CASE STUDY

Internal Marketing the Asda Way

Lee Pei Ru (810844)
Teh Thean Lim (810846)
Chin Mei Jiun (810843)
19 October 2013

Question 1
Outline the mechanisms by which ASDA seeks to influence the behaviour of its
employees.
The present of share value of culture in Asda has influences the behaviour of employee.
Organizational share value and culture is a system of shared values, assumptions and belief
that lead employees to achieve companys ultimate mission and vision. Asda has a very
strong organization share value and culture which focus on commitment to provide a level of
service which exceeding customers expectations. The organization culture affects the way of
managerial functions of planning, organizing, staff, leading and controlling is carried out.
Asda has a strong corporate culture which enables employees understand the goals of the
organization in order to work towards organizational goals and increase their level of
commitment. Organizations culture in Asda provides guidance and influence all employee
behaviour, thinking and behaviour pattern in the working environment. All employees in
Asda are compromising with three basic beliefs which involved respect for the individual,
service to the customer and strive for excellent. Besides that, employees are always being
motivated with positive share value and culture. Each employee at different level has the
correct channel to communicate and feedback their own opinions. Asda employees are happy
and satisfied with the working environment. Hence, the turnover staff rate in Asda is very
low.
In additions, Asda empowered their employees by creating nurturing environment
where they can learn, develop, improve and perform efficiently. Empowerment employee is a
process of encouraging and motivating an employee to have positive thinking, positive
behavior and effective decision making process in autonomous ways. Asda has established a
positive environment in order to encourage and inspire all employees a sense of trust, build
up positive attitude and increase working capability. Asda believes that employee
empowerment is the key to staff satisfaction. Top management is entitled to help and
stimulate employees capabilities where they are encouraging 2 way communications with
employees, respect and recognized employees contributions. Apart from this, Asda employee
likely feels to be empowered when they believe that their performance review fairly evaluates
of their entire working efforts and contributions. Asda believes that empowerment employee
is important due to employees are the main assets to drive company businesses further.
Employees are unable to perform well if they are not satisfied of the working environments.

Apart from that, Asda believes that developing employee with quality skills creates win-win
situation where the company benefits from having skilful, well performed and productivity
employees whereas employees gain addition skills or qualifications which will increase their
career satisfactions, motivation and creativity. All Asda employees are train to work smarter
with minimum waste and maximize customer value. They are cultivated with Asda
philosophy and personal responsibility for the success of the corporations. Developing
employees by establishing quality trainings is essential to motivate employees to increases
employee confidence and increase overall working performance in a positive environment.
Question 2
Where does ASDAs approach to internal marketing (IM) lie on the continuum between
transaction-based IM and IRM ?
In ASDA, the transactional-base approaches for internal marketing include the use of staff
manual for training and information, and two-day induction program to educate new staffs
about the philosophy and mission statement of ASDA. The procedures in the staff manuals
showed ways to minimize waste and maximize customer value. In addition to this, there are
three approaches serve as the continuum to internal RM in ASDA.
Firstly, there is some form of daily routines, weekly huddle, and monthly meetings
to facilitate the communication between employees. These meetings allow employees to get
together and discuss about operation issues, as well as exchange ideas about the work. For
example, the colleague circles, monthly store meetings, and the listening groups.
Nevertheless, there is lack of evidence that a routine meeting is held between the
management and employees on operational issues or improvement on work related matters.
Secondly, the employees are encouraged to communicate new business ideas directly
to the chief executive through Tell Archies Form. This approach is to improve the
weaknesses in colleague circles discussion and small group meetings. The feedback from the
management, however, is not clear if the new ideas are being considered or rejected. This
approach is therefore considered as a continuum between transaction-based and relationshipbased internal marketing.

Thirdly, ASDA adopted mystery shopper to evaluate the quality of service,

cleanliness, product availability, and other aspects of store provision of the outlets in order to
gauge the performance of each outlet and store manager. Then the management will reward
base on the point attained from the evaluation. There is no interaction between employees and
management on ways to improve service quality, cleanliness, product availability and others
in the store. Also, the results of checking by mystery shopper were not shared by top
management with employees and store managers for further improvement.
Question 2
To what extent do you think that the mechanisms outlined in the case supports the
development of long-term based relationships with customers?
Shared value means explicit or implicit fundamental beliefs, concepts, goals or principles that
motivate the culture of a company and which will give a guide or correct path for all the
employees, management and member when they make decision or behave some action. For a
company to success, it should presence a set of shared value which is pervading in all levels
of the company. The shared value of ones company must include a commitment to quality
and customer service. ASDAs mission statement is to be Britains best value retailer
exceeding local customer needs Always and the purpose are to make goods and service
more affordable for everyone. By using this strong commitment style mission statement,
ASDA management try to affect and align staff to embrace the companys shared value.
When the employees have this clear mission, they will perform correctly and motivated
which will satisfy or delight the customers.
In order for a company to have a well relationship with customer, ones company
must consist of skills staff with capabilities or distinctive competencies. Hence, ASDAs
store will be visited regularly by a team or mystery customers to evaluate the quality of
service, cleanliness, product availability and others. This will alert and remind the employees
always stand by to satisfy the customers requirement. From this the product value will
always delivered in good and satisfied condition.
For the ASDA Values, they respect their employees by listening and respecting their
ideas. Employee satisfaction can be arise when they feel that company is respecting them and
appreciate the ideas they give. These called job satisfactions which can drive ones employees

