Corporate Social Responsibility Investigating Theory and Research

Question: Discuss about the Corporate Social Responsibility : Investigating Theory and Research. Answer: Introduction The aim of this study is to learn about the retail marketing of the company that is a leading company of retail and many other segments. The companies who deal in retail marketing are very dynamic in nature as they have deal fast changing sectors present in the market. The retail marketing is called as one of the major sector of the economy in various segments like turnover, transactions, and customers. Retail business is one of the most competitive and highly sophisticated industries present in the market. Wesfarmers is company that conduct constantly monitoring of the other retailers and market place (Vargo, and Lusch, 2011). It helps to analyze and identify the latest trends, timely fashion, expectations of the customers, change in the taste, and demand of the customers. Now days, it has become more difficult to tackle the risk and challenges present in the market. This is due to the highly competitive markets and where the taste and preference of the customers changes very quickl y (Wagner, Bicen, and Hall, 2008). In this study, the discussion will be on the wheel of retailing and also on the lifecycle of the retail industries with relevant theories and approaches to make the concepts of retailing clearly. The consumers have a freedom to those the products according to their needs and want which increase the competition and worries of the retailers and manufacturers (Moussa, and Touzani, 2010). They also become this loyal to the brands especially when the products are substitutes, equivalent of good quality and easily available in the markets and industries. The decrease in the international barriers results in increase in the availability of products and services in the market. Furthermore, the change and up gradation in the technology and the advent of the internet facilities has added new parameters to the Wesfarmers company. It also has provided new experience to the customers (Verhoef, Lemon, Parasuraman, Roggeveen, Tsiros, and Schlesinger, 2009). The company Wesfarmers was found in the year 1914 as a cooperative society of the farmers whose major work is to provide services and products related to the agriculture in the Western Australias rural community. They diversified their business in to liquefied petroleum gas. They move form fertilizer industry, then forestry, distribution, and insurance. Gradually, the company has become one of the leading companies of Australia which is a public company in various terms, it has become a retailer. The company is divided into two segments (Hyman, Kopf, and Lee, 2010). the one segment is comprise of retail marketing that itself comprises of fur segments food segment, liquor, outdoor games, and convenience retailer. It is a diversified corporation with more than 220,000 employees and more than 5, 30,000 shareholders. Competitive Strategy The Wheel of Retailing concept was firstly introduced by McNair from the Harvard University. This theory is considered as one of the most observed theory. It refers to the changes that come into the retail industry during the evolution of life cycles. It is a kind of theory that helps in understanding the changes that has been taken place when innovation included in the business organisations. It is a hypothesis that explains that how the retailers can approach to capture the markets and the shares to crate brand value and shares of their company (Boshoff, 2007). It explains that ho the retailers started their business at low sales, price, profit levels, prestige and slowly with time they increase all the above mentioned things. This theory is adopted by the company Wesfarmers also begin with zero. It is not relevant that this theory can apply on each and every retail stores as every tore has its own situations and conditions. Step 1 of this theory is establishment and penetration in the market is very important to set the price of the goods and services sell by the company the process of market penetration leads in high demand of the products as the price of the good sis comparatively less than the products available in the markets (Glanz, Bader, and Iyer, 2012). The expansion in the markets of a company can also be possible when the company improves the working performance and productivity of to the company. The retail business can expand their business by simple analyzing the mechanism present in the market. There are lots of risk involves in the external environment that are required to be analyzed and indentifies (Baker, and Hart, 2008). There are trade barriers and many other barriers in the expansion like high competition, government, and legal factors. The company has to find the target market before going for the expansion process. The main of motive of all the business is to earn profits and profits and revenues can be earned when there are high profit margins in the sales take place. The company Wesfarmers has high margins as they direct make sakes of the products manufactured by them only. In this way, the company can improve by manufacturing their own items (Leonidou, and Leonidou, 2011). There are companies that can change the position of other company by entering into the markets There are many new companies who come up with high technology and good quality of products that leads in slow down the sales and profits of the other company; it is one of the biggest risks for the retail companies that are new entrants into the market segment (Certo, Sirmon, and Brymer, 2010). It can be fixed by bringing continuous