Recommendations
In general, whole foods market is a successful company with credibility and rich organizational cultures. Most of our group members conducted useful and practical interviews with their employers or managers. However, there are still some areas Whole Foods Market need to improve.
First step forwards, whole foods market has its own colorful organizational cultures. In their official website, they showed that one of their core value and business mission is Sustainability. A paragraph named “Sustainability beyond Organic Food” listed plenty of sustainability events they have achieved. For instance, “We encourage the use of less toxic cleaning products,” and “We financially support environmental organizations, helping them to do their work towards a more sustainable planet.”
Whole foods market has such a green, and positive organizational culture. However, lots of their customers and even their employers didn’t know it. Therefore, aimed to let workers and consumers understand more about whole
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As our text book explained (Beebe and Mottet, 2013) “Groupthink is a faulty sense of agreement that occurs when team members seemingly agree, but they primarily just want to avoid conflict.” (p. 249) When we interviewed the employers in whole foods market, and asked them is there anything they want to change if they are the leaders. The answers are satisfied, they said everything is fine, and there is no change they want to do. Seems like the whole group and organization just work fine, and everyone is collaborating well with each other. But under the satisfaction, there is still a potential problem the group may have. The workers agreed with each other and their leader may just want to keep the harmony. In order to keep the conformity, workers just agreed with others. Even if they have some disagreements, but when they find that the disagreement may create conflict, they will avoid
WinCo Foods is a supermarket chain with headquarters in Boise, Idaho. It started in 1967 and has since expanded to include over 100 locations throughout the United States. Until 1999, all of its stores operated as Cub Foods or Waremart Food Centers, but the company now has its own branded locations. It also has five distribution centers. The stores and distribution locations employ more than 15,000 staff members in a variety of positions.
Whole Foods Market allows each market to supply products that are standardized, and also supply products based on local buyer needs, as well as the culture of the area; therefore their business strategy is transnational (Thompson, 2016, p. 192). Whole Foods Market varies their products based on location, focusing on local products and any unique products to promote a neighborhood market feel for their customers. The company strategically chooses its locations, placing them in educated areas, and then focuses on products to sustain a competitive advantage.
Walgreens was founded in 1901 and provides convenient access to consumer goods and services, pharmacy, health and wellness services (Walgreens.com). Walgreens has a conglomerate diversification business strategy which means they expand not only in pharmacy services but unrelated businesses such as health care clinics and in some areas Walgreens hosts 800 E.V. chargers. This type of business strategy helps to minimize risks due to fluctuations in one industry (Bateman, Snell 85). This type of corporate strategy is working very well for the Walgreens organization. The ability to service customer’s needs in a variety of needs is significant to a successful business. The Mission of Walgreens, “To be the most trusted, convenient multichannel provider and advisor of innovative pharmacy, health and wellness solutions, and customer goods and services in communities across America. A destination where health and happiness come together to help people get well, stay well and live well,” (Walgreens.com). This mission statement can be seen throughout the organization. The front line clerks are exceptionally helpful when a customer needs to locate an item, as well as the pharmacy staff explaining the directions of prescriptions to the patients.
They seem to be a company that enjoys their employee’s success. It is a great reflection on the company that so many people seem to enjoy their position at Whole Foods and feel like that are making a positive impact on both Whole Foods and the customers. Any company that focuses on self-motivation is going to be a winning company. This helps them build dedication and loyalty to their brand by giving those who work the hardest the most opportunities. They have been ranked as one of the top 100 places to work in America by Fortune since the list was created in 1998(WholeFoodsMarket.com).
Whole Foods has several FaceBook pages depending on the store however they do have a corporate page where they clearly state their cores values. These mainly encompass a well being for the community while spreading the knowledge of healthy living as well as their commitment to high quality and organic foods. They have over 1 million likes and share content from their Pinterest, Twitter, and Instagram on FaceBook. The FaceBook content mostly has recipes and pictures that buying a certain product will help fund a good cause. Whole Foods has several CSR initiatives to fight poverty inside and outside the US while also giving micro loans to farmers in need. I viewed several other local FaceBook pages of theirs to get a feel for the overall message. The local pages include specials, cooking classes, pictures, and of course they continue to be very engaging of the audience; overall the message remains consistent throughout the different pages.
Chipotle Mexican Grill has become one of the fastest growing fast casual restaurants with over 2010 locations worldwide, 45,000 employees and over 3.2 billion dollars in revenue (Cavanaugh, 2016). The company’s mission statement, “Food with Integrity” highlights the importance of using naturally-grown ingredients that are locally sourced when possible (Chipotle, 2016). Much of Chipotle’s success can be contributed to the quality of food, customer service, and the companies focus on sustainability from its food sources. Over the past 10 months, Chipotle has had a series of serious outbreaks of E. Coli, Salmonella and norovirus outbreaks at its restaurants. This has resulted in temporarily store closures; drop in sales and negative press. Chipotle
Sainsbury’s entered a joint venture with British Home Stores in 1971 to create hypermarket style stores under the brand SavaCentre. These stores reverted to the standard Sainsbury’s brand and superstore format in 1999.
..., John E., Strickland, A.J. Thompson, Arthur “Whole Foods Market In 2006: Mission, Core Values, and Strategy”, Crafting & Executing Strategy 15th Ed., McGraw-Hill Irwin, 2007
The mission statement of an organization is designed to state the purpose of the organization. Developing an organization is usually determined during the initial start up and can be changed due to changing environment demands. Whole Foods Market is a dynamic leader in the quality food business. We are a mission-driven company that aims to set the standards of excellence for food retailers. We are building a business in which high standards permeate all aspects of our company. Quality is a state of mind at Whole Foods Market. (Whole Foods, N.d.) Before getting to the end of the mission statement it is clear that Whole Foods is focused on quality. From there Whole Foods builds on its mission statement with its vision and values aligning some of its components such as organizational culture.
In essence, Whole Foods’ mission is to highlight, “Whole Foods, Whole People, Whole Planet…” while it simultaneously meets, “…customer satisfaction, team member happiness, and excellence, return on capital investment, improvement in the state of the environment and local and larger community support” (Whole Foods, 2017). Whole Foods distinguishes itself from its competitors by championing a sustainability pledge, which guarantees that future generations will be afforded the chance to exist in a world that, “…Values human creativity, diversity, and individual choice” (Whole Foods, 2017). Furthermore, Whole Foods drafted its corporate strategies to align with the longevity of quality health for its consumers as well as the planet, specifically through the realm of organic food. Such a corporate-level strategy definitely aligns with the long-term success of the company because it informs consumers that it is interested in advancing their personal health.
It is important to distinguish the difference between teams and groups. The main difference is that teams work altogether toward a common goal whereas groups can work altogether but for their own objective. It is important to highlight that a group does not necessary need a leader to follow but a team does and this leader will set directions to achieve the goal. In teams people are more committed as they share their ideas, they know the purpose of what they are doing and what the others are doing, they understand better individual objectives and team objectives whereas in groups, generally people are just told what they have to do without further explanations. Because in a team people get to know each other, it builds trust and enhances communication but in groups, people do not really know each other, do not trust or communicate effectively with each other. In teams it is frequent to see constructive conflict as people talk more openly and more honestly but in group it is quite rare. Eventually, people in teams are more involv...
There are eight symptoms of groupthink. The first symptom is when all or most of the group view themselves as invincible which causes them to make decisions that may be risky. The group has an enormous amount of confidence and authority in their decisions as well as in themselves. They see themselves collectively better in all ways than any other group and they believe the event will go well not because of what it is, but because they are involved. The second symptom is the belief of the group that they are moral and upstanding, which leads the group to ignore the ethical or moral consequences of the decisions. The group engages in a total overestimation of its morality. There is never any question that the group is not doing the right thing, they just act. The disregarding of information or warnings that may lead to changes in past policy is the third symptom. Even if there is considerable evidence against their standpoint, they see no problems with their plan. Stereotyping of enemy leaders or others as weak or stupid is the fourth symptom. This symptom leads to close-mindedness to other individuals and their opinions. The fifth symptom is the self-censorship of an individual causing him to overlook his doubts. A group member basically keeps his mouth shut so the group can continue in harmony. Symptom number six refers to the illusion of unanimity; going along with the majority, and the assumption that silence signifies consent. Sometimes a group member who questions the rightness of the goals is pressured by others into concurring or agreeing, this is symptom number seven. The last symptom is the members that set themselves up as a buffer to protect the group from adverse information that may destroy their shared contentment regarding the group’s ...
A SWOT analysis of Tesco is an analysis of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats affecting the company.
The financial figures for Heinz in 2003 show that the company had nearly one billion dollars less in sales than for the year 2001. Despite this decline in monetary sales Heinz reported net income that was nearly 85 million more than the year 2001, but down about 260 million from 2002 figures. Heinz reported that growth was mostly realized in the international markets and significant products responsible for expansion were tuna and pet food markets. A merger with Del-Monte (joint venture) was implemented this year and regarded as an opportunity that allowed Heinz to lower debt and expand some products internationally. Heinz was also able to decrease net debt by 1.3 billion in 2003. With these gains in performance Heinz has increased stockholder return by 17%.
In groups, members of the group might have opinions that differ from one another. This often leads to a term known as groupthink. Groupthink, which was coined by psychologist Irving Janis, is when “members of a group ignore information that goes against the group consensus”(Chambliss and Eglitis, 2016). Even if a member of a group has a different opinion on a decision, the group as a whole will decide to ignore it and go through with the original decision that was made instead.