MSc Management LEADING THROUGH DIGITAL DISRUPTION Assignment Sample

Introduction

Digital transformation is an important aspect within organisations in expanding their businesses and gaining a high rate of market values in global perspectives. In relation to this, majority of companies face digital disruptions in an effective way for having a lack of technological skills and deficiency in network and budget stability.

For this, concerned study focuses on the digital transformation of Compass Group and discusses the improvements of this company along with its digital presence. Brief overview of chosen organisation, digital business agility, digital ready culture, steer collaboration and leadership developments are majorly discussed in this context for improving digital environment and business growth of Compass group.

Task 1: The Case for Change

Compass Group is a British contract food company which has its multinational presence. This company was founded in 1941 by Jack Bateman (COMPASS GROUP, 2022).http://MSc Management LEADING THROUGH DIGITAL DISRUPTION Assignment Sample This company has its business around 44 countries which has helped this organisation in achieving £17.908 billion revenue growth in 2021.

This company delivers meals in factories, offices, universities, schools, cultural venues, hospitals, sports places, offshore oil platforms and mining camps (COMPASS GROUP, 2022). http://MSc Management LEADING THROUGH DIGITAL DISRUPTION Assignment SampleTherefore, this company has benefited by developing digital transformation by connecting strongly with foreign as well as local customers, international suppliers and ensuring smooth product exporting and importing.

This company has achieved 37.9% increments and gained a high rate of business expansion within global perspectives (Buzalk, 2022). http://MSc Management LEADING THROUGH DIGITAL DISRUPTION Assignment SampleThis company has transformed its business within digital platform for emergence of e-commerce and for expanding their business in foreign countries. In compliance with this, this company has included a high rate of advanced technologies and skilled employees for gaining a high rate of stability in digital transformation and gaining a major financial profitability.

Objectives of Compass Group by expanding business digitally

• To gain a wide range of customer base and have a huge profitability
• To survive its business in new competitive environment of e-commerce rise
• To have competitive advantages in developing healthy relationship with foreign customers and suppliers
• To achieve desired sales and revenue growth in global environment
• To improve its marketing strategies by determining preferences of customers

Therefore, Compass Group has a strong digital presence which has increased at the time of COVID-19 in 2020.

Task 2: Gaining Digital Business Agility

Digital business agility model

Figure 1: Aspects of digital business agility model

(Source: Influenced by Jovanovic, 2022)

Majority of firms across this globe after COVID-19 has started to improve its digital presence so that it is able to bring modifications and improvement in its digital business performance. After pandemic, offline business completely came to a halt and due to this reason consumers started to purchase products from online platforms.

Therefore, companies willing to conduct their business started to open their presence in digital platforms by taking digital initiative. Adopting digital technologies helps in enhancing the effectiveness of digital presence.

Compass Group, a multinational foodservice company, has a motive to bring digital business transformation by adopting a digital initiative and digital technologies. Adopting the proper digital business initiative like digital advertisement, digital interaction and imposing digital technologies like AI, machine learning assists in updating and changing the business process of Compass Group.

Hyper Awareness

1. Initiative strategy

A change in digital presence allows a firm to attain better success and improve its business productivity and performance. Nearly, 32% of food companies share tweets on twitter to make consumers aware about their digital presence (STATISTA, 2022).http://MSc Management LEADING THROUGH DIGITAL DISRUPTION Assignment Sample

Compass Group, must take upon digital initiative like imposing digital customer interaction. Customer interaction is important in food and beverage industry as food preferences of customers keeps on evolving with proceeding days. After COVID, connection between companies, customers got limited and this caused hindrance in the process of knowing and understanding customer needs.

Compass Group through imposing a Digital customer interaction in its website is going to help this firm to understand and acknowledge the needs of consumers. Before implementing this initiative, Compass Group must analyse and evaluate if this digital initiative is going to be profitable for this firm. Nearly, 74% of consumers prefers to purchase products after having an online interaction in digital platform (Garvin, 2021). http://MSc Management LEADING THROUGH DIGITAL DISRUPTION Assignment Sample

Therefore, Compass Group can establish digital consumer interaction through live chats, reviews and posting content.  This company’s initiative can help them, to attain better revenue generation and an improved business flow as this digital initiative is productive.

