Introduction
Customer loyalty is crucial for every business. In case of a business losing customer loyalty, it faces several problems in the form of loss of market share and revenue. Repetitive sales from the consumer helps create better and improved market position. In case of retail industry, customer loyalty is extremely important and essential for long term success (Payne and Frow, 2005). In present times where in E commerce has taken over, a firm like TESCO would require ensuring customer loyalty in order to survive the competition. Moreover they are also expanding their businesses and customer loyalty can help them maintain their market positions. Marketing is an extremely important activity in present day organizations as it helps them create better market positions and competitive advantages through branding.
Importance of customer loyalty
Customer loyalty is of great importance to an organization. Marketing and appropriate positioning are crucial for the firm. Their marketing strategy, strategic objectives and competitive advantages form the most important components of their marketing and branding function (Kerin, 2012). The marketing strategy of the firm is to ensure differentiation and utilize several aspects of marketing strategy and market planning in order to ensure that the consumer is availed with high quality customer service and this can help ensure better customer loyalty as well (Meyer and Schwager, 2007).
Differentiation is also an important element that can help create better levels of customer targeting. There are several advantages of differentiation strategy. The differentiation strategy helps a firm handle competition effectively. It helps the firm to form a distinct market position for itself (De Wit & Meyer, 2005). Then moreover it can also achieve a higher customer base as its customer base and customer segments are not shared with competitors as the customers wanting a specific product would not buy a competitor’s product with differing features (Samiee and Roth, 2002).
Strategy is an extremely important element for present day businesses as markets are extremely competitive. It is crucial for firms operating in global markets to be able to form strategies based on market factors and dynamism (Barney and Hesterly, 2008). It is crucial that there be effective change and development in order to improve the levels of performance of the organization. Competition in this industry is high. Pricing is one of the tools used extensively by organizations in order to attract customers. All of these factors helps ensure better levels of customer loyalty as well (Hunger and Wheelen, 2007).
The wider implications of proposed changes within the organization to the Management at Tesco is that it requires the usage of analysis within the organization as well as of the forces outside the organization (Graiser and Scott, 2004). Business Environment includes set of external and internal factors which affects the decision of business and it is divided into two parts. These are Micro environment of business and other is Macro environment, Micro environment consists of Suppliers, customers, market intermediaries, financial intermediaries, competitors and Public. Macro environment to the business are Economic Environment, political and government environment, Socio Culture Environment, Natural environment, Demographic environment, Technological Environment, international environment (Johnson, et al, 2008).
The external environment is extremely suitable for this business. But the risk and uncertainty is high as it operates in a global and competitive environment (Aaker, 2008). The future needs of the organization include information and knowledge as this can help obtain better talent pools and adjust to the low retention rates. Change is an extremely important element of all organizations. In this way it is required for the firm to form strategies that are suitable for its expansion and can help the firm grow in several dimensions.
The variables that have to be considered in designing an organizational structure for international operations includes international work cultures and cross cultural elements, spread of operations and the value chain as well as the work flow (Birkin, 2009). These elements should be importantly considered in the process of designing an organizational structure for international operations as they are interconnected and impact the competitive position and operational efficiency of the business. This has helped Tesco spread internationally in a successful and rapid manner (Palmer, 2005).
How can such an organization be certain that its customer service is of the best quality The competition in the industry is quite high. It leads to there being a need for constant development and change along with development of competencies. It is crucial for the firm to understand the impact that other firms and competition has on consumer decision making (Gentile, et.al., 2007). In order to improve the business development processes, it is essential that the organization ensures better understanding of consumer decision making process. Providing the consumer with better value will help create better customer loyalty levels (Pearce and Robinson, 2005).
The control process in international business includes internal control as well as external control (Daniels and Daniel, 1993). In case of internal control it is essential that the firm focuses on budgeting, auditing, human resources supervision and several such operations. Specific internal control features that can be built into a system include recording as well as reports generation. Internal control programs are also extremely important because they help in the formation of controls that ensure ethical behavior and acts of all employees in an organization by involving accountability and supervision into the work processes.
