Running head: KROGER COMPANY’S REPORT 1

Kroger Company’s Report

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KROGER COMPANY’S REPORT 2

Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................3
Capacity Management.................................................................................................................................3
Seasonality Demand................................................................................................................................4
What do companies need to do when demand is high or low?...............................................................4
Operations Improvement............................................................................................................................5
Quality Management...................................................................................................................................7
Conclusion...................................................................................................................................................9
References.................................................................................................................................................10
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Introduction
Kroger today is ranked as one of the world’s largest retailers. The company started in 1883 when

Barney Kroger invested his life savings of $372 and opened a grocery at 66 Pearl Street in

downtown Cincinnati (Xiao, 2018). As America's grocer, its most urgent mission is its

availability to their customers when most needed, having open stores, and openhearted

hospitality (Coelho, 2019). During this era of COVID-19, the company has taken proactive

procedures to protect the health and safety of their associates, customers, and communities,

including adjusted store operating hours, enhanced cleaning procedures, physical distancing

precautions, and expanded associate benefits (Norris, Taylor Jr & Taylor, 2021). While running a

retail company, incorporation of capacity management, operations improvement, and quality

management is essential in assisting the company to achieve its goals.

Capacity Management
Capacity management is a great concern to both large and small companies. According to

Rygieslski (2017), capacity management is the act of making certain that a business is in a

position to maximize the utilization of its potential resources. These resources may include labor

force, technology and equipment, manufacturing and office space, raw materials, and inventory.

To meet the company's expectations efficiently and cost-effective manner, capacity management

must remain constant throughout the operation activities (Rygieslski, 2017). Capacity

management is important in ensuring that systems operate at adequate levels towards achieving

organizational goals without misuse of resources. Additionally, capacity management ensures

that a company is in a position to detect obstacles at an early stage hence minimizing failures.

Therefore, a company needs to uphold capacity management activities.

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Seasonality Demand
Due to the seasonality of demand, the company's capacity management can experience changes

that might need adjustments. According to Vergori (2017), a company may experience

seasonality demands due to factors such as climatic conditions, festive seasons, and pandemics

for example COVID-19. However, companies have to cope with the situations at hand to meet

customers' as well as organizational expectations. Kroger Company is just like any other

company that is affected by seasonal demands. During seasonal holidays, the business is always

at the peak, and the number of activities increases. This includes an increased number of

customers served per day. Consequently, an increased number of workers is needed to ensure

that there are no delays in serving customers.

What do companies need to do when demand is high or low?

Companies experience high demand at a particular period as well as low demand. For companies

to maneuver their operations successfully during such periods there is a need for businesses to

forecast demand trends (Papamikolaou & Basbas, 2020). The preparedness ensures that a

company can take advantage of the peaks during high demand and maximize its profit-making.

This includes ensuring that the company has sufficient stock to be utilized during demand at

peak times of the year.

Over the past years, Kroger has usually spent their summer period preparing for holiday seasons

which is usually the most important period for making profits in the company. During high peak

demand in 2020, Kroger opened more than 130 hiring positions for the holiday season in West

Virginia (Jaffe & Chen, 2020). This is to help the company meet the demand as well as satisfy

customers' needs. However, due to the COVID-19 impact, Kroger just like any other retail
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industry has been forced to change how they operate to protect the health of workers as well as

that of customers. Appropriate measures have been put in place to ensure the safety and

cleanliness of the facility. To ensure that the flow of the products is throughout, Kroger is

ensuring that shelves are fully parked with essential fresh food. Additionally, in response to the

COVID-19 pandemic, Kroger is ensuring that they have a healthy supply chain (Jaffe & Chen,

2020). This is to enhance best practices in the performance of activities ensuring that the

company is keeping up with the ever-changing customer trends.

During low demand, chances of a company experiencing waste are high as many businesses will

be closed down. There is also a subsidy in prices as the business owners try to ensure that the

remaining products are purchased before they go bad. This leads to workers in such situations

losing their incomes and cutting down on spending in every sector (Egging-Bratseth et al., 2021).

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Kroger had to urgently turbocharge their online grocery

business and catch up with their competitors. This led to a rise in their digital sales by which was

a boost. Consequently, COVID-19 did not affect the Kroger Company in any negative way since

it was in a position to maximize the utilization of the upcoming available resources thus

maximizing its profits.

