MARSDEN COMMUNITY STORES

Marsden Community Stores Case

Marsden Community Stores Case

Introduction

The case study pertaining to Marsden Community Store needs to be evaluated through the perspective of operational and supply chain management. Furthermore, the case also presents critical evaluations on how Marsden community Stores transferred the valuable operational concepts. Marsden Store is a grocery chain with 215 outlets located in the major towns and cities in England with an average size of 6500 sq feet. The USP (Unique Selling point) is the strategy that it has adopted. Niche Strategy, where price, location, convenience, and an adequate product range were seen as major criteria to maintain customer loyalty.

Discussion

Q1. This case illustrates that using a wide range of stakeholders to judge performance means that managers have to cope with the conflicting pressures of maximizing profitability on the one hand, with the expectation of they will manage in the interests of (all or part of) society in general.

Stakeholders

The primary stakeholders of Marsden Community Stores are the suppliers, customers and internal management of the store. Each stakeholder is important to the performance and success of the company (Leseure 2010, pp. 166). However, there are certain differences between the interests of these stakeholders, especially between customers and suppliers.

Suppliers

The management in Marsden Community Stores has been planning to rationalize and reduce the number of suppliers in order to lean their product range. Irrespective of the advantages or disadvantages of this objective, the suppliers seem to be in favour of this initiative by the company. The suppliers have their own interests in the industry as competition has increased profitability has decreased. Therefore, the suppliers like brewers support the range and supplier rationalization. This will allow them to gain greater economies of scale than before, and marginalize their competition (Franklin 2006, pp. 63). Another interest of the suppliers pertains to the contribution of supermarkets in aggregate sales. As much as 90 percent of a major supplier's production was sold through the fairly concentrated channels of supermarkets. As a result, it creates balanced opportunities for both suppliers and supermarkets like Marsden.

Customers

Customers have their own interests. However, it is important to know that customers primarily drive an organization's sales and business. It is essential for Marsden to know about what customers like and what they prefer to have in their stores. The management needs to take strategic decisions based on data derived from customers' perceptions and feedback about the products. Even, though, Marsden wants to rationalize their suppliers and lean their product range, it conflicts with what customers want to have. Much of the interests of the company developed from the notion of competition and reducing costs, especially that of supply chain, to tackle with price competition. However, there is no credible evidence or rational behind the decision or planning. It is because, customers' feedback and their opinion are crucial, for such decisions pertaining to reducing product range (Gustafsson 2006, pp. 135). According to the results of the research conducted by Mary, it was found that customers want to have more choice ...