The quality culture to ensure continuous monitoring, evaluation and development of the process practiced in the company can help them ensure better customer loyalty (Dyche, 2011). The biggest strength of the international market is its potential growth. This helps create a lot many opportunities. New markets, new domains and new technologies – all of these have been explored by the international market (Daniels and Daniel, 1993). This widens its opportunities and gives it an edge in a number of countries. Moreover acceptance of new products and newer technologies, automatically adds on a lot of dynamism to its profile. In such cases, quality becomes essential and ISO can help the firm achieve better levels of growth and development as well (Hunger & Wheelen, 2007).
What actions can it take to make sure that the customer is receiving the best possible service
Implementing ISO in the organization can help build better processes, trust and credibility. It is important for a retail organization to achieve ISO certification as this is crucial and it is also required that there be effective utilization of ISO processes to create better levels of management in the organization (Akpolat, 2004). The process of restructuring and forming a better portfolio would provide the market with a lot many opportunities including exploring newer and more compatible deals with the international laws, thus increasing its opportunities to earn better revenues with efficient management as well as support (Hakes, 1991).
Improvements which align with the organization’s objectives and goals and which will result in improvements at these organizations are to be based on the IFE matrix. The organization factors that impact the business and its competitiveness is the resources and the effectiveness with which the organization operates (Keegan and Green, 2010). As the firm functions in a high growth industry and has a high market share it already is a star as per its location on the BCG matrix. The fact that the firm at present is a question mark and needs to be moved to the star position, a lot many steps need to be taken. Then there are also several measures to be taken in order to maintain the star position of the firm. They help in training and effective usage of resources. These factors can help ensure better control on the establishment of the business in the international environment (Kotler and Keller, 2006).
Risk assessment as required by legislation, regulation and organizational requirements at the outlets is based on the analysis of multiple factors that include the physical factors as well as safety elements. The variables that have to be considered in designing an organizational structure for international operations includes international work cultures and cross cultural elements, spread of operations and the value chain as well as the work flow. These elements should be importantly considered in the process of designing an organizational structure for international operations as they are interconnected and impact the competitive position and operational efficiency of the business. This form of organizational restructuring and focus on building better competencies as well as competitive advantages have benefitted the firm achieve better profits and better market position. In case of the firm being able to grow in order to achieve its goals, through the strategy that propagates analysis of the market trends in order to base its product portfolio on it (Johnson, et.al., 2008).
The bargaining power of buyers and suppliers is high because buyers have multiple options and suppliers aim at highest profitability which new entrants can provide and an existing firm with backlog of losses cannot. The threat of substitutes also comes only form competing firms and not from other firms because no other firm has been as popular as cars in the global markets in case of these stores (Kotler and Keller, 2006).
It is essential to design systems to manage and monitor quality standards specified by the organization, integration of all of the processes is required. This can help create a supportive environment for strategy implementation. This would automatically help minimize resistance to change as well as conflicts in the process of implementation of strategy (Johnson, et.al., 2008). Influencing skills can be employed by leaders in terms of building trust, confidence and participation in decision making by groups and individuals. This is possible if in case of the leader being able to understand the needs of each of the individuals and also know the factors that motivate them and leadership plays an important role in this aspect.
It forms the most critical aspect of strategy. The organization shall be based on the formation of a strong mission and vision statement that shall for the basis of creation of the strategies for the organization as a whole as well as for each of the functions which includes marketing, human resources, technology and operations, etc. (Graiser and Scott, 2004) In this way, sound organization policies would be used. Integrated marketing can help the firm grow as well as achieve better success and in this way the issues that arise in effective implementation of strategy can be managed (Kotler and Keller, 2006).
Conclusion
Strategy forms an essential part of all businesses. It is crucial that there be appropriate strategies adopted by a firm in order to remain competitive (Samiee and Roth, 2002). It is essential to consider differentiation and provide appropriate levels of growth in the business. It is very true that the internet has changes the nature of commerce. It has led to the formation of e-commerce which leads to growth and expansion of organizations into the global platform. Customer Relationship marketing (CRM) is a very popular tem used in marketing. In simple terminologies it refers to all those efforts of an organization aiming at maintaining a long lasting business relationship with its current customers and this can help the retail organizations to a great extent.
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