The Dairy Farm Group

Question: write an essay on The Dairy Farm Group. Answer: A company finds itself shrouded in doubts and dilemmas regarding critical decisions made. The Dairy Farm Group, which is a branded Hong Kong based food retailer. The company undertakes certain activities according to the mission and objectives of the company. The company has suffered from certain shortcomings in the operational activities and framework. It finds itself in a complicated situation regarding business decisions. The report sheds light on the business decisions made by the company and the necessary recommendations, which are required to overcome the loopholes in the decisions. Evaluation of the decisions taken by the company Organizational Strategy The Dairy Farm Group had the mission to become one of the leading food retail companies and in order to achieve that the company adopted the business strategy of meeting customer needs and customer satisfaction. The policy of rationalization and elimination of non-core operations led the company to pursue expansion policy and establish itself as a leading company in the targeted market. The financial statement of the company depicts a rise in the profit margin of the company from 1993 to 1997. The turnover of the company has also increased in the financial years. The strategy of the company allowed the company to overcome the threats and weakness existing in the company. It allowed the company to utilize the resources and expand its resources the balance sheet of the company depicts the sound sate of affair of the business of the company. The organizational strategy allowed the company to increase the customer base and market share with the capitalization strategy. It put the company develop a competitive advantage (Hadar et al. 2016). Stakeholder and stakeholder management Dairy Farm Group did develop projects to suit their business strategy and prospect. The decisions taken during the project suffered from shortcomings in the information system, where there were lacks of information available to personnel. These presented issues presented the company with critical issues, which made the management incapable to take sufficient actions to provide remedial solutions. The stakeholders were unhappy with the management of the company and the inability to provide direction to the company to achieve its mission and objectives. The company faced the threat of decline in sales due to the Asian Crisis. The growing competition faced by the company from rivals threatened the operation and profitability level of the company. Therefore, it could be viewed that the company were facing shortcomings in stakeholders management (Buschle et al. 2016). The management needs to identify the needs and requirements of stakeholders, which it can utilize in planning organizational strategy and organizational communications. It needs to develop the information system and eliminate defects in the information system that can hinder the operational activity of the company. Change management would be useful in this case. The development of better managerial strategies and development of e-commerce and technology would benefit the company (Niu et al. 2014). Organizational structure and design The organization followed a federated style. It led to the independent working of different acquired smaller organizations. It caused lack of management control for the company and there were no direct control. The federated style of organization led to wastage of resources and human resources, especially in the accounting section. It led to duplication of assets and unfair representation of assets. In one of the section, the transportation cost also rose leading to low profitability (Cao et al. 2013). Project Management The company decisions regarding the information system provided hindrance to the company, in terms of management control. The management was lacking information regarding management decisions. The store system was insufficient to capture complete information about knowledge, which handicapped the company in meeting the goals of customer satisfaction. The management information system suffered from major shortcomings, which devoured the company from critical information in management control. This led to a decline of the performance of the project of the company and consequently led to fall in the business processes of the company. It also increased dissatisfaction among stakeholders of the company. Improving the information system and the management information system was the key for improving the management control of the company. Improving the technological state and inducing electronic commerce and business would benefit the company. This could allow the management to have better control and wide array of information for decision making (Mir et al. 2014). Information System The information system was designed specifically to meet the requirement of particular business function. Due to the expansion policy of the company, the increased business operations increased the maintenance expenditure on the information system. According to the store system of Dairy Farm Group, the information system could not capture all the details of the transactions of the customers. This majorly hampered the information system. The information system could not successful provide input on knowledge of the customer, this led to the inability of the company to form complete idea about customer. The information system also turned out to be insufficient from the viewpoint of providing relative and information regarding management decisions. Due to such loopholes management was unable to take critical decisions and the lack of information also provided hindrances in identifying the grounds of deviations like lack of information regarding to sales (Cao et al. 2013). There are certain remedies available for such shortcomings. Development of information system of the management could be possible with correct solutions regarding technology and information system. Development of e-commerce was a vital ground to focus on to develop better information system. Online retailing was critical in developing the information system and communication system could benefit the information system of the company. Electronic store and electronic distribution centre could be beneficial to the company (Sullivan et al. 2014). Correct input and development of technology was vital. There should be evaluation of qualitative and quantitative information available to the management. Opportunities Overcoming the loopholes in the information system and development of web service and web browsers could be beneficial to the company. Enabling better network system and development of e-commerce would make the management more potent in handling management related issues and facilitate in undertaking effective decisions. It would provide better opportunities for data sharing and develop accessible information system and also reduce maintenance overhead (Wang et al. 2013). Conclusion On concluding the report, it can be viewed that the company faces major shortcoming in the information system. The information system seems incompetent to match the growing requirements and business strategies of the company. Lack of key information had deemed the management incapable of taking business decisions and also created dissatisfaction among stakeholders. The absence of major information led to tactical errors leading to high expenditure and drop in profitability. 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