Publix Super Markets, Inc. SWOT Analysis & Recommendations

Description of the Organization 

Statement and Introduction 

Publix Super Markets is an employee-owned American supermarket. Strong leadership qualities have been responsible for the excellence of the organization in team-building and quality relationships within the staff. Based on the employees' survey, Publix has been ranked top in terms of strong leadership skills in team building and promotion of quality relationships. Headed by Todd Jones as the CEO, this organization boasts of leadership qualities that promote long term quality relationships amongst the employees and the team collaboration (" Publix Super Markets ," 2020). One of the leadership qualities that have been responsible for excellent team-building and quality relationships is a healthy communication that is fostered on collaboration amongst team members. The management has created a working environment that facilitates smooth communication, allowing for the sharing of information amongst team members. Smooth communication has ensured that team members can develop a strong relationship with each other to ensure increased customer satisfaction. The team members work together to develop strategies that promote customer satisfaction and boost sales. 

Besides, the leadership has continued to focus on team success by rewarding the excellent team teamwork and establishing effective team communication. The CEO has been at the forefront in enhancing the quality relationship and team collaboration as it has emerged that this is the only way to improve the quality of the services and enhance customer satisfaction (" Publix Super Markets," 2020 ). The leadership approach adopted by the management is participative leadership. This leadership style allows the team members to take part in decision making and promote collaboration not only between the team members but also between the employees and the management. The adoption of evidence-based management practices, collaboration, and the right leadership style has ensured that Publix acquires its position as a supermarket with the best services and higher customer satisfaction. 

Description of what prompted the organization to focus on Specific Variables 

The business environment has been rapidly changing amid rising competition, which makes it necessary for the managers to identify innovative ways to enhance competitiveness and gain competitive advantage. In response to a now more complex business environment, a multidimensional and non-integrated approach to management has come out as the most preferred to a single-minded leadership approach. The need for the management to shift from a centralized decision-making approach to a more participative system has been on the rise as a way to promote productivity ( Motschnig, Ryback & Motschnig, 2016 ). The use of the traditional leadership approach that focuses on quantity rather than quality has made the businesses unable to effectively in the rapidly changing business environment. This single focus leadership approach has led to reduced productivity and a lack of team coordination. The inability of the top management to focus on team coordination and productivity management has led to more serious problems with production. 

Strong leadership qualities are required to ensure that leaders successfully lead organizations towards positive change. Due to the rising competition and changing business environment, Publix needed to change its leadership approach from a single-minded approach towards a multidimensional system. In response to the rapidly changing business environment, team building and quality relationships have remained one of the ways to enhance productivity and gain competitive advantage. Leaders need to adopt a transformational leadership style as a way of promoting the needed change to make businesses more competitive. Previous studies have shown that quality relationships and team-building play a positive role in improving productivity. According to Motschnig, Ryback & Motschnig (2016), team building activities tend to increase collaboration, promote productivity, and create motivation. Based on the evidence, leaders have identified team building and quality relationships as a way to respond to the rapidly changing business environment. A leadership approach that values teamwork and provides an environment that fosters team unity has become the norm of the current business world. Publix required to respond to the rapidly changing business environment by changing its leadership approach from the traditional single-minded system to the multifaceted approach that promotes productivity ( Chin, 2015 ). It was a necessary measure to respond to the rapidly changing business environment and maintain a competitive advantage. The main focus was to boost productivity, enhance employee motivation, and increase efficiency by eliminating the non-value acting activities in the organization. The DNP leadership concept views a leader as the agent of change in any organization. 

Rationale/Specific Problem 

Publix Supermarket faced a problem of low productivity that resulted from the inappropriate management approach and lack of team building and coordination. According to the audit report on the productivity of Publix Supermarket, the outcome has shown that the organization scores low in productivity management (" Publix Super Markets," 2020 ). Despite being in the industry for many years, the firm began to record a continued decline in its productivity, both at the customer service level and processing levels. This came even as the firm continued to face stiff competition from the rivals in the industry. Due to the continuing decline in productivity, the organization continued to face a low customer satisfaction. The quality of the services was declining, employees were demotivated, and everything seemed to take a backward trend. It presented a significant threat to the growth of the firm calling for immediate action to change the issue. The performance of the employees at all levels of the organization had declined. The coordination and communication between the employees handling various tasks were low. The team performance measures were not identified at each work unit. The productivity levels were not measured by the level of resource utilization, leading to wastage of resources in the non-value adding activities. 

