CAREER RESEARCH REPORT Career Research Report Junjian Yang LLD-100WB 7/11/2020 Dr. Modirzadeh CAREER RESEARCH REPORT 2 Table of Contents 1.0 Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 4 2.0 Wegmans Food Markets, Inc. ................................................................................................... 4 2.1 Background ............................................................................................................................... 4 2.2 SWOT Analysis ........................................................................................................................ 5 2.2.1 Strengths ................................................................................................................................ 5 2.2.2 Weaknesses ............................................................................................................................ 6 2.2.3 Opportunities.......................................................................................................................... 6 2.2.4 Threats.................................................................................................................................... 7 3.0 Workday, Inc............................................................................................................................. 7 3.1Background ................................................................................................................................ 7 3.2 SWOT Analysis ........................................................................................................................ 8 3.2.1 Strengths ................................................................................................................................ 8 3.2.2 Weaknesses ............................................................................................................................ 9 3.2.3 Opportunities.......................................................................................................................... 9 3.2.4 Threats.................................................................................................................................. 10 4.0 Conclusion .............................................................................................................................. 10 4.1 Wegmans Food Markets, Inc. ................................................................................................. 10 4.2 Workday, Inc........................................................................................................................... 11 CAREER RESEARCH REPORT 3 5.0 Next Steps ............................................................................................................................... 12 6.0 References ............................................................................................................................... 13 CAREER RESEARCH REPORT 4 1.0 Introduction Wegmans Food Markets, Inc. and Workday, Inc. are two private companies that I desire to work for after acquiring my business administration degree. I understand that Wegmans operates within the global grocery market, while Workday operates within the global technology market. Notably, the two companies operate in different industries. I have done a SWOT analysis of both companies that will enhance my understanding of their strengths, opportunities, weaknesses, and threats. The SWOT analysis will enable me to understand the employees’ experience in their workplace with regard to safety and welfare. The analysis will enable me to confirm whether their workplaces matches my workplace practice dreams. 2.0 Wegmans Food Markets, Inc. 2.1 Background Walter and John Wegman established Wegmans Food Markets, Inc. in 1916 with the purpose of profiting from the food business. Currently, the Company operates over 90 supermarket stores in the U.S., which are located in North Carolina (1), New Jersey (9), Massachusetts (6), New York (47), Maryland (8), Virginia (12), and Pennsylvania (18). Based in Rochester, New York, Wegmans Food Markets, Inc. employs approximately 51,069 and makes sales revenue of $8.3 billion annually(Wegmans, 2020). The Company provides a variety of products, including wines, baked food products, deli, seafood, meat, pharmacy products, herbal remedies, and health supplements. Furthermore, the Company has gained its reputation from its ability to satisfy its employees and customers simultaneously. CAREER RESEARCH REPORT 5 2.2 SWOT Analysis 2.2.1 Strengths The long brand history exists as a strength for the Wegmans Food Markets, Inc. The Company’s brand was ranked second out of 100 best brands in a Reputation Quotient Ranking conducted by Harris Poll in 2018. Wegmans’ brand derives its strength from high-quality standards and consumer safety. The food varieties available for customers in the stores include classic American, Italian, Mexican, and sushi. Wegmans has also launched an organic product line named “six dollar meals”, healthy food product line named “Food You Feel Good About”, and canned food products. The Company offers its customers healthy and organic products to maximize their satisfaction level. The Company also derives its strength from its customer service strategy (Ezzedeen, Hyde, &Laurin, 2006). Wegmans, for example, uses the display strategy like fish and meat counters to engage its customers in the selection process. Notably, prepared food take a central position in the consumer’s experience, whereby they are allowed to select their meals from a variety of choices. Furthermore, Wegmans has joined other grocers offering home delivery and online shopping services for convenience purposes. The unique customer service strategy, in this case, is crafted to facilitate customer attraction and retention as a strategy of broadening the loyal customer base (Danzige, 2018). Finally, a customer-focus strategy occurs as a strength for Wegmans Food Markets, Inc. The Company supports its employees through a professional development program. The Company, for example, spends $5 million on employees’ scholarships as a part of the professional development program (Fortune, 2020). The professional development process is designed to maximize employee motivation, satisfaction, and welfare. CAREER RESEARCH REPORT 6 2.2.2 Weaknesses Although Wegmans Food Markets, Inc. enjoys numerous strengths in its operation in the grocery industry, it has weaknesses like a limited product range, high prices, family ownership, and low brand awareness. First, the limited product range evidence Wegmans’ inability to integrate a product diversification strategy. Notably, the Company has a narrower product range compared to its competitors. The narrow product range reduces the alternatives available to the customers hence forcing them to purchase from competitors. Wegmans also risks losing its loyal customers by maintaining a narrow product range. Offering products at high prices to customers is also another weakness for the Company (Marketline, 2018). In most cases, basic products offered in the grocery industry have low prices. Wegmans’ fails to offer cheap food products due to the high operating costs associated with food production. The high-cost products also expose the Company to a risk of losing loyal customers to its competitors. Moreover, the high prices for the products also inhibit the Company’s capacity to attract new customers, which limits its competitiveness and profitability. The ownership of the Company by a single-family limited its expansion and globalization of operations. The expansion challenges are depicted by low market share and brand awareness. 2.2.3 Opportunities Wegmans Food Markets, Inc. still has opportunities to exploit in increasing its competitiveness and profitability. First, the preference for ready and frozen food products has increased tremendously among young people. Today, young people prefer ready food products because of busy work schedules or jobs that limit their access to kitchens (Marketline, 2018). The increase in this group of individuals has increased loyal customer-base for Wegmans. Second, the increased demand for organic food products in the 21st Century offers Wegmans an CAREER RESEARCH REPORT 7 opportunity for maximizing its revenues and profit margin. The preference for organic food products has resulted from the increasing public concern about disorders like obesity and diabetes (Fortune, 2020). Third, globalization trend can support Wegmans in expanding to other nations around the globe. Globalization of operations can increase profitability for the Company. 2.2.4 Threats Wegmans Food Markets, Inc. faces threats in the grocery industry like intense competitive pressure, economic recessions, and increasing production costs. The Company has to deal with the intensely competitive and complex grocery industry. The U.S. grocery industry, for instance, military commissaries, specialty supermarkets, comprises warehouse grocery stores, supercenters, natural food stores, home delivery, farmers’ markets, online retailers, and restaurants. Wegmans experiences competitive pressure from established companies like Safeway, Brookshire Grocery Company, Whole Foods Market, Publix Super Markets, and Giant Eagle. Economic recessions in the 21st Century has also reduced purchasing power among Wegmans’ customers hence reducing its profit margins and revenues. The profit margins for the Company are further reduced by the rising cost of producing or processing food products. 3.0 Workday, Inc. 3.1Background AneelBhusri and David Duffield established Workday, Inc. in 2005 with the objective of generating profits from the cloud computing business. Today, the Company offers cloud computing platforms for procurement, time tracking, grants management, financial management, employee expense management, and human resource management (Steve, 2010). Currently based in Pleasanton, California, the Company offers its clients highly reliable, accessible, and CAREER RESEARCH REPORT 8 flexible applications for business management purposes. The applications support the optimization of human and financial resources in the company hence increasing their competitiveness and profit margins (Harvard Business Review). Additionally, Workday designs applications that support globalized organizations in managing dynamic and complex business environments. The Company serves non-profit organizations, government agencies, education institutions, hospitality industry, retail industry, healthcare institutions, financial institutions, and manufacturing companies. 3.2 SWOT Analysis 3.2.1 Strengths Workday’s ability to create high quality applications for its clients occurs as one of its strengths. Generation of high quality products maximizes the Company’s brand loyalty and increases its competitiveness in the global technology market. The brand loyalty is supported further by the social media advertisement strategy and proper relationship with its clients. The wide product range also occurs as the Company’s strength since it offsets losses and increase the loyal customer base (Steve, 2010). The committed and competent human capital is the third source of strength for Workday’s Company. The company invests on skilled, experienced and educated workforce to increase the level of innovation and productivity. Notably, the company integrate the element of diversity with its workplace to motivate its clients. Furthermore, employees gain motivation from the human resource development program, which targets to increase the level of their workplace skills. The Company uses the workplace diversity strategy in supporting its operation within the international technology market. Finally, Workday’s has growth tremendously since its inception because of its strong financial position. The Company, for example, uses machine learning algorithms in making predictions regarding financial market CAREER RESEARCH REPORT 9 conditions (Chakraborty, 2019). The algorithms enables the Company to make accurate financial market predictions hence reducing investment risks. 3.2.2 Weaknesses Workday, Inc. has some weaknesses including a weak customer-focus strategy, management problems, and weak employee motivation programs. First, the Company’s weakness in its customer-focus is associated with its inability to invest sufficient money and time in market research programs. The inability to understand customer expectations and needs leads to the ineffectiveness of decision-making processes. Furthermore, the Company is unable to improve its customer service strategies. The weakness means that the Company is unable to maximize satisfaction and welfare of its clients. Second, the Company still experiences management challenges hence weakening its problem solving and decision making strategies. The management problems has also inhibited the Company’s capacity for globalization, which limits its competitiveness and profitability. Finally, the company experiences challenges in motivating and satisfying its employees because of the weaknesses in its human resource management processes (Marketline, 2019). The Company experiences challenges in maintaining a proper work-life balance for its employees. Workday’s employees, for example, have reported low motivation and high job stress hence reducing their productivity. 3.2.3 Opportunities The rapid growth of technology in the 21st Century offers Workday an opportunity for more loyal customers and high profit margins in the future. The Company, therefore, should exploit new technologies to lower operation costs, boost efficiency, and enhance product quality. The emergence of social media marketing and e-commerce, for example, is an excellent opportunity for increasing the Company’s online presence (Marketline, 2019). The company CAREER RESEARCH REPORT 10 should also use the innovative technologies to deal will the changes in consumer tastes, preferences, and needs in the modern market. Furthermore, the globalization trend also offers the Company an opportunity for expanding its customer-base and profit margins. 3.2.4 Threats Workday experiences threats in its operation within the globalized business environment like huge competitive pressure, environmental sustainability issues, and deterioration in market conditions. First, the Company experiences intense competitive pressure from other Companies in the cloud computing business including Paycom, Paycor, SAP SuccessFactors, Paylocity, Ultimate Software, and Cornerstone Demand. The competitive pressure affect’s the Company’s agenda of increasing customer-base and profitability (Marketline, 2019). Second, the Company is affected by environment sustainability of the modern society. Failure to integrate environmental sustainability strategies with its operations could ruin its brand image in the future. The deterioration in market conditions in the world today has reduced the customer’s purchasing power and spending patterns. Furthermore, deterioration in market conditions has increase inflation rates hence increasing production cost for the Company. Increased production costs implies lower profit margins for the Company. 4.0 Conclusion 4.1 Wegmans Food Markets, Inc. The corporate social responsibility (CSR) for Wegmans Food Markets, Inc. revolves around caring for its employees and the general community. The Company, for example, creates conducive working environment for its employees by embracing diversity. The management of Wegmans consider that a diverse workforce enable a company to serve a diverse customer-base. CAREER RESEARCH REPORT 11 The management also believes that establishing a diverse workforce creates different perspectives in problem solving and decision making processes. Additionally, embracing diversity also supports innovation and new thinking perspectives. The Company, therefore, discourages discrimination of employees based on gender, religion, age, nationality, ethnic, race, and sexual orientation. Specifically, Wegmans focuses on hiring employees with diversity competence and further trains them to optimize the effectiveness in their assigned duties. The Company also engages employees in its CSR program that offers philanthropic services to communities. The Company, for example, donated $7.4 million to charity in 2016 through its community outreach program. I believe that innovation and diversity make Wegmans Food Markets a good employer considering that it creates a safe and satisfactory experience for its employees. 4.2 Workday, Inc. Workday, Inc. supports its international operation using the workplace diversity strategy. The company focuses on establishing a diverse workplace to meet the globalized workplace standard. Working for Workday, therefore, implies that an individual gains protection from discrimination on the basis of age, gender, sex, ethnicity, religion, and sexual orientation. The Company’s human resource management (HRM) team operates a talent management program for professional development process. The HRM team views employee training process as an effective strategy for talent attraction and retention process. The management of the Company views the talent attraction and retention as an effective strategy of increasing competitiveness in the international business market. I believe that a diverse workplace and employee development opportunity makes Workdays an excellent employers. Working for the Company, for example, CAREER RESEARCH REPORT 12 will enable me to gain globalized workplace skills including flexibility, innovativeness, interpersonal skills, effective communication, and diversity competence. 5.0 Next Steps The analysis indicates that Wegmans and Workday have established proper workplace environments for their employees based on their embrace for diversity. Working for both companies would offer me an opportunity for acquiring diversity and innovative skills. However, I feel that Wegmans has a more advanced employee-focus strategy than Workday. I am specifically interested in working for Wegmans as a business administrator after my graduation. Wegmans training program will offer me an opportunity for boosting my workplace skills including diversity competence, collaboration, innovation, and flexibility. I also feel that Wegmans’ diverse workplace will protect me from any form of discrimination hence increasing my welfare and satisfaction. CAREER RESEARCH REPORT 13 6.0 References Chakraborty, S. (2019). Machine Learning Across Workday Products: Delivering Business Value to Customers. Retrieved from https://blog.workday.com/en-us/2019/machinelearning-across-workday-products-delivering-business-value-to-customers.html Danzige, P.N. (2018). Why Wegmans Food Markets Gets The Love Of Customers. Retrieved fromhttps://www.forbes.com/sites/pamdanziger/2018/03/03/why-wegmans-foodmarkets-gets-the-love-of-customers/#490f910b4ce5 Ezzedeen, S. R., Hyde, C. M., and Laurin, K. R. (2006). Is Strategic Human Resource Management Socially Responsible? The Case of Wegmans Food Markets, Inc. Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal 18(4):295-307 • DOI: 10.1007/s10672006-9026-7 Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/226296030_Is_Strategic_Human_Resource_Ma nagement_Socially_Responsible_The_Case_of_Wegmans_Food_Markets_Inc Fortune (2020). 100 Best Companies to Work For Wegmans Food Markets, Retrieved from https://fortune.com/best-companies/2020/wegmans-food-markets/ Fortune (2020). 100 Best Companies to Work ForWorkday, Retrieved from https://fortune.com/best-companies/2020/workday/ Harvard Business Review (n.d).Providing IT and HR Solutions to Drive Your Business Forward, CAREER RESEARCH REPORT 14 Brought to you by Workday. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/web/comm/workday/sponsored-archive/workday Marketline (2018). Wegmans Food Markets, Inc. – Strategy, SWOT, and Corporate Finance Report. Retrieved from https://store.marketline.com/report/ml2731031sa--wegmansfood-markets-inc-strategy-swot-and-corporate-finance-report Marketline (2019). Workday Inc – Strategy, SWOT, and Corporate Finance Report. Retrieved fromhttps://store.marketline.com/report/ml1420986sa--workday-inc-strategy-swot-andcorporate-finance-report-2/ Steve (2010). Workday 12 - Working for you. Retrieved from http://steveboese.squarespace.com/journal/2010/11/22/workday-12-working-for-you.html Wegmans (2020) About Us, Retrieved from https://www.wegmans.com/about-us/
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