Assignment Sample on Research Proposal
1. Introduction, research trigger, and statement of the problem
1.1. Overview and statement of problem
The supply chain is the most crucial part of the business organization that focuses on transforming raw materials into finished products to satisfy the needs of the end users (Zhang et. al. 2021). This area is important in the business as it ensures effective operations, purchasing, resource management, logistics, and information workflow. The scope of the supply chain extends from the demand end to the supply end. The worldwide supply chain market is expected to rise at a CAGR of 11.2% by 2027 (Kolmar, 2022). Spar Nigeria is a chain of hypermarket stores in Nigeria that offers wines, bakery products, house appliances, office décor, and many more. The chain is dedicated to providing buyers with the best customer satisfaction and affordable prices (Rocket Reach, 2023).
1.2. Research aim
The research study aims “to analyze the effectiveness of the supply chain operations and its impact on the growth of the company: A study of Spar Market Nigeria.”
1.3. Research objectives
- To understand the concept of supply chain and its importance
- To evaluate the effectiveness of the supply chain of the Spar Market
- To assess the impact of supply chain functions on the growth of the Spar Market
- To recommend some ways to improvise the supply chain operations
Concerning the significance of the supply chain, this research proposal will evaluate the effectiveness of the supply chain within the supermarket. Further, different sections of the proposal will highlight the review, justified research methods, and analysis of findings.
2. A brief review of the literature
2.1. Concept and significance of supply chain
According to Frederico et. al. (2020) supply chain management comprises a series of different processes and activities to be completed promptly and efficiently. Different supply chain management activities aim to deliver high product quality through timely and efficient fulfilment of consumer demand. Supply chain management needs experts and professionals to play different roles and execute several processes, including planning, procurement, production or manufacturing, distribution and customer interface. Alzoubi et. al. (2022) stated that different functions and areas of the supply chain create directly impact the company’s other functions, whether it be customer service or profitability.
This is because that supply chain management keeps the mechanism of demand and supply smooth so that the consumers can access the required products and their satisfaction level can be ensured. Fu et. al. (2022) mentioned that an effective supply chain management of a business organization ensures reduced cost, increased profitability, system efficiency and improved consumer service.
2.2. Supply chain analysis of the Spar Market
Spar market’s supply chain involves an effective movement of products from the suppliers to the end Consumers. Thus, the supply chain is important in the company that maximizes on shelf-availability of the required product at the right time to the right people. Supply chain effectiveness is vital in tracking the products and ensuring their safety (Singh et. al. 2020). The two most important areas that ensure the effectiveness of the supply chain at the company are warehouse operations and the sustainability of the supply chain. The Spar market has a network of warehouses, including frozen, chilled general and ambient, that holds around 55,000 products and operates as per the values of the company, which are service, choice, freshness, and quality (Spar, 2023).
The company has specifically designed the general and ambient merchandise operations to maximize the availability of the products through store-friendly, frequent, and faster deliveries. All these take place through a network of national and regional warehouses. In addition to this, concerning sustainability, environmental impact is a key concern for the company. Thus, Spar Market Nigeria works closely with suppliers, warehouses and stores to minimise the carbon footprint and reduce empty vehicle mileage. Spar market efforts to reduce food waste by ensuring the right product can be delivered promptly in the right quantities. Therefore, it can be stated that Spar is a responsible food retailer that focuses on health, community environment, climate, people, and sourcing (Spar, 2023).
2.3. Impact of the supply chain on the growth and performance of the Spar Market
With a strong and efficient supply chain, the Spar market can gain the best outcomes as sustainable stakeholder value, be loved as a brand, and become affordable and nutritious. In 2021, the company reported a 3.3% growth in sales performance globally, reaching €41.2 billion. (Spar, 2022).
The Spar Market can create value worldwide by conveniently delivering fresh groceries and foods to stores. The bulk procurement at the Spar market generates economies of scale, and as the fixed costs are shared over larger and vast volumes, it reduces costs per unit. This contributes to the company’s cost reduction, increases profitability share, and significantly impacts the company’s performance. In addition, the cited brand uses bio-diesel and constantly explores ways to optimize distribution, which helps decrease carbon footprint. Such strategies positively impact the growth and performance of the Spar Market in Nigeria (The Spar Group, 2019).
3. Research Methodology
Research methodology involves elaborating how the researcher intends to conduct the research. This is a systematic and logical procedure to conduct and fulfil the research objectives (Newman & Gough, 2020). This proposal section uses the right and justified research philosophy, approach, strategy, and choices.
Concerning the research objectives, the research will use the interpretivism research philosophy based on the notion that reality is socially constructed and subjective. The researcher with this philosophy will emphasize seeking out subjective meanings as the key source of knowledge.
In addition, the researcher will also make use of an inductive research approach. This research justifies using the inductive approach among the two research approaches, inductive and deductive. The purpose of the inductive research approach is to condense raw data into a summary and brief format (Kyngäs, 2020). This approach is suitable for this research and thus will be used because it allows the researcher to study new phenomena and concepts and is flexible. With the application of this approach, the researcher can concentrate on analyzing the areas of supply chain management within the Spar Market.
Moreover, the qualitative research method will be supported and used in the cited research study as it is used to understand the experience, beliefs, attitudes, and interactions. This research is useful for understanding the underlying motivations and reasons. The research study will also utilize a secondary data collection technique. Secondary data is already collected by someone else earlier and is used. The key benefit of using this data collection technique is its cost-effectiveness, and this is a less time-consuming process (Ruggiano & Perry, 2019). The data used in the research will be evaluated based on accuracy, sufficiency, relevance, and availability.