1. Proposed digital technology

Implementation of Digital technologies by a company assists a firm to manage activities in its digital platforms in a better and productive manner. Based on proposed digital initiative of Compass Group, necessary digital technologies must be imposed so that this initiative’s motive gets fulfilled.

Compass Group can impose Machine learning as their digital technology so that through machine learning this company can gain accurate information and predict productive outcomes.

According to Jovanovic (2022), machine learning is a type of artificial intelligence and this allows software applications to become more specific and accurate and emerge with exact food centric information. Before imposing this technology, Compass Group must analyse its effectiveness and this can be possible through including experts. Machine learning improves business productivity by 54% and hence Compass Group can apply this technology, which can bring profit for its business.

Informed decision making

1. Initiative strategy

Digital initiative that has been adopted by Compass Group is going to be beneficial for this firm. This company has evaluated and analysed all possible outcomes and through this digital initiative information about current food trends of customers. Compass group take effective decisions so that it can make digital consumer interaction work properly.

Application of an informed decision making can help Compass Group to take decisions regarding ways through which they can interact with customers. Compass group is going to take decisions regarding the frequency of digital customer interaction that they would conduct.

As stated by Hong et al. (2019), number of live sessions, content that a company is willing to post on their digital platforms are decided through an effective decision-making process. Compass Groups also must take decisions regarding employee training and segregate employees into smaller groups through allocating them work regarding digital consumer interaction.

Employees are going to update customers regarding mode of interaction that Compass Group is going to conduct on each day to connect with consumers.

1. Proposed digital technology

Compass Group based on their digital initiative has taken the decision to make use of digital technology such as machine learning so that they are able to derive maximum their economy.

In opinion of Hollowell et al. (2019), through machine learning a firm can derive the exact information about customer references from the posts that are based on product content.

Compass Group can also extract exact information about food preferences through machined learning. However, knowledge about machine learning is needed in this firm to conduct programming logic successfully and can achieve its goal through real-time interpretation.

An informed decision-making process will help Compass Group to acknowledge budget that they need to invest for implementation of machine learning. Along with finance, necessary training, and knowledge distribution regarding usage of machine learning must be done so that machine learning is used accurately.

Fast execution

1. Initiative strategy

After completion of all decisions, this firm can include execution of all decisions related to technology implementation, fulfilling initiative goals, so that effective results are achieved within a small span of time.

Compass Group must impose necessary digital customer interaction so that this firm is able to receive maximum results through deriving all necessary information regarding food products. Compass Group must come up with a schedule and set time so that business operation decisions that are taken by this firm are completed within required time.

Constructing a schedule is going to help Compass Group to hold live sessions on time.  As commented by Rasool et al. (2020), schedule is also going to help to post product related contents on social media to enhance customer interaction within the comment section. Therefore, scheduling is going to help in faster delivery of all work and achieve maximum results through digital customer interaction.

1. Proposed digital technology

In case of digital technology, machine learning has been adopted and through selection of a skilled IT team the machine learning implementation can be executed accurately.

Similarly, allocating customer interaction tasks to each group is going to help in better handling of digital customer interaction. Along with this, digital technology execution also further assists in better extraction of data related to food preferences through each group by using machine learning.

Task 3: Development of Digital Ready Culture

Figure 2: Components of Digital Ready Culture

(Source: THINK WITH GOOGLE, 2017)

Digital ready culture development is essential for companies in enhancing stability in digital activities and gaining a smooth digital transformation of business.

Digital ready culture often depends on several factors such as putting customers’ first, developing collaborative culture, incorporating a stable culture of innovation and becoming a digital champion (THINK WITH GOOGLE, 2017).http://MSc Management LEADING THROUGH DIGITAL DISRUPTION Assignment Sample Therefore, these are discussed below in a detailed way.

Putting customers’ first

Putting customers’ first is the most important factor as it can increase a high rate of customer satisfaction in digital platforms and gain a huge profitability in global platforms. As stated by Krawczy and Sobecki (2018), determination of customers’ preferences can be developed by organisations with the help of digital tools and social media platforms.

Firstly, Compass groups can involve surveys on social media platforms for determining their needs and preferences regarding upcoming products. For this, a strong connection with customers can be developed by this company and thereby increments in global customer growth.