Operations Improvement
With the perceived increasing rate of competitive pressures, operations improvement is essential

in running any company. According to Barnes (2018), operations improvement is a continuous

effort of ensuring intelligent use of limited resources. Operation improvement is also termed as

the act of managing business activities constructively to improve the efficiency of organizational

operations (Szewczak, 2017). Having set an operation strategy, its design finalized and its
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deliveries planned and controlled, the manager’s task is not yet done. Retail businesses require

efficient operations since they operate on thin profit margins. Consequently, this leaves the

managers to operate in the middle, do what they can do to keep the costs low while ensuring

efficient retail operations. Above all, they make sure the business delivers an enjoyable in-store

experience as a strategy to keep the flow of customers. Thus, operation improvement is essential

in any business operations.

Operation improvement is one of the key driving factors for Kroger Company. One of Kroger's

2020 and progressing sustainability goals is the Zero Hunger, Zero Waste initiative (Stafford et

al., 2017). For the company to improve the metrics of this vision, implementation of the plan-

do-check-act (PDCA) improvement plan would go a long way in overseeing this increase. It is

through the PDCA cycle that a company continuously controls and improves the processes and

activates (Hasan & Hossain, 2018). Kroger has reached various parts of America as a nation,

planning a Zero Hunger, Zero Waste walk/marathon in the urban areas where any participant

would be required to pay a registration fee to participate. For kids (anyone under the age of ten)

would pay five dollars and adults ten dollars.

Once the Pros and Cons are weighed, and the company's management gives its concept, a date

should be scheduled and through the use of technology, awareness is made to the public about

the date, time and venue, the registration fee required how to register through online platforms or

the company's website. Since the target population is the urban areas, the turnout is expected to

be fairly good. On the scheduled day, the walk/marathon is done and the company officials and

the facilitators of the marathon take advantage of the opportunity and inform the people available
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about the initiative, its mission, and goals. Then, the team in charge of the walk/marathon meets

and evaluates if there was any success achieved.

In the assessment stage, the team in charge performs an analysis of the profits and losses made if

any, draw the lessons learned from the program, and advice on the decision to be taken. After

everything has been keenly assessed and the results presented to the managers, the last stage of

the act is reached. The heads of departments and the team responsible for critical decision-

making of the company determine whether to adopt the change or to abandon the change or

repeat the PDCA cycle. In this case, the company can choose to be conducting such an event

after every two years or so as a way of funds mobilization.

Therefore, the funds collected from this implemented plan could be used in the recycling of

wasted foods for feeding animals. Also, it can be used in opening and running other retails in the

parts where the hungry persons can eat in those places without being charged (Hasan & Hosaain,

2018). With such the company would have achieved this goal because, in the end, at least

someone who would have slept hungry gets to eat, and also the recycling of food wasted is

supported financially. Also, awareness is created to people concerning the campaign against food

wastage, privileges one has if they got something to eat, and the need to remember the less

privileged in the society.

Quality Management
For a company to succeed in the ever-increasing competitive nature of the market, quality

management is essential. Quality management is the act of ensuring the desired level of

excellence is accomplished such that the company provides quality goods and services to its
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internal and external customers (Van & Hardjono, 2019). Also, quality is associated with

effectively delivering services and products meeting the customers' expectations while

maximizing the productivity of the company. Despite Kroger is one of the biggest companies in

America, the quality of the services offered will go a long way in helping them maintain the title.

In Kroger’s Zero Hunger, Zero Waste Innovation fund, on the meals sector, their goal is to

accelerate food donations to give one billion meals by 2020 and three billion meals by 2025

(Stafford et al., 2017). And it’s not only food donations but more balanced meals.

In the near future, the company has the vision to extend their donations to almost everyone who

goes to bed hungry in America. However, giving food to hungry is not enough. This is because

the dependency level will increase and not even a single time will the people being fed try to find

their means of becoming independent (Ampolu, Trichy, Duhamel & Russell, 2020). Therefore,

the gap is that Kroger not only needs to donate food to the hungry but also needs to offer

intensive training and follow-up on how these persons can become independent such that

Kroger's donations may be diverted to other less fortunate people in the world than their own

only. This way the company will be going international, thus incorporating diversity and unity.