improvement and innovation in the products and services provided by the company. There are various types of challenges in the wheel retail company as it focuses only on the margins and prices where the other variable are rejected and neglected. This is not applicable on all types of business like boutiques, convenience centers, and vending machines. Wesfarmers company retailers core competitors are Woolsworth, Hs home, Myer, and best less. These are the major competitors of this company. In Australian market, Wesfarmers is enjoying a leading position (Castaldo, Premazzi, and Zerbini, 2010). There is a significant amount of competition faced by this company as the strategies and policies of this company are very unique and do not let the other company to curb the sales in the markets. Store design strategy and the techniques use by Wesfarmers to encourage the customer, to stay, explore and buy the products The company is using one of the most effective techniques to attract their customers to the stores. The strategy used by Wesfarmers is a defensive model and strategies that is dominating the entire markets of Australia and the other brands of retail sector. The performance and productivity of this company lead the other stores to adopt their designs for the management of the stores. Through such designs the company has added lots of value to its products and services (Booker, Bontis, and Serenko, 2008). The big chain stores like Wesfarmers, where the customers entered just to visit the store, still make purchases without any plan to make purchases due to the attractive displays. The company knows to style and design their stores in a way that customers get attracted towards it by creating and putting g tempting displays items to let the customers keep the m for shopping. The secret behind the Wesfarmers stores are the layouts and designs that have been designed by the famous designers and experts who worked with the major retailers of the world. Window displays plays a vital role which is one of the major advantage with the stores of Wesfarmers. It let the customers simply enter into the stores and shops. Just like the eyes are the window of our soul, the windows of the shops are the mirror that reflects the image of the entire company ad stores. According to one designer, each window should tell a story. It can be done by choosing good colors, to grab the attention of the customers. There must be avoidance of the clutter as space is equivalent to the luxury. There is no need to cram the items of the window as it will look cheap. Try to put only selected items (Yadav, and Pavlou, 2014). It is very important to make a first impression on the customers when they enter into the stores. It is an eye catching moment for the retailers to impress their customers. It may help to make good amount of sales. They also use good room fresheners, and plants. At the entrance of the stores to make the customers happy and attracted (Horava, 2011). The entry way of the stores and shops must be o the right side. There are various types of studies that show that mostly the people look at left first thane right as they entered the shop and stores (Giacalone, and Rosenfeld, 2013). In this way, the customers move to right and then counter clock wise. Wesfarmers follows the same trend and format to upscale the sale of their stores. they use bright color, scents, paintings, and other beautiful things at right to encourage them to move to the right direction and begin to walk into the stores is a counter clockwise direction. The company Wesfarmers believes that there must be a beautiful end and aisle in the stores. There are many small retailers who end their stress at bathroom or store rooms. They must create an aisle at the ends of the stores to lead the customers to a department which do not end and if end than it will be a beautiful end (Jacob, and Ulaga, 2008). Wesfarmers has used its space very effectively and smartly by cutting visual images, parallel aisle, and exterior walls. They have placed everything in a way that it looks beautiful. It helps the customers to navigate the way to the stores into the forward direction. The company has used an angular way to set the angle for the customers (Lukka, and Modell, 2010). It is notices that more than 20 % of the stores do not have any break at their stores which create a situation of mess in the stores. It do not provide attraction of the customers as they do not stop and take break to think and to take rest. There must be long aisles, visual breaks, and signs. There are special displays in between the shops to stop the customers and give them idea about the availability of the products in the stores (Mulhern, 2009). There are various ways to attract and retain the customers at the stores and to make them purchase like The stores can ask the best employees and the customers to visit and stores an dot provide feedback to the other customers. They can also use questionnaire which help to pinpoint the issues. Stores can also take pictures and gather the staff for the analysis of the stores. There is a need to make regular changes in the stores. They can also go and check the layouts and designs of the other retailer have to make changes (Lee, 2009). The retailers can also collect decorative items to make their displays looks more attractive. They can paint and use the themes related to the festivals and occasions. They can use old and unused material like can, cases, old chairs, and paper to decorate the displays (Piekkari, Plakoyiannaki, and Welch, 2010). The displays must be changed on a regular basis to provide a fresh experience to the customers every time they