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Question: what would be the good method of managing a supermarket?
Dear Ricleen
The following is my attempt to answer your question. Hope it provides info that you are seeking. This is a general view as I have no idea of this supermarket as to what is the magnitude, geographical coverage and operating environment. You may find this rather longish but may still be inadequate for want of time and space.
Let us start with the definition of Supermarket;
A supermarket, a large form of the traditional grocery store, is a self-service shop offering a wide variety of food and household products, organized into aisles. It is larger in size and has a wider selection than a traditional grocery store, but is smaller and more limited in the range of merchandise than a hypermarket
First of all, learn about the customers that you want to provide foods to. Are they looking for low prices or are they looking for a certain type of food - i.e. organic or local produce and non food products etc? Determining the kinds of customers you will cater to can help to limit the capital that you have to spend up front as well as the costs for buying products that you might not need. If you already have a location or area in mind, you might want to send out simple surveys to see what people are looking for and where they might like to see it. Include a discount coupon or some other freebie in order to get surveys returned to you - people like to be compensated for their time and their opinion.
It is essential to research and observe successful supermarkets in your area to see how they are creating profits for themselves. Look to see what kind of variety they offer, if they rotate their products or maintain the same items throughout the year. You may want to do everything completely differently as well, but it never hurts to see what's working for someone else. You could also talk to other customers to see what else they'd like to see at popular stores in order to bring in their business to your own establishment. Supermarket sizes range from mega-stores and chain grocery stores to small business community grocers operating individual stores. To properly run a supermarket, the manager or owner-operator must understand, monitor, and manage all core supermarket business operations. This includes such core functions as department operations, human resources, business accounting, shipping and receiving, parking and security.
Identify departments.
Supermarket departments include meats and seafood, fruits and vegetables, frozen foods and cheeses, breads, spices and baking goods, and an assortment of canned, boxed, jarred foods. There should be an employee who oversees the proper functioning of each of these departments. Other supermarket services provided for customer convenience are bakery, florist, check cashing, money orders, money transfer and state lottery purchases.
Manage employees.
Supermarket staff should be reliable with a high level of accountability. This includes being honest, performing duties with little monitoring, providing quality customer service and observing employee work schedules as agreed.
Master supermarket accounting operations.
This includes implementing cash management procedures for counting and recording cash register sales and performing banking functions. It also includes accounting for operational expenses and supermarket procurement needs, as well as managing employee payroll.
Monitor shipping and receiving.
Accurate procurement assessments are based on monitoring inventory needs and patterns to avoid overstocking and under-stocking products. The issue of overstocking is especially important for items that have short expiration dates. Additionally, store management must know dates and times for all expected delivery to insure that proper staffing is available for its receipt.
Offer select delivery services.
Many supermarkets offer delivery services either to select customers such as to the elderly and people with disabilities within a designated distance from the shop. Other grocers are offer online order for select items at reduced prices. This includes bundled products to encourage bulk deliveries of dried and canned goods.
Manage parking grounds.
This includes ensuring that safe and convenient parking is available to customers.
Stay in contact with security.
Security may be the local police that needs to be called in case of an emergency at the supermarket. It may also be a staff security employee or a contract security patrol agency. In either instance, plan scheduled meetings to address concerns communicated to you by employees and customers. Also, secure available police and security reports on identified security problems within the community where the supermarket is.
Also consider the following factors that have a bearing on the success or failure of a supermarket
Brand Image & Reputation
Creating and nurturing a Brand image is essential. With a carefully thought out brand strategy, one should be able to transform generic products sold into, branded packaged products. To be a successful supermarket, it is important that a strong brand image, that is associated with good quality,trustworthy goods that represent excellent value, need to be attained.The product and service development processes of a supermarket company have to be engineered, to facilitate better management of product lifecycles and more efficient delivery of wide ranges of products to customers.
Creating an online supermarket activity and infrastructure
It is a fact that nowadays majority of peoplehave less time for shopping, This aspect could be utilized to achieve further growth by employing a carefully designed on-line systems to offer people the convenience of doing shopping online.
IT Integration
Today companies act in an increasingly dynamic and complex environment, giving more difficulties making forecasts and adapting themselves to the continuous changes. In order to be able to compete in this kind of world, it is necessary to innovate at an extraordinary speed, continuously improving the products, services and processes.
Systems that control stock, keepall the stock and deliveries records and analyse businesstransactions are the lifelines of the company. It can also be said that IT has risen beyond its traditional support role and taken up a central role in business strategy formulation.
Supplier Management
In recent years the supermarket companies have realised the need to look abroad for products to be cost effective and to provide a variety of products to the customer. To be able to be a major retailer selling diverse product range, you have to work with many different suppliers around the world, with employees from many different cultures and ethnic groups. Therefore, it is essential that the company policy and company's main approach to have unique relationships with suppliers. Applying advanced technology in its communications and cooperation with the suppliers is essential to be able to control the work of its suppliers and to heavily rely on their efficiency. The direct suppliers use a number of sub-contracted suppliers, selected to be best in class in their country. It is most crucial to establish close relationships with the contractors to attain regular and long term orders and to promote the investment necessary to improve conditions in the supply chain. In today’s “show me the proof” kind of competitive business environment it is imperative that various supplier management programmes be conceived, adapted and implemented to survey key suppliers and franchisee satisfaction. Ethnical Trading has become a critical requirement for the brand image maintenance and enhancement towards sustainable growth.
The primary target for any supermarket company is to recognize that competition between businesses is as much a race for competence as it is for market position and market power.
To obtain a sustainable competitive advantage a supermarket aspiring to be successful shouldfollow the following generic strategies;
· Strategy of cost leadership
· Strategy of differentiation
· Strategy of focus or niche
· Strategy of continuous learning and improvement
The most important thing is to hire smart staff! There is no advice better than this one because smart staff will come along with smart ideas and smart advices from them ;)
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I totally agree with Mr.Farrukh Salim Khan. I believe there is nothing more to add to the answer given.
Thank You.