On the other hand, different customer-oriented approaches like promotion of special offers and inclusion of quick links on personalised websites further can develop a high rate of digital ready culture. Promotion of special offers on social media can help this company in spreading this news to majority of customers within a short period. Other than this, inclusions of quick links on personalised websites can increase facilities for customers in case of resolving queries and gaining pre and post buying guidance.

Developing collaborative culture

Developments of collaborative culture also are a vital factor of digital ready culture and gaining a high rate of healthy working culture within working environments.

As per the views of Hemerling et al. (2018), developments of digital ready collaborative culture can increase smooth interaction and communication within employees which can prevent working disruptions and conflicts from workplace. Henceforth in order to develop healthy relationships among employees, this company can use this strategy for increasing a high rate of digital effectiveness and productivity of this organisation.

Collaborative working culture can be maintained within this company by encouraging strict code of conducts, different communication tools such as task management and digital signage as well as developing partnership working. Collaborative working can enhance skills of employees along with their individual performances regarding digital adaptation, thus this is a necessary factor of digital ready culture.

Incorporating a stable culture of innovation

Incorporating a stable culture of innovation can be essential for this company and in gaining a high rate of digital ability. Innovative working culture indicates effective problem solving and analytical decision making techniques.

Compass Group often faces problems for using inappropriate technologies and wrong social media platforms for operating their digital activities and has brought major ineffective customer engagements.

In 2020, this company has faced 19.89% decrease and in 2021, 3.69% decrease in revenue growth due to this (MACROTRENDS, 2022).http://MSc Management LEADING THROUGH DIGITAL DISRUPTION Assignment Sample

Thus, this company can include innovative decision making by involving employees’ opinions and appointing a separate department for innovative decision making. Other than this, machine learning technology can help this company in gaining proper decision making regarding selection of technologies and social media platforms.

Becoming a digital champion

Compass group can become a digital champion by including determination of customers’ preferences, innovative decision making and effective collaborative working culture.

Task 4: Steer Collaboration

Collaborative working culture is needed within this company for breaking silos between teams and departments. In relation to this, Chief Collaboration Officer (CCO) would be appointed in this company for gaining a high rate of improvements regarding this collaborative working and proper interactions.

There are some roles and responsibilities which are followed by this post holder. Firstly, emotional empathy is the most important role and responsibility of CCO for creating proper collaboration between teams and departments and gaining a high rate of healthy working within digital platforms. On the other hand, this company further can include analytical thinking and innovative decision making ability along with problem solving skills as the another vital responsibility of CCO for maintaining collaboration and partnership work within teams and departments.

Other than this, effective communication skills further is an essential skill for developing a healthy collaborative working environment. For example, Unilever has also appointed this type of officer in this organisation who monitors communication of employees in an effective way. This has enabled this company to gain a high rate of stable working and increments in 40% of productivity in this company (UNILEVER, 2022).http://MSc Management LEADING THROUGH DIGITAL DISRUPTION Assignment Sample From these discussions, this CCO can increase collaboration across team members and departments by providing them training and supervising their individual opinions and performances in collaborative work as well as ensuring proper communication.

Task 5: Developments of Leaders

Figure 3: Aspect of Grow Model

(Source: Influenced by Campion, 2018)

Goleman’s leadership styles are the most important leadership factors which enable these leaders to gain a high rate of leadership practice along with proper communication and collaboration.

As included by Campion (2018), this leadership style has six different elements like Coercive, Coaching, Authoritative, Pacesetting, Affiliative and Democratic leadership practice. This company can include authoritative leadership styles, democratic leadership styles and coaching leadership styles. This company can use Grow Model as well as effective leadership approaches such as provision of effective training and focusing on long-term and short-term goals can be important.

Furthermore, several techniques like appraising employees, proper communication with employees and leading by example can help leaders of Compass Group in leading digital environment in an effective way. Apart from that, authoritative leadership styles, democratic leadership styles and coaching leadership styles can be developed by this company by recruiting leaders by gaining help from trait theory and maintaining proper flexibility for changing leadership styles as per situation.

On the basis of this, it has been found that Compass Group can involve leadership practice according to these Goleman’s leadership styles, Grow models and these approaches and techniques.