The management team should consider how well or how efficient the Zero Hunger, Zero Waste

initiative has solved the issue of hunger and waste in America before extending it to other

nations. They should also consider the general feeling of an American citizen, whether the

customer will embrace the idea of Kroger being international and remain to be loyal customers.

Once their help is acceptable to the outside world, strategies should be set that will aid in

maintaining their reliability to other people reached by this initiative outside of America. The

plan extended should be durable that is; it should be a lifetime thing and not just for a short time
KROGER COMPANY’S REPORT 9

and then everything backfires. If they go international and this affects their performance in their

own country, this can be rectified or reversed.

Therefore, Kroger’s most driving force in feeding the hungry should be accompanied by the

desire to teach these people ways in which they can become independent. This includes either

teaching those farming methods or even teaching the young generation on innovative methods of

how they can become productive. This way Kroger will be able to extend their donations to other

countries having attained a Zero Hunger nation in their own country before extending this to

other nations.

Conclusion
To sum up, Kroger Company has been in a position to achieve its organizational goals

due to proper incorporation of capacity management, operation improvement, and quality

management. Through capacity management, Kroger has been able to readjust in line with the

changes that have occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic. Ensuring that customers' demands

are met in time contributes to meeting the expectations of the company as well as those of

customers. To improve the operations of the company, Kroger is determined in minimizing

waste by recycling waste food for animal consumption. Also, opening other retail shops in

various places will ensure that the Zero Hunger initiative is effective in reaching out to the

hungry in the community. Besides, through quality management, Kroger Company has met the

expectation of the customer through quality delivery of services and products. Not only should

the big companies incorporate capacity management, operation improvement, and quality

management, but also small companies.

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References
Ampolu, S., Trichy, N., Duhamel, E., & Russell, F. (2020). Zero Hunger, Zero Waste: Dining

Hall Food Redistribution. Undergraduate Scholarly Showcase, 2(1).

Barnes, D. (2018). Operations Management. Macmillan International Higher Education.

Coelho, T. J. P. T. (2019). The acquisition of Sprouts Farmers Market, Inc. by Kroger

Co (Doctoral dissertation).

Egging-Bratseth, R., Kauko, H., Knudsen, B. R., Bakke, S. A., Ettayebi, A., & Haufe, I. R.

(2021). Seasonal storage and demand side management in district heating systems with

demand uncertainty. Applied Energy, 285, 116392.

Hasan, Z., & Hossain, M. S. (2018). Improvement of effectiveness by applying pdca cycle or

kaizen: an experimental study on engineering students. Journal of Scientific

Research, 10(2), 159-173.

Jaffe, S., & Chen, M. (2020). Work in the time of Coronavirus: Belabored stories. Dissent, 67(3),

125-148.

Norris, C. L., Taylor Jr, S., & Taylor, D. C. (2021). Pivot! How the restaurant industry adapted

during COVID-19 restrictions. International Hospitality Review.

Papanikolaou, A., & Basbas, S. (2020). Analytical models for comparing Demand Responsive

Transport with bus services in low demand interurban areas. Transportation Letters, 1-8.

Rygielski, P. (2017). Flexible modeling of data center networks for capacity

management (Doctoral dissertation, Universität Würzburg

Stafford, R., Thomas, J., Payakachat, N., Diemer, T., Lang, M., Kordsmeier, B., & Curran, G.

(2017). Using an array of implementation strategies to improve success rates of

pharmacist-initiated medication therapy management services in community

pharmacies. Research in Social and Administrative Pharmacy, 13(5), 938-946.

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Szewczak, K. (2017). Fixed Assets Operation Management in Enterprise in Conditions of the

Xxi Century Economy. VADYBA, 30(1), 85-93.

van Kemenade, E., & Hardjono, T. W. (2019). Twenty-first century total quality management:

the emergence paradigm. The TQM Journal.

Vergori, A. S. (2017). Patterns of seasonality and tourism demand forecasting. Tourism

Economics, 23(5), 1011-1027.

Xiao Yun, Y. (2018). Firm Specific Factor, Macroeconomic Factor and the Profitability

Performance in Kroger Company: A Case in United States. Macroeconomic Factor and

the Profitability Performance in Kroger Company: A Case in United States (December

13, 2018).