enter into the stores or shops. It can help the stores to make the customers happy and to buy products. The retail stores have to do all sort of work that helps them to retain the customers and to make them buy the products. They have to manage the stores, customers, sales, and products. The employees who work in the retail stores are required to be blend with various types of skills, like dynamic nature, politeness, versatility, good communications, and good understanding. There are various types of requirement that are required in the store and in the store managers to make higher amount of sales (Vaaland, Heide, and Grnhaug, 2008). Technology plays a vital role as it can be used in different types of place like for experiment, to communicate to mobile users, to convince the shoppers, and to promote online presence of the retail stores. The company Wesfarmers can use virtual mannequins to trigger the customers. To gather the information of the product the customers can use NFC enable shelf labels and scan them to add into their basket. They can also make payment by the same (Verhoef, Lemon, Parasuraman, Roggeveen, Tsiros, and Schlesinger, 2009). The company can use their cards to pick and item simple by scanning them using Tesco scan at their stores. It is handy and entertaining for the kids and youth. M S order hubs and browse can help to browse the catalogues for any item and also to explore the information related to the product. The device has card payment ad huge iPhones (Alvesson, and Sandberg, 2013). It is one of the most critical things for all the retail stores and other business. The retail business is all about to satisfy the needs and wants of the customers by providing them great experience and exposure to the stores every time. It is very relevant for the companies to provide a good sales experience to their customers so that they want to come again to the stores. In order to provide this, eth company are requires to have effective and efficient sale persons at the stores and prominent management in the stores (Metters, and Marucheck, 2007). They have the caliber to analyze the demand of the customers their strength, and choice. They should also know to manage in the critical ad delicate matters take place at the stores. They must be patient and fair enough. The people must be motivated to sale the product to the right customers. They must have sales experience to be responsible employees at the stores (Serenko, Bontis, Booker, Sadeddin, and Hardie, 2010). The skills and knowledge related to the sales must be present in the employees he has the caliber to motivate, persuade, and satisfy the customers. The employees who are working at the stores must have good communication skills (Boardman, and Gray, 2010). As he has to manage the stores and customers, some of the skills must be there like customer handling, knowledge of stores, decision making both negative and positive. There is no crisis in the company Wesfarmers but still the company sometimes face challenges relate to the Technology, Customer care services, Product variety, and Delivery of the products. The sales of the company were good in the month of September. Earlier the technology used by this company was obsolete like the payment method and bill counters. Now the company has change the entire billing system. The customer services are also improved by building a separate company for the customers handling. The product variety and quality has been improved by changing the techniques of the production. Conclusion At last, a conclusion on the present study is to discover about the retail marketing of the Wesfarmers Company. It is one of the leading companies of retail and many other segments in Australia. Wesfarmers company deals in retail marketing which is very dynamic in nature as it is fastest changing sectors present in the markets. From this report we can understand that the retail business is the most aggressive and highly classy industries in current the market. Wesfarmers Company believes and conducts regularly monitoring of the other retailers and market place. It is very relevant to study the external and internal markets to analyze the latest trends, timely fashion, expectations of the customers, change in the taste, and demand of the customers. As there is high risk in the eternal markets and environment of the company, the companies make regular forecast relating to the markets and competition present. It has become more difficult to manage the risk and challenges present in the market. Due to the highly aggressive markets, where the taste and preference of the customers changes very quickly, Wesfarmers have to keep them updated. The basic motive of this study is to discuss about the wheel of retailing takes place on the retailing industries. As the lifecycle of the retail industries are changing the need of relevant theories and approaches to make the concepts of retailing becoming more relevant. This study will help to learn the same. As studied above, the consumers are free to choose the products according to their needs and want which increase the competition and worries of the retailers and manufacturers. Due to which the customer also become disloyal to the brands when there are substitutes, equivalent of good quality and easily available in the markets and industries. There are other factors also that increase the worries of the retailers that are decrees in the international barriers results in increase in the availability of products and services in the market. References Alvesson, M. and Sandberg, J., 2013. Has management studies lost its way? 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