused of unethical conduct against interns and has maligned the organization's growth in developing as a potential prospect of human capital (Young, 2020). Thus, it has been analyzed that the training plays a major part as a strategic implementation tool whereas the lack of organizational culture could limit the contribution of strategic implementation.

Figure: Strategic Implementation
(Source: Singh & Singh, 2018)

3.2 Analysis of why implementation might be the most difficult part of the strategic management process in the organization
The strategic implementation is one of the key stages of the strategic management process and its critical evaluation is considered through the following strategic management theories and concepts:

3.2.1 Strategy validation
One of the major stages of strategy implementation in Sainsbury’s is the development of strategy validation. In the strategy validation, the strategic outcomes are discussed among the external stakeholders for being acceptable. This in turn could lead to a situation where the internal and external stakeholders hit an impasse, regarding the strategic outcomes and result in the conflict of interest. In the case of Sainsbury’s, the operations managers might have an assertive perception of improving the productivity of their sales as a means of strategic outcome of the training programs whereas the external stakeholders might exert the strategic outcomes to be more along the lines of CSR. Thus, the presence of such conflict of interest delays the strategic execution and highlights the reason why the implementation is a difficult part of the strategic management process.

3.2.2 Strategic communication Theory
It has been understood that strategic communication is an invaluable asset of the strategic implementation process and has to be effectively integrated (Trigeorgis et al., 2017). In this phase, the strategic objectives are converted to short-term operatives and thus would require the correlation of the organization’s objective and resource capacity. The correlation of such nature would pose a considerable difficulty. In the strategic implementation of evolving human capital, Sainsbury’s financial and human resource departments have to work in tandem and in an environment, where the organizational culture and team coordination is receding, it seems to be an arduous task. Thus the above analysis highlights the significant challenges that the financial and human resource departments might face in terms of team productivity when it comes to developing strategic communication and illustrates the reason why the implementation is the difficult part of the strategic management process.

3.2.3 Resource-based theory
In the resource-based theory, the identification of the intangible and tangible resource plays an important in developing the business strategy and poses a considerable challenge (Rosenberg Hansen &Ferlie, 2016). In the strategy articulation stage of strategy implementation at Sainsbury’s, the human capital might be identified as the tangible resource but the identification of intangible resource might be a problem and pose difficulty in formulating strategic objectives. Hanson et al. (2018) have supported that the resource-based strategic management theory provides a clarified identification of the resources that would impart a competitive advantage to the strategic implementation process. Thus, it can be analyzed that the ineffective understanding of resource-based theory would malign the identification of the resources that are necessary for strategic outcome in the strategy articulation stage and highlights the reason why the implementation is the difficult part of the strategic management process.

Figure: Resource-based strategic management theory
(Source: Molina-Azorín, 2015)

3.2.4 Strategy articulation theory
In the strategy articulation theory of the strategy implementation, the internal stakeholders build consensus among them for delivering the strategic outcomes (Zeps&Ribickis, 2015). In the case of Sainsbury’s, the consensus among the operation managers and in-store employees, regarding the Destination statement might not be reached as the employee base of Sainsbury’s has high cultural diversity and this would further add to the opinion differences. This in turn would lead to the situation where the entire strategic implementation of training programs might be postponed. Hence, the above discussion highlights the reason why implementation is the hardest part of strategic management.

4. Identification of the key issues and their recommendations
4.1 Discuss strategy implementation issues in the organization.
4.1.1 Inability to track the progress of the strategic outcomes
One of the major implementation issues that Sainsbury’s is facing is the inability to track the progress of the strategic outcomes. The presence of identifying the metric that would control and monitor the progress of the training program objectives is quintessential as it provides the idea about the ICT skill efficiency and sales efficiency of the in-store employees. It has been supported by the fact that Sainsbury’s profit has fallen by 8.2% in in-store sales (BBC.com. 2020). Thus, the analysis further signifies that the absence of KPI in the evaluation of a training program is a definite strategic implementation issue.

4.1.2 Lack of alignment among the stakeholders
One of the critical issues of strategic implementation is that the organization has failed to develop alignment among the stakeholders of this strategic objective. Sainsbury’s has been able to develop proper goals for achieving the objectives of converting the human capital into a competitive asset but the lack of alignment among the functional departments of finance, operations and human resource management has caused collaboration conflict and prioritization issues that have led to the derailment of achieving the strategic goal of increasing training programs. It has been supported by the fact that the dispute about the strategic goals between the leadership team and the management departments has led to the loss of 20% of their employee’sjobs (Davies, 2020).