An audit into the cause of the problem showed that the leadership approach adopted by the management did not match the response required to increase productivity. The leadership did not give productivity improvement, an approach that is action-based in a manner that emphasizes on teamwork (" Publix Super Markets," 2020 ). The management did not rely on the teamwork audit report to promote team coordination and quality relations. Productivity and work procedures were based on individual levels rather than working together as a team. As a result, this leadership approach created competition between the employees, rather than fostering of unity. The traditional leadership approach adopted by the management proved to be more ineffective in creating quality relationships and promoting teamwork coordination. Even though the organization rewarded the best performers, the system did not have an appropriate mechanism to enhance productivity amongst the team. This leadership approach led to poor relationships amongst employees and a lack of team building. There were poor social relations within the teams, and the roles were not defined. Collaboration amongst team members had declined, a feeling of unfairness arose, and conflict emerged. The outcome was low productivity and poor customer relations. 

The solution to this problem requires the change of management approach from the traditional system to a modern multidimensional approach that promotes positive productivity management. The transformational leadership approach should be adopted by the management to promote change in response to the changing business environment. Besides, team building can help solve the problem, especially when an environment that fosters collaboration and team unity is enhanced. Team building and role identification and well as communication between the team members, can help promote unity and boost productivity. The existence of quality relationships between the team members and management can create an environment of trust and respect, which reflect in productivity. 

Processes 

One of the processes that have made Publix supermarket more successful in the industry is having a good corporate culture. Corporate culture plays a great role in the success of any organization. The corporate culture states the norms of the organization on how procedures and work processes are conducted (" The Five Secrets of Publix Supermarkets' Success," 2020 ). This is especially important in enhancing customer satisfaction and promoting growth. A focus on the programs on brand reinforcement and increase customer satisfaction also provides an excellent environment for the business to excel in the marketplace. A leadership process that focuses on customer satisfaction has ensured that it always remains ahead of the industry. The use of a combination of situational and participative leadership approach had ensured that the organization responds effectively to the rapidly changing business environment. While it promotes change, it also seeks to fix certain situations to restore the organization to productive levels. 

The management has created a working environment that promotes open communication and trust between the employees and management. Open communication has ensured that there is a close relationship, which is essential for increased productivity. Rewarding teams for higher productivity and unity has ensured strong team collaboration between the team members. Inspiration and motivation have been widely used by the leader to promote team unity and boost morale amongst workers. Strategic communication between the leader and the employees ensures increased team-building spirit and higher productivity. 

Attributes of the Processes 

The organization's success builds on its influential corporate culture while the corporate culture focuses on customer excellence. There is a culture of teamwork and collaboration, which originates from the top management (" Publix Supermarkets Inc.," 2011 ). The creation of a culture of excellence and teamwork has provided guidelines for actions. Because the corporate culture determines the actions and work procedures, it has promoted success by ensuring that people work together to share ideas. The promotion of creativity and coordination amongst the team members has become a crucial strategy to enhance success. 

Strategic communication has also been a major leadership initiative to promote teamwork and collaboration within the organization. The management has created a workplace environment that enhances communication between members of the team and the management. Open communication and constant sharing of information facilitate work processes and sharing ideas amongst team members to promote team productivity. Communication has been identified as one of the leading factors in promoting team building and quality relationships. Team’s operations are based on their ability to communicate within themselves and the management effectively. This has made the firm to turn around from the initial problem of low productivity that it had faced under the traditional leadership approach. Creativity within the team members has also enhanced as workers get autonomy to make decisions that can enhance the success of the organization. This approach allows the team members to engage in open and constructive discussions on how best to produce better results. The high levels of creativity and autonomy amongst the team members have ensured quality productivity and better customer service. 

