Overview of Walgreens Management Plan
In this assignment, I will focus on Walgreens, a US pharmacy that retails cosmetics, photo products, and prescribed medicine. The Walgreen website is https://www.walgreens.com. The management plan has the main aim to elaborate how the company is structured and how the team contributes to the company’s success. The major problem that Walgreen faces is the competition from other online stores as well as being unable to open more offline stores that make shopping for consumers easy.
Customer Demographic
Most Walgreen customers have low-income potential. According to Walgreens consumer demographic, the shoppers are mostly females about 21 years to 52 years with one or more children and who takes care of an older adult. She is the primary caregiver for her family Walgreen shoppers also include the aged who require prescription medicine.
Supply Chain Design
Design for quality
Walgreens uses customers’ demands to and obtains supplies according to the customer’s needs.
Delivery Speed
Walgreen has a team of reliable suppliers who offer timely delivery depending on the demand of the customers. After the goods reach the warehouse, Walgreen offers a fast delivery between 1-5 days depending on the product.
Low Cost
Walgreen avails low-cost medication to its customers and in their retail clinics. Minor ailments can be treated at a lower cost as compared to a doctor’s appointment. The clinic accepts payments of the medical bills by insurance and boasts of affordable prices for customers without insurance. (Appleby,2013).
All these aspects are important in meeting the consumer’s needs, however, reducing the cost of medical care contributes most to their overall annual returns.
Material Resource Planning (MRP)
Walgreen has a mission “To be America’s most-loved pharmacy-led health, well-being, and beauty company” by focusing on their client’s satisfaction. MRP software helps to match the demand of the customers with the manufacture of the products. (Seifert, 2003) The company produces its brand of products. The software estimates the raw materials, labor, time and machines needed to manufacture the product to correspond to timely delivery to the customers. Renowned Walgreens suppliers include: Veera Moore Cosmetics( http://www.veramoorecosmetics.com) and Trinidad Construction( www.trinidadllc.com)
Supplier Relationship Management Plan
Walgreen has a team that maintains a strong relationship with the suppliers and organizes expenditure on supplies. It also has a procurement team that negotiates on behalf of the company for the best prices to enable a win-win situation between the suppliers and the company in adherence to the term and condition stipulated in the Supply negotiations.
Production and packaging
Walgreen has an independent brand which features a variety of products. These products are produced according to the demand of the customers. A team is responsible for formulating cost-effective packages by taking into consideration the customers’ heart desire
Transportation
The company offers free shipping to the store. Orders above 35 dollars are also shipped free of charge. Orders below 35 dollars attract a shipping fee. Customers love free shipping as they do not incur additional cost after purchase.
Cost of Goods Sold
The cost of a product is largely dependent on the cost of the supplier. For Walgreen independently produced brands the cost is determined by the price of raw materials, labor and manufacturing costs.
CRM (Customer Relationship Management Plan)
CRM plan has had a great impact on the company as it has helped retain its customers (Davis, 2013). The plan helps in knowing the targeted customers and use of social media to get customer feedback. A series of surveys are also conducted get the feedback of the service and also the customer needs. Walgreen also introduced balance reward programs and coupons to build customer loyalty.
CSR Plan (customer experience feedback loop)
This strategy involves a means of communication between the company and the customers about the products The Company has a general feedback section in its website which customers fill in. This provides insight into how the company can improve the services to the customers.
REFERENCES
Mullis, K. R. (2006). A SWOT Analysis of Walgreens in the Competitive Pharmacy Marketplace. Drug Store News, 28, 35-47.
Appleby, J. (2013). Walgreens becomes 1st retail chain to diagnose, treat chronic conditions. Kaiser Health News, April, 4.
Davis, S. (2013). How Target, Walgreens and Home Depot have forever changed the private label game.
Seifert, D. (2003). Collaborative planning, forecasting, and replenishment: How to create a supply chain advantage. AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn.
Most people experience a degree of stress in everyday life. Explain how stress can affect our health. Are there any positive effects of stress.
Stress is a widespread problem which is faced by almost every person in one or other time. Stress is defined as a state of emotional and mental pressure or tension due to adverse circumstances. In Medical and scientifically point of view, stress is described as any pressure or tension exerted on the psychological and emotional state. Stress can be physical, mental and emotional it not only affect body it whereas it creates anxiety in a person. Stress can occur because of external or internal situations. External stress comes from the environment, psychological, and social conditions and internal stress arise from the internal state like from medically procedure and illness.Stress is usually considered to be in a negative term. However, it is evident that everything or every situation has both positive and negative impact same is the stress.
Every person feels stressed from time to time. Some people cope with stress easily whereas some can not recover stressed situation with a short period. There are the different type of stress, but they effect the physical and mental health risk of a person.Stress is thought to be positive when the stressful situation becomes an opportunity which escorts toward a great outcome. Form stress condition some people are capable of getting to the severe level of stress more efficiently than others. It can occur for