4.1.3 Lack of persistence in objective goal development
Sainsbury’s lack of persistence in objective goal development has been understood to be one of the critical issues in strategic implementation. It has been supported by the fact that Sainsbury’s has changed their organizational goals frequently within the last two years and has demonstrated a lack of focus towards their achievement. Thus, it can be analyzed that the organization are circumspect of their accomplishment and is one of the major weakness. In the case of Sainsbury’s, the strategic goals of evolving the human capital into a competitive asset require the implementation of the various training session and such requirement demands an efficient channeling of resources within the functional departments. Thus the absence of such cohesive interdepartmental functions at Sainsbury’s has dented their chances at effective strategic implementation.

4.1.4 Inability of correlating employee’s interest with organizational strategy
Sainsbury’s has failed to deliver when it comes to aligning the organizational strategy with the personal interests of the employees. The organization has not been able to share knowledge about the benefits of training among the in-store employees. It has been supported by the fact that the Sainsbury’s has only focused on on-job training as compared to the off-job training and could lose up to 300 employees (Leeming, 2016). The organization has relied heavily on tactical operation focus and has not emphasized on the conducting of team meeting sessions to educate them about the benefits of training. Thus, the above analysis highlights that the organization has faced issues in terms of aligning the employees with the organizational objectives and illustrates the strategic implementation issues.

4.2 Recommendations on how strategy implementation could be enhanced
4.2.1 Use of Balanced Scorecard as a strategic management tool
One of the major recommendations for enhancement of strategic implementation at Sainsbury’s is the use of the strategic tool, Balance Scorecard. The balanced scorecard should be used to define the "destination statement" and should be based on the lines of identifying the production efficiency of well trained in-store employees. The organization should hold meetings to procure consensus about the acceptability of the strategic outcomes. This will in turn help the organization to address the issue of aligning the organizational strategy with the personal interests of the employees. The consideration of customer opinions as an external stakeholder is essential for enhancing the strategic implementation.

The balanced scorecard could be implemented to identify the customer perspective of the skill set that they would like to observe while engaging with the in-store employees. This, in turn, will support the determination of the cause and effect relationship between the declared strategic objectives of improving training program as it identifies the skills set that the organization needs to train their employees with, to improve customer interaction. Thus, it reflects the contribution of balanced scorecard in enhancing strategicimplementation. It has been understood that the proper budget allocation is key to the enhancement of strategic implementation (Mišanková, &Ko?išová, 2015). Withthe use of financial perspective in the balanced scorecard, Sainsbury’s can be assisted in terms of identifying the budget constraints of developing training facilities. This in turn assists the finance department to prepare better budget allocation plans. Thus, it highlights how balanced scorecard could enhance strategic implementation. One of the major benefits of using budget scorecard is that the organization will able to nullify their strategic implementation challenges in terms of KPI and plan to monitor. These metrics will provide an understanding of the economic and internal process feasibility of the training programs and monitor their potentiality in terms of effective productivity of team performance in training sessions.

Figure: Balanced scorecard
(Source: Molina-Azorín, 2015)

4.2.2 Conjoint functioning of finance department, human resource and operations department
The finance department and human resource department at Sainsbury’s should consider weekly meetings to assess the feasibility of the budget plan for accommodating the training facilities. The finance department should consider the cost overruns or additional budget while developing the budget plan and relay the information to the human resources department for assessing their expected results. The human resource department should share the information about the workforce planning policies and recruitment training strategy to the finance department and this, in turn, will help the finance department to finalize the projected budget plan. Thus, it reflects how the finance department and human resource department should conjointly function to the attainment of the organization’s strategic aims of developing training programs and transforming the human capital. The operations department and human resource department at Sainsbury’s can organize sessions where the operations department provide information about the skills that the in-store employees need to be trained in and this will assist the human resource department to develop the training programs that are aimed at enhancing those particular skills. It has been supported that the HR department plays a key role in improving the employee’s attributes and skills (Hassan, 2016). Hence, the above discussion recommends how the operations department and human resource department should conjointly function to accomplish the organization’s strategic objective of transforming the human capital into a competitive asset.

5. Conclusion
The report has been exemplary in assessing the difficulties that are associated with the strategic implementation at Sainsbury’s. It has been identified that the benefits of strategic implementation are significant in terms of organizational impact when compared to its limitations. The report has highlighted that the facets of resource allocation and annual objectives development as the major advantages of the strategic implementation. It has been analyzed that strategic implementation is one of the difficult aspects of the strategic management process in the organization. In the report, the critical analysis of the strategy implementation has been illustrated. The report has demonstrated recommendations for the enhancement of strategic implementation.

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