Business Processes. Developing Competitive Advantage through Customer Service: A Morrisons Case Study

Name
Institutional Affiliation
Course Title
Instructor
Date
Developing Competitive Advantage through Customer Service: A Morrisons Case Study
Morrisons was established 100 years ago. By the time of its inception, it was only a Bradford stall and a family business. Under the 55-year leadership of Sir Ken Morrison who later on retired in 2008, the company witnessed a steady growth. The company boasts of 450 stores, making it the fourth largest food retailer in the UK (businesscasestudies.co.uk). This paper seeks to explain its growth because of enhancing the processes it initially had into contemporary approaches to operations and excellence in customer service.
One of the virtues at Morrison is business differentiation by the promotion of its “fresh approach” together with its commitment to sustainability. The starting point of the company was to put in place the necessary processes that would, later on, see it at the helm of market leadership in the UK. They did this to enable them to utilize their resources profitably to avoid processes that could reduce their profitability (Anderson, Anderson and Parker 7). This has enabled customer over time to be environmentally conscious and knows the relevance of consuming fresh supplies. This has been made possible because of its superior supply chain commonly referred to as “field to fork” approach. By so doing, the company has been in a position to manage its production quality successfully (businesscasestudies.co.uk).
To make the company competitive in the UK market, it acquired its fresh produce from local suppliers, and at the same time, transporting them to its firm for manufacturing. It was also equipped with storage and refrigeration facilities for the fresh produce both in the UK and abroad. Morrisons can satisfy the local farmers and producers because of its vertical integration whereby it could transport the produce to its stores across the UK (businesscasestudies.co.uk). This effort was aimed at increasing the flow of both information and their goods (Anderson, Anderson and Parker 20).
Furthermore, Morrisons has prioritized the recruitment of specialized fishmongers, bakers, and butchers as an input in its resources to be in a position to comfortably serve its clientele better than any other supermarket in the UK. To avoid unnecessary delays, Morrisons took note of three essential inventories: raw material inventory (RMI); Work in Progress (WIP) and Finished Goods Inventory (FGI) (Anderson, Anderson and Parker 21). In total, Morrisons has a total of 131,000 employees with the ability to serve over 11 million customers on a weekly basis (businesscasestudies.co.uk). The reason behind Morrisons’ move was aimed at avoiding time wasting, idle time and getting rid of ...