Sainsbury's Essay

Problem Areas

Sainsbury’s quite often faces the problem of lacking in stock which causes discomfort to customers, because the wanted item is missing and therefore they wasted their journey.

This problem reaches its peak in holiday season when the demand is much higher of certain goods. Solution to that would be pre-stocking and preparing for those scenarios through doing risk analysis for the operations.

According to the article of Askew (2013) Sainsbury’s is about to open their first online fulfilment store or a dark store which will create 375 new jobs. Furthermore the article states that Sainsbury’s delivers to over 190,000 customers every week and therefore sales are growing rapidly 15% a year. The purpose of this is, to have additional

Volume: This shows the measure of how many products and services are provided in each operation. In the scenario of Sainsbury’s the volume of stock is high because the supermarkets are bigger, larger buildings and therefore have more space for more shelves, freezers and fridges where the stock is put for sale. Whereas Iceland stays in the middle ranges making them have higher unit costs.

2. Variety: This measures how many different types of products and services are produced. This goes again in favour of Sainsbury’s due to the fact that Iceland primarily sells frozen goods and ready-made food and Sainsbury’s nearly everything including their range of services; therefore Sainsbury’s is rated high and has higher unit costs.

3. Variation in demand: This is the measure which shows the change in demand where the supermarkets adapt to the demand open to changes or stay stable in their routine. Sainsbury will be rated high as they try to follow the demand and have all sorts of different products customer orientated such bio or non-bio, soya milk or normal milk and different types of salts and cocking oil. Iceland generally speaking has what it has it does not change it stays stable therefore it is rated low and has lower unit