Afonso Pinto de Magalhes

Afonso Pinto de Magalhes, a banker, patron, and businessman in Portugal, founded the company Sonae in 1959. It is a Portuguese retail corporation with two substantial collaborations in the media, telecommunications, and software and information systems sectors. As a tiny business, SONAE focused on the wood end product market for the first twenty years of its existence. Sonae Company saw a quick expansion and diversification of its business under the leadership of Belmiro de Azevedo, who was in charge in the 1980s. Afonso Pinto de Magalhães gave Belmiro de Azevedo 16% of Sonae in 1982, and after his death, Belmiro took over the company. Later in the 80s and 90s, the company launched numerous retailing brands such as Worten, Vorbis, Modalfa, Maxmat, Zippy, Max Office and SportZone. The company continued expanding internationally, and in 2007 it restructured its business portfolio. The corporation encompasses six commerce units which are, Sonae Modelo Continente (MC), Sonae Retail Properties (RP), Sonae Specialized Retail (SR), Sonaecom (Telecom), and Investment Management arm.

Sonae MC (Modelo Continente) is a food retail that was introduced in 1985 whose activities began when the first hypermarket was opened in the city of Porto in Portugal under the Continente brand. Later in 1977, most of the stores were converted to Modelo brand hence the two brands Continenete and Modelo were unified. Sonae MC now operates under the Continente brand after consolidating the two brands in 2011 March. This paper is set to discuss how SONAE MC generated enough momentum in starting the lean project and describe how the life cycle of this new initiative, how SONAE MC dealt with the scale and complexity of the implementation of lean principles. Additionally, it also discusses if the lean principle must be extended to the customer flows or not, how they can sustain their motivation and reinvent the lean program given the SONAE MC case by evaluating possible strategies forward which is the main case.

Discuss how SONAE MC generated enough momentum in starting the lean project and describe the life cycle of this new initiative.

SONAE MC created enough momentum in starting the lean project through starting small. SONAE MC focused on small parts before they considered putting everything together. For instance, Sonae focused on wood end product market as a small business, but later it started venturing into other firms as well that enabled the implementation of the lean project. This was facilitated though team building approach towards everything that is happening at the organization (Damrath, 2012 pp.70).

In addition, SONAE MC generated enough momentum in starting the lean project through steadily improving in the quest of aptness by continuously questioning the worth of all the activities that are occurring in the organization. This means that the process of developing is endless hence leading the revolution to a lean culture. Despite the fact that the team cannot achieve perfection, but it strives to get closer (Leite and Vieira, 2015 pp. 235). Furthermore, it also gained momentum to starting the lean project by trying to accomplish the specification of value in the eyes of the consumer despite having the challenge on what the client is willing to pay.

The life cycle of the new initiative, lean project, is based upon identifying value in the eyes of the client, classifying the worth stream for each merchandise, making value flow through the elimination of waste such as the backflows, interruption, and scrap (Christoffel and Axelsson, 2017 pp.60). In addition, by letting the customer pull the flow despite the task of providing value before the customer demands it or providing the client with more than the specified original scope and constant pursuit of perfection are the part of the life cycle of the new initiative.

Implementation of lean principle is a challenging project. Evaluate how SONAE MC dealt with the scale and complexity of the implementation.

The execution of the lean principle was a challenging project to the SONAE MC Food retail but through unifying the numerous grocery retail trademarks and adapting from manufacturing approaches. Through unifying the trademarks by the SONAE MC Food retail, it had positive impacts for Sonae and the final consumer. Additionally, it enabled Sonae MC to provide assurances to his consumers the existence of same brand values in all the food stores. Moreover, SONAE MC dealt with the complexity of the implementation of the lean project through creating awareness via a campaign that involved a promotional plan and in-store mark initiation exercises especially when the new brand of Continente was presented (Damrath, 2012 pp.70).

In addition, the implementation of the lean principle depended upon reliable visualizing and operational modules based on the several changes that had occurred in the store such as decorations, the websites, and regalia. Furthermore, another important element that enabled SONAE MC to deal with the complexity of the implementation of lean principles was based on an exceptionally complex inner restructuring of the organization.

Despite the fact that implementing lean principle to SONAE MC was a challenge, its success depended on the human capacity to developing and innovating. SONAE dealt with the complexity of implementing lean principle by mobilizing and involving its employees in this action since it was essential. This means that the employees are being involved in all the activities that are being carried out in SONAE MC so that they can understand the work content and the restraint since the implementation of lean principle prerequisites changing of culture and a new way of thinking.

Should lean principles be extended to customer flows? Justify your answer.

Lean principles must be extended to customer flows because the lean services are composed of only activities that produce significance for the customers hence focusing on meeting the expectations of the client who considers the quality and the price. Additionally, the lean principles should be improved upon to concentrate on the client or rather customer (Sarai, 2016 pp.70). Leans principle mainly focuses on concurrently decreasing the waste and improving on client contentment since it currently attractive to the business environment and it ever satisfying the demanding consumers.

