ASDA (B) – Working to Improve

Archie Norman faced several issues when he arrived at ASDA. The firm was in high debt, was not making profit, and also was facing difficulty in motivating the employees. Despite the difficult times, the management and the entire corporate structure were in chaos. Information flow between the top and low employees were not efficient, and many did not even know that ASDA was in such a harsh status. Along with the financial crisis and the inefficient corporate structure, the firm lost its true identity of being a “low-priced” retail bringing the traditional consumers to leave. Its plan for acquiring new high-segment consumers also came to a failure, unable to appeal to the new targets due to the strong …ver más…

Because of these reasons, ASDA had to make new decisions carefully and quickly due to the time restraint. In addition, Norman had to deal with the previous advisors from the “old” ASDA to implement his new strategies.
Transforming the Corporate Structure and Culture
Along with the financial problems of ASDA, Norman considered changes for both structure and culture of the overall corporation. Since the structure and culture of a firm is highly correlated, the strategies of the two aspects are backed up and aligned with one another. Indeed, Norman’s changes of the structure and culture were highly correlated, and they also had specific objectives for transformation. Archie Norman implemented several changes to the organization in order to make it more efficient, direct and action oriented. Given the current situation of the company, these changes should have been done rapidly, but at the same time considered carefully for accurate and effective implementation.
Fixing the Management and the organizational system
Norman’s strategies streamlined the company in several ways. First, a layer of the management was removed, making the decisions faster and more direct. Second, the company took care of the overlapping of tasks and inefficiencies, laying off part of its personnel. Finally, the rotation and new positions were task oriented, rather than the current role-oriented model.
The previous changes described,