continue to serve for the company. Empowerment activities such as weekly huddle time to
discuss the operational issues among the department and exchange ideas will minimize the
staff turnover rate for all levels. Apart from that, ASDA also request their employees to have
passion for product knowledge with up to date information and always react quickly to
customers requirement which these all will facilitate the employees to take ownership of
relationship quality. High motivated and satisfied employees will deliver high product value
which will satisfy customer and strengthen the customers loyalty towards the companys
product. And on top of that will consolidate the long-term relationship with customer.
Question 4
Suggest improvements to ASDAs IM systems.
The internal marketing system of ASDA should consider improvement in the empowerment
of staff in creating and implementing programs that aligned with ASDA mission and values.
The deployment of policy within ASDA was found to be top-down method with the
introduction of staff manual during orientation for new staffs, and the verification of
employee competency by manager through regular appraisals. There is limited information
sharing in the organization which allows the employees to see the big picture of the company
mission and values in addressing waste reduction and maximizing customer value. Therefore
it is recommended to improve the sharing of information such as the customer survey
feedback, daily best-selling items summary, and other relevant information concerning
customer behaviour among the employees during the daily or weekly review meetings. With
appropriate information given to the employees to see the big picture, ASDA management
can empower its staff members to give suggestion during discussion on topics that are related
to policy decisions.

Such move will improve the sharing of corporate vision in the

organization as well as providing a chance for the staffs to share their individual vision with
the management. Information sharing can become one of the key success factors for ASDA to
improve the internal marketing systems.
Further, the structure of routine meeting like daily meetings, weekly huddle, and
monthly store meetings should be modified to allow the involvement of employees to
comment on policy suggestion and raise issues concern. The employees understand the needs
and concern of customers because they spent most of their time interacting with customers at
the store areas. Therefore the involvement of employees in the discussion concerning policy

decisions will allow the management to understand first-hand information about the needs of
consumers. It is important to create a healthy meeting environment where every employee
has a chance to raise his or her concern on issues encountered during the work. The feedback
from the management concerning the suggestion made through Tell Archie Form should
be held in one of the meetings so that there is a two-way communications between the
employees and the management. When the meeting structure allows all sides of the issue to
be heard and taken note, it helps to encourage consensus among the staffs to support for any
policy changes. Even though there may have dissenters who disagree with certain policy, the
chances of disruption or sabotage can be reduced as their concerns and comments were heard
and addressed. This will encourage the implementation of share decision making process
within ASDA that enable the organization to achieve its goal in minimizes waste and
maximizes customer value.
Another suggestion to improve Asdas IM system is establish a reward systems in an
organizations. An effective reward system supports an organization to be more competitive,
enhance employee motivations, retain key employees and reduce staff turnover. It plays an
important role to help an organization boost up employee satisfaction and leading employee
loyal to the organization. As results, an employee potentially performs good services and
increases the level of customer satisfaction. Reward system is a key of recognition which
makes employee feels appreciated and valued. Employees who rewarded with gratitude are
tend to be have higher self-esteem, increase confident level and willing to adopt new
challenges and innovative. Hence, it is important for management to concern about welfare
and well-being of their employee by developing a monetary or non -monetary reward system.
Top management may develop a strategic reward system for employee by providing
promotion, compensation, medical benefits, glamour recognitions and appreciation awards
when employee achieve companies objectives or targets. Based on the Maslows theory,
employees are motivated when their needs are satisfied. There are five levels of needs which
include physiological, safety, love, esteem and self-actualizations. A lower need of the
employee has to satisfy before goes to the next higher needs to motivate employees. It is
highly recommended to establish a reward system by referring Maslows theory in order to
satisfy all employees at different level in an organization.
From the case study, actually we can see that ASDA is lack of the training assessment
for the workers, to identify what skills is needed for each employee. Firstly, ASDA should

categorise the employee according responsibilities individual and what role should be
performed by each categories. Appropriate individual training will motivate and empower
staffs which directly improve the internal relationship and ultimately benefiting the external
customers. The training must be follow a correct path to execute which large scale or
intensive training is cannot afford by many people. However, it has to depend on the
condition of every people. From my point of view, intensive and on job training is very
effective to level up an employees who is capable to learn very fast and can develop own
knowledge thru the try and error practice in on job training.
ASDA need a proper training process which stress on the cycle of reviewing,
planning, implementation and evaluation in the business level activities. Besides that, ASDA
also can coordinate a suggestion system for the employees to propose what training is needed
to improve their working skills or competitiveness. Such type of suggestion is quite
effectiveness because is based on the employees demands to create a customized training.
However, after review and plan for the training, when the training been proceed, ASDA
training team should monitor the whole training process in order to identify the factor to
affect the usefulness of the training. Last but not least, the evaluation of the training is it
assists the employees to improve their skill or not?
An effective training system or program can assist the company to be more
competitive and as a result an outstanding performance can be demonstrated which will
indirectly improve the customers satisfaction.