The combination of situational and participative leadership approaches have also greatly contributed to the current success of the organization. Due to changes in the business environment and rising competition, it has become evident that no single leadership approach fits it all. Instead, leaders can change their approaches depending on the situation at the moment. The participative leadership approach ensures that employees feel part of the organization by taking part in making certain decisions within the organization. A combination of the two leadership approaches has ensured that there are strong team collaboration and creativity because of their involvement in making decisions. The leadership focus on excellence, and customer service has ensured that the organization provides quality services to customers. Due to the need to create value for the customers, the management recognizes and rewards teams and individuals who have performed exceptionally. This leadership strategy seeks to encourage productivity and higher performance levels amongst employees. It is a way to promote value delivery to the customers and create a strong brand that positions itself as a leading customer service organization. 

Application to the Organization 

Leaders remain the key drivers of change in any organization and must be at the forefront in playing this role. They must ensure that the organization offers quality products and services that tailor towards meeting the organizational goals. My current workplace faced the problem of low employee productivity and decreased morale that attributes to poor leadership approach. The above processes can be applied in the organization to boost morale, increase team building, and establish a quality relationship within the organization. The management can incorporate a strategic communication focus in which open and transparent communication is promoted amongst the team members to enhance unity and collaboration. Strong leadership is required to communicate the vision of the organization to the team members and help in the transformation of the whole business organization. Besides, the management can create a direction and corporate culture that guides the employees on the actions to be taken. A corporate culture with a focus on quality teamwork and collaboration can help boost the morale of the team members and achieve better productivity. The organization needs to move away from the traditional single-minded leadership approaches towards a system that involves "working with others as full partners in a context of mutual respect and collaboration." The multidimensional leadership approach remains one of the most approved approaches to promote team building, enhance quality relationships, and ensure increased productivity. The management of the organization can develop a program that rewards teams and employees who have made significant improvements in productivity and success. 

Balanced Score Card 

The mission of Publix is "to be a premier quality food retailer in the world." This mission statement seeks to make Publix a global firm in terms of quality. From this mission, the organization can have two objectives, one is to increase customer loyalty and satisfaction, and the second one is to eliminate wastes in productivity by 100%. To determine if the customer satisfaction objective has been met, a customer survey can be conducted to record the number of satisfied customers. 

One of the strategic actions of Publix Supermarket is to grow its market share by up to 6% in the next two years. Growing market share will require that the management increases productivity through employee motivation and team building. Achieving this objective will act as a balanced scorecard against which to measure the performance. Increased shareholder value, improved quality of services, and rise in the competitive position of the firm in the industry also provides a framework against which to measure the outcome on customer perspectives. Increased employee motivation, high coordination within team members, and positive growth in the quality relationships can also be used as balanced scorecards to measure performance. These variables can be measured against the objectives. 

	Strategic objective	KPIs	Targets
Financial	Increase revenue  Decrease costs	Net profit  Higher revenue	6% increase  5% decrease
Customer	Improve satisfaction levels  Improve market perception	Market share index  Customer satisfaction index	6% increase  5% increase
Internal processes	Improve communication.  Increase teamwork coordination.  Improve employee satisfaction.	Production efficiency  Improved teamwork quality  Higher motivation	90% efficiency

References 

Chin, R. J. (2015). Examining teamwork and leadership in the fields of public administration, leadership, and management.  Team Performance Management: An International Journal . 

International | Publix Super Markets. (2020). Retrieved 29 March 2020, from http://corporate.publix.com/careers/support-areas/corporate/departments/human-resources 

Motschnig, R., Ryback, D., & Motschnig. (2016).  Transforming Communication in Leadership and Teamwork . Springer. 

Publix Super Markets. (2020). Retrieved 29 March 2020, from https://www.forbes.com/companies/publix-super-markets/#1511e8fb7ab7 

Publix Supermarkets Inc. (2011).Publix Supermarkets. Retrieved from  http://www.publix.com/ 

The Five Secrets of Publix Supermarkets' Success. (2020). Retrieved 29 March 2020, from https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-five-secrets-of-publix-supermarkets-success/