Introduction
Environmental pressures have caused green supply chain management to emerge as an important corporate environmental strategy for organisations’ processes. Our discussion will describe, illustrate and critically evaluate the purchasing process of Woolworths. It will further identify the steps of the purchasing process, the effect of green purchasing and sustainable purchasing. Moreover, the essay will go on to look at the effort that Woolworths has made through their programmes and initiatives of green purchasing.
Background
Woolworths is a large retail business selling a wide range of products including clothing, food, and general merchandise in South Africa and Country Road in Australia. The company was founded in 1931 by Max Sonnenberg assisted by his sons Richard and Fred Kossuth. The purchasing structure is centralized having two main distribution centres, one located in Cape Town (Montague Gardens) and the other in the Midrand between Johannesburg and Pretoria. All Woolworths’ purchases go through these two main distribution centres. The company takes responsibility for the entire lifecycle of their products including the reduction of direct environmental impacts which requires it to take custodianship of the supply chain and at the same time to convince customers and suppliers in the network to reduce their environmental impact (Annual Report, 2010).
Purchasing Process
Purchasing process is the process of buying the right material, at the right quantity, at the right moment, at the right price and from the right supplier ( Heinritz et al, 1986). It can also be defined as the way an organisation behaves towards it suppliers, as suppliers are the pillar of strength for all organisations at large. According to We...
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Coles is a large Australian supermarket with many extents of the company. Due to it being such a sizable corporation, the environmental and sustainability problems that come with it can be difficult to manage efficiently. The information that Coles has released demonstrates that they are putting in substantial efforts to try to manage their sustainability and environmental state, but is it as much as they can do? Following is an analysing of Coles’ environmental and sustainability information, which will look into energy, water, waste, products, pollution, transport, education and training, and packaging.
Supplying eco-friendly products has been on the Walmart agenda since the early 1990s. After a failed first attempt and much criticism, the company decided to try again. In a speech made in October of 2005, CEO of Walmart, H. Lee Scott Jr., declared Walmart would devise a “business sustainable strategy” to reduce the environmental impact the company had. Walmart could not pull this off alone. If they only focused on the confines of themselves, rather than all that they were involved with, it was estimated that they’d only reduce their impact by about 10%. To reach that goal of 100%, Walmart had to involve stakeholders to make networks which achieve sustainability. These networks proved to be vital in not only Walmart’s goal in minimizing its environmental impact, but recovering their reputation, avoiding criticism, saving money, raising awareness, improving customer satisfaction, and creating incentive for other businesses to work towards sustainability.
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Woolworths is one of the biggest retail group in Australia. Its motto is to provide fresh food to customer with in an affordable price. The company procures goods from the manufactures and also produces few products from their manufacturing plant. With its corporate office in Sydney it operates all the distribution channels, petrol sites and support centres. It has a trusted food, liquor and general merchandise brands.
At present Woolworths is Australia’s one of the largest supermarket chain which operates around 872 stores across Australia and employs around 111,000 staffs in its various stores, distribution centers and support offices to provide its customers with a qualitative service, superior range, value along with ease and convenience in shopping.
Supply chain management has been defined as that process that involves the management of information, materials, and all the finances that are handled within and across the entire supply chain process (Christopher, 2016). The management is usually done through out the entire supply chain management from that moment when the suppliers are involved through all the manufacturing activities, different distribution activities, and the way that the products are served to the final product consumer (Turban, et al., 2002). The process also includes all the activities that different organizations offers to their customers as after sale services for purposes perfecting their services and products towards their highly valued customers (Christopher,
Sustainability of the supply chain has increasingly become a crucial aspect of corporate responsibility. Apart from being good for business, management of social, economic, and environmental effects of supply chain remains the right thing to do. Constantly changing markets have created complex landscapes that businesses must navigate to build sustainable supply chains. Sustainable supply chains aim at creating social, economic, and environmental value for all stakeholders throughout the supply chain. Building sustainable supply chains not only benefits the stakeholders but also aims at safeguarding business interests. Businesses can easily become sustainable by understanding who they are and working closely with people. Nestle is company that has been at the forefront in advocating for sustainable supply through the ‘creating shared value’ platform. The report makes recommendation on the role of supply chain management in attaining sustainability.
While a number of organizations have not adopted a sustainable operations management strategy, large retail firms like Morrison, Wal-Mart, Marks and Spencer, and Sainsbury’s have adopted this concept into their management strategies in order to reflect customer concerns and thus sustain the competitive advantage. Many larger firms are willing to promote sustainable operations in their markets because this strategy arguably attracts and retains customers.
The Green supply chain management concept is basically the integration of traditional supply chain management concept and the Environmental factor. Lamming and Hampson integrated these two concepts to come out with the Green supply chain management concept. According to Green et al. The green supply chain is “The way in which innovation in supply chain management and purchasing may be considered in the context of environment”.
Step 1, need recognition: the organizational buying process is a form of problem solving resulting from a buying situation that is created when someone (the purchasing manager, the consulting manager or as regulatory requirement) in the organization recognizes a problem that can be solved through some buying action so that the discrepancy between a desired outcome and the prevailing situation can be resolved.
(2014) deduced that procurement performance can be assessed by focusing ondelivery,flexibility, quality, cost and technology. Optimal performance attainment is dependent onhow current suppliers`relationships aremanaged so asto ensure constant availability of needed quality supplies at the organization. This will ensure that sourced materials are indeed procured at the right costand atthe right time. Procurement performancestrives toenable improvements in the procurement process at the organizationso as to improve on qualitydelivery of firm products and servicesatleast possible time and
...h worldwide media coverage, it is more important than ever for a company to recognize the impact it is having on the environment. The purchasing department must be the frontrunner in this area. Through the purchasing function, new potential suppliers are found, assessed and brought on as partners in the business. And, “We didn’t know” is not accepted as an excuse when an environmental impact is discovered and brought to the attention of the world.
Walker, H., Klassen, R., Sarkis, J., Seuring, S. (2014). Sustainable operations management: recent trends and future directions, International Journal of Operations & Production Management, 34(5), 1-11.