Moreover, through enhancing and extending the lean principles to the customer flows, it increases natural progression of standardization, manufacture and information tech that will be accepted by the client (Song et al. 2008 pp.10). Apart from concentrating of transformation, the principle focuses on the customer since the corporation is dealing with the consumer directly from different industries. Nonetheless, the notion is not that the consumer shops less but rather, the consumer does the shopping with less difficulty and disruptions.

The overall goal of extending lean practices and principles to customer flows is to ensure or rather enhance customer satisfaction. This could only be achieved through ensuring that the redundant movements are reduced (Bicheno, 2008 pp.55). Through this, extending the lean practices and principles towards customer flows enhances the customer’s productivity.

The principle of involving everyone is essential to lean implementation. Given the SONAE MC case, how can they sustain motivation and reinvent the lean program? Evaluate ways/ strategies forward.

SONAE MC can sustain motivation and reinvent the lean program by illustrating the application of the lean practices to the front-office forms particular to retail and also considering the availability of client in the operation since the processes are right. In addition, being accountable for all the processes during the implementation of lean, comprising the challenges they encountered and ways or rather the methods that they used in overcoming the challenges and the impacts of performance assists in reinventing the program (Abdi et al. 2006 pp.191). Through all these, SONAE MC is capable of reinventing lean program since they have all crucial information that they prerequisite (Ahlstrom, 2004 pp.550). Moreover, through a clear depiction of the organization and all the activities in the stores also provide a platform of reinventing lean program.

Furthermore, SONAE MC can sustain motivation and reinvent lean program by combining the process of training with the constant process of improvement. The concept of the job training was imperative rather than having the traditional classroom training because it prevented removing the staffs from their work posts. Additionally, the concept was important since it offered more immediate benefits since the workers can apply the idea that they are leaning into practical (Apte and Goh, 2004 pp.450). Also, when all the workers are involved in the training, they can motivate each other and help each other in understanding leans concept. This enhances team building in the organization since all the staff is involved. This helps in ensuring that all the workers in the organization gain and acquire knowledge and skills that are being taught in the institution. For instance, it makes the staff feel appreciated and part of the group hence they can apply what they are being taught towards improving the team (Cuatrecasas, 2004 pp.537).

Through SONAE managing the many-sided quality of executing lean guideline by activating and including its representatives in this activity since it was essential. This implies the representatives are being associated with every one of the exercises that are being completed in SONAE MC so they can comprehend the work content and the restriction since the execution of standard lean requirements changing of culture and better approach for considering (Asif et al. 2010 pp.150). This motivates the workers to have a clear insight that lean program is very imperative hence they able to sustain. Moreover, the lean program has contributed significantly towards the operational performance and striving for more original styles of improvements and higher gains leads to the motivation of sustaining and reinventing the program.

Discussions and Conclusion

The main findings, in this case, is that SONAE MC as the largest Food retail in Portugal ensured that it had implemented the lean practices in its food retail. Despite the fact that lean was intuitive in the manufacturing context, several organizations are adapting its practices. Furthermore, leans principles or rather practices are focused on instantaneously improving the buyer’s consummation and diminishing waste since the customers are ever demanding and it is so attractive in the modern business environment (Abernathy et al. 2000 pp.170). Concisely, the implementation of lean practices was so complex but through several changes that are counter-intuitive and changing of the organizational culture are key processes of managing the implementation.

Additionally, the case comprises of three core sections that one, crucial accountability of the steps of implementing lean, consisting of the challenges, ways of overcoming the challenges and the performance influences. The second major section is describing the company and the operations that are within the store. Lastly, elucidating the presentations of lean practices to the front office processes since they directly affiliated to the consumer (Maleyeff, 2006 pp.480).

I recommend that SONAE MC Company or rather Food retail should continue applying lean practices since it has been so beneficial to the company. In spite that implementing lean practices within the company was complex, but it brought about several improvements and benefits that led to consumer satisfaction. In this case, critical information learned is that despite all the limitations that an organization faces, lean philosophy has proven to be positive and that the companies enjoy success. Also, I recommend that lean principle have to be integrated with marketing, logistics, and sales since the decisions that are made in this department have a high impact on inventory executive unlike focusing on store operations.

Furthermore, lean practices and the principles can be applied in various areas or rather fields such as teaching, logistics, health, offices, retailing, the government and other regions. All the institutions that try applying lean practices and principles have benefited a lot in various ways depending on the kind of institution (Lee et al. 2008 pp.980). For instance, SONAE MC Food retail has gained a lot from applying the lean practices and principles such as increasing productivity due to visual management that was being applied to the worker, reducing stock outs since there was enhanced classification of the commodities, reducing breakages since there was development of transportation equipment that reduced improper stacking and the reduction of inventory levels due to improved layout and space within the ware house.

In a nutshell, lean practices and principle have contributed significantly to the success of SONAE MC. Moreover, other different fields can also benefit positively through applying the lean practices and philosophy. Despite the fact that implementing lean practices at various organizations might be complex, it ensures the success of the organizations since there are ways of ensuring that the practices have been integrated into the activities of the company or rather the institution.

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