After gathering the data, the next step in the research methodology is using theme-based analysis. This is the method for evaluating qualitative data that consists of reading through the data set and observing patterns to find themes. Thus, this involves recognizing, analyzing, and interpreting qualitative data patterns. The steps involved in this analysis are getting familiar with data, looking for themes, reviewing themes, finalizing the same and writing about it. This is justified as the versatility of the said analysis allows the researcher to describe the data in an intricate, rich, and sophisticated manner.
Lastly, the researcher will consider various ethical principles, including using relevant and accurate data while ensuring the genuineness of the data, and it will be taken care that no one will be harmed directly or indirectly while conducting the research. Integrity and ethics will be ensured at every level of the research.
4. Data analysis and findings
It has been found that the Spar market creates value through its effective business model and different business activities. It has a voluntary trading model that extends the scope of marketing activities and retail support. To keep business activity in the company’s supply chain operations effective, it has procurement that supports local suppliers, warehousing that uses advanced technologies and distribution that focuses on increasing the bottom line while decreasing the carbon footprint (Spar, 2023).
Further, the retailer support and marketing activities emphasize public relation assistance, merchandising best practices and store refurbishment and design Assistance. In other words, the collected data can be analyzed by stating that the company’s supply chain function is effective and involves a variety of tasks and processes that focus on achieving the company’s strategic objectives.
The supply chain management evaluates its suppliers highly based on the speed of delivery, quality, and price of their offerings (Magableh, 2023). Also, the supply chain managers of the company attend trade shows, meetings, and conferences so that they can learn about new industry trends and contact suppliers. It has a multi-format retail strategy that enables the company to adjust the retail proposition to meet the consumer’s requirements in various markets.
5. Conclusion
Spar Market is one of Nigeria’s leading chains offering different products and having a strong and sustainable supply chain. Spar has different activities in the supply chain that makes the system sophisticated. It can be concluded that the research study will use an interpretivism research philosophy, inductive research approach, qualitative research strategy, and secondary data collection technique. Further, the use of theme-based analysis has been revealed as justified in the proposal, along with considering the ethical principles.
6. References
Alzoubi, H. M., Ghazal, T. M., Sahawneh, N., & Al-kassem, A. H. (2022). Fuzzy assisted human resource management for supply chain management issues. Annals of Operations Research. < https://doi.org/10.1007/s10479-021-04472-8>
Frederico, G. F., Garza-Reyes, J. A., Anosike, A., & Kumar, V. (2020). Supply Chain 4.0: concepts, maturity and research agenda. Supply Chain Management: An International Journal, 25(2), 262-282. < https://doi.org/10.1108/SCM-09-2018-0339>
Fu, Q., Abdul Rahman, A. A., Jiang, H., Abbas, J., & Comite, U. (2022). Sustainable supply chain and business performance: The impact of strategy, network design, information systems, and organizational structure. Sustainability, 14(3), 1080. < https://doi.org/10.3390/su14031080>
Kolmar, C., (2022). Supply chain statistics. [Online]. Accessed through: https://www.zippia.com/advice/supply-chain-statistics/ Accessed on: 18th August, 2023.
Kyngäs, H. (2020). Qualitative research and content analysis. The application of content analysis in nursing science research, 3-11. < https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-30199-6_1>
Magableh, G. M. (2023). Evaluating Wheat Suppliers Using Fuzzy MCDM Technique. Sustainability, 15(13), 10519. < Magableh, G. M. (2023). Evaluating Wheat Suppliers Using Fuzzy MCDM Technique. Sustainability, 15(13), 10519.>
Newman, M., & Gough, D. (2020). Systematic reviews in educational research: Methodology, perspectives and application. Systematic reviews in educational research: Methodology, perspectives and application, 3-22. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-27602-7
Rocket Reach, (2023). SPAR Nigeria information. [Online]. Accessed through: https://rocketreach.co/spar-nigeria-profile_b55b6564f662ce8f Accessed on: 18th August, 2023.
Ruggiano, N., & Perry, T. E. (2019). Conducting secondary analysis of qualitative data: Should we, can we, and how?. Qualitative Social Work, 18(1), 81-97. < https://doi.org/10.1177/1473325017700701>
Singh, G., Srivastav, S., Gupta, A., & Garg, V. (2020, June). Companies adoption of IoT for smart retailing in industry 4.0. In 2020 International Conference on Intelligent Engineering and Management (ICIEM) (pp. 487-492). IEEE. < https://doi.org/10.1109/ICIEM48762.2020.9160272>
Spar, (2022). SPAR reports growth of 3.3% as global retail sales reach €41.2 billion. [Online]. Accessed through: < https://spar-international.com/news/spar-reports-growth-of-3-3-as-global-retail-sales-reach-e41-2-billion/ Accessed on: 18th August, 2023.
Spar, (2023). Supply chain. [Online] Accessed through: < https://spar-international.com/aboutus/supply-chain/ Accessed on: 18th August, 2023.
The Spar Group, (2019). The integrated annual report 2019. [Online]. Accessed through: https://thespargroup.com/ir2019/strategy/our-strategy-and-business-model/ Accessed on: 18th August, 2023.
Zhang, A., Wang, J. X., Farooque, M., Wang, Y., & Choi, T. M. (2021). Multi-dimensional circular supply chain management: A comparative review of the state-of-the-art practices and research. Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, 155, 102509. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tre.2021.102509
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