Question

This discussion has three parts. 

The Internet has created new ways to do business for organizations with much less capital planning as opposed to the high capital needs of traditional brick and mortar organizations. Based on this, answer the following questions:

How should management and leadership address each type of business? 

Describe the organizational structure of 1 traditional and 1 online retailer, identifying a management or leadership challenge for each type of retailer. 

Are the challenges basically the same or different? In what ways are they the same, or how are they different?

Answer 1

1. Management needs to undertake the function of Planning for the online marketing space on a major way. In order to remain competitive and to gain a competitive edge in the market, it is essential to keep the Organization in lines with the advancement in terms of Technological, Economics and other Legal factors as its core elements in planning.

Technology especially has played a very significant role that has changed the way the Planning use to take place the Brick and Mortar Organizations. For example, with the technological advancement, there has been an urgent need for the Healthcare Organizations to align its activities with technology so as to achieve the desired results more efficiently. Therefore, with adoption of new methods in the field of technology, along with efficiency, there would be a reduction on the overall costs of the Organization too. Here planning for adaptation to a suitable technology in the system can ensure a long survival of the Organization. Further, it is to be noted that the technological Operations of today are much bigger than in the past and the impact of their operations on the society are much larger thus the scope of operations of organizations have widened thereby giving more pressure on planning than in case of the physical organization. Technological changes are one of the major challenges that an Organization faces while formulating the Organizational strategies while planning.

Hence it could be indeed comprehended that when it comes to Management, planning becomes more important or less important in a world where everything is changing fast and crises are a regular part of organizational life that can boost the survival of the Organization.

In terms of online leadership, it helps in building trust:

–         The lack of face-to-face contact in electronic communications removes the nonverbal cues that support verbal interactions.

–         There is no supporting context to assist the receiver with interpretation of an electronic communication.

–         The structure and tone of electronic messages can strongly affect the response of receivers.

–         An individual’s verbal and written communications may not follow the same style.

–         Writing skills will likely become an extension of interpersonal skills

Vision of the leadership system would be to integrate the law and technology into leadership practices in order to positively impact the changes in the approaches can be thus used to lead the organization especially in the fields of planning, controlling and feedback. This leadership should bring more sense of observance of the framework set by the management to undertake various functional duties across the Organization thereby helping the management with strategic planning to overcome any concerns as faced by the employees. The leadership style should be transformational so as to accommodate all contemporary advances in the field of technology and to thereby incorporate innovation with dynamism in the Organization by providing the employees with motivation and mission to achieve the desired goals.

2. With the advent of new technology, it is necessary to accommodate the Organization accordingly to withstand the ever-growing competition in the market. However, a traditional Organization approaching conservative values may find it difficult to adapt to such changes. In such a scenario, suggestion would be to hire external technical experts who have in-depth knowledge about the technical know-how of the latest machineries to be employed in the production channel or for the optimum use of various software packages to offer better and more efficient services to the clients, say for example, in the Banking industry, the internet operations and application software technology could be outsourced to technical expert firm to achieve better results in the way of business strategies.

Giving an example in terms of say, Target and Whole Food’s management, Amazon took over Target early in 2017 with the view to invigorate the Company’s performance as Target’s Grocery business was going through the rough weathers and the key to survive in the industry was only to shake hands with the retail giants like Amazon. On the other side, Amazon, primarily ruling the online space, would now get an opportunity to make its presence felt even on the Physical platform in the form of Grocery retail outlets. Hence this planning has been suitable to both the Organization. Hence, with crises becoming a regular aspect in the Organization’s scenario, this decision was thoughtfully planned to avail the maximum benefits of the synergy. Subsequently, Amazon also took over the Whole Foods in middle of 2017, with the plan to venture into Fresh grocery stores market in the country. The plan was aimed to grant more flexibility to the consumers to choose products from more suitable locations at an opportune time thereby boosting the overall sales of the Company.

Hence in both the above case, Management has gone a longer way to ensure a robust growth of the Organization in future. The online space has also gathered a considerable amount of momentum in the recent years than before. What is available at the offline medium, could also be possibly made reach to the consumers on the on-line platform and hence, Planning has to incorporate the social and online media to a greater extent these days in order to succeed in the industry.

Giving an example in terms of say, Target and Whole Food’s planning, Amazon took over Target early in 2017 with the view to invigorate the Company’s performance as Target’s Grocery business was going through the rough weathers and the key to survive in the industry was only to shake hands with the retail giants like Amazon. On the other side, Amazon, primarily ruling the online space, would now get an opportunity to make its presence felt even on the Physical platform in the form of Grocery retail outlets. Hence this planning has been suitable to both the Organization. Hence, with crises becoming a regular aspect in the Organization’s scenario, this decision was thoughtfully planned to avail the maximum benefits of the synergy. Subsequently, Amazon also took over the Whole Foods in middle of 2017, with the plan to venture into Fresh grocery stores market in the country. The plan was aimed to grant more flexibility to the consumers to choose products from more suitable locations at an opportune time thereby boosting the overall sales of the Company.

Hence in both the above case, Planning has gone a longer way to ensure a robust growth of the Organization in future. The online space has also gathered a considerable amount of momentum in the recent years than before. What is available at the offline medium, could also be possibly made reach to the consumers on the on-line platform and hence, Planning has to incorporate the social and online media to a greater extent these days in order to succeed in the industry.

3. No, the challenges are different though few of them may still coincide with each other. For example, when the online websites such as Amazon displays a whole-range of footwear from athletic shoes to kids footwear, the options available at the disposal of the consumers is so wide that consumers these days resort to the online media for such purchases thereby adversely impacting the sales of the physical stores. Also, there could be certain conditions of dealership acquired by the physical stores such as those stores cannot sell the leading competitor of one brand whose dealership those particular stores are acquiring when it comes to sales. Therefore these physical stores miss the bus of the second most successful competitive brand in the industry. For example, NIKE may promise to give its dealership provided I do not stock or market ADIDAS products. Hence with these types of competitions on mind, it becomes relatively challenging for a full-service family shoe store in places such as a local mall to sell the various types of footwear.