Conclusions

Digital Environment development and developments of e-commerce can be essential for increasing business profitability and customer growth especially at the time of COVID-19. From discussions of digital business agility, it has been found that hyperawareness, creation of informed decisions and fast execution can be included by Compass Group.

On the other hand, machine learning can be used in this company as the main digital technology. Other than this, in case of digital ready culture, it has been discovered that putting customers’ first, developing collaborative culture, incorporating a stable culture of innovation and becoming a digital champion are main factors of it.

Furthermore, as this company has decided to appoint a Chief Collaboration Officer, this person needs to have problem solving skills, emotional empathy, decision making skills and communication skills for breaking silos between teams and departments. Finally, this company requires involving authoritative leadership styles, democratic leadership styles and coaching leadership styles according to Goleman leadership styles for maintaining proper digital business environment.

References

Buzalk, M., (2022), Compass posts 48% revenue growth in first half of FY2022. Available at: https://www.food-management.com/compass-group/compass-posts-48-revenue-growth-first-half-fy2022 [Accessed on 28 May 2022].

Campion, L., (2018). Leadership styles: considering context and climate. TechTrends, 62(4), pp.412-413.

COMPASS GROUP, (2022), Official Website. Available at: https://www.compassgroupcareers.com/ [Accessed on 27 May 2022].

Garvin, R., (2021). How social networks influence 74% of shoppers for their purchasing decisions today. Available at: https://awario.com/blog/how-social-networks-influence-74-of-shoppers-for-their-purchasing-decisions-today. [Accessed on 11^th May 2021].

Hemerling, J., Kilmann, J., Danoesastro, M., Stutts, L. and Ahern, C., (2018). It’s not a digital transformation without a digital culture. Boston Consulting Group, pp.1-11.

Hollowell, J.C., Rowland, Z., Kliestik, T., Kliestikova, J. and Dengov, V.V., (2019). Customer loyalty in the sharing economy platforms: how digital personal reputation and feedback systems facilitate interaction and trust between strangers. Journal of Self-Governance and Management Economics, 7(1), pp.13-18.

Hong, J.C., Ye, J.H. and Shih, Y.Y., (2019). Positive affect creative self-efficacy on the ability and confidence to predict problem solving avoidance motivation in a digital advertisement design course. Bull. Educ. Psychol, 51, pp.321-339.

Jovanovic, B., (2022). 55 Fascinating AI Statistics and Trends for 2022. Available at: https://dataprot.net/statistics/ai-statistics/#:~:text=37%25%20of%20businesses%20and%20organizations,AI%20capabilities%20in%20their%20work. [Accessed on 8^th March 2022].

Krawczyk, H. and Sobecki, A., (2020). Smart Shop Services for Building Customer-Oriented Scenarios. TASK QUARTERLY, 24(3), pp.221-242.

MACROTRENDS, (2022), Compass Group Revenue 2012-2021 | CMPGY. Available at: https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/CMPGY/compass-group/revenue#:~:text=Compass%20Group%20annual%20revenue%20for,a%202.81%25%20increase%20from%202018  [Accessed on 29 May 2022].

Rasool, A., Shah, F.A. and Islam, J.U., (2020). Customer engagement in the digital age: A review and research agenda. Current Opinion in Psychology, 36, pp.96-100.

STATISTA (2022). Average share of customer interactions that are digital before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, by region. Available at: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1248804/share-of-customer-interactions-that-are-digital/. [Accessed on 19^th April 2022].

THINK WITH GOOGLE (2017), Consumer Insights. Available at: thinkwithgoogle.com/intl/en-apac/?utm_source=twg_paid_gsn&utm_medium=paidsearch&utm_campaign=190321-sem-evergreen-brandedtwg_paid_gsn&utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=Google&utm_team=twg-apac&utm_campaign=202011-yisq42020-vn-en&gclid=CjwKCAjwvGUBhAzEiwASUMm4hgCVQEQR0Dl1JBEckoDxTrydy8jkR4p9ogupT-3WwU22S0RgkcxBoC2_wQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds [Accessed on 25 May 2022].

UNILEVER (2022), Official Website. Available at: https://unilever.com/ [Accessed on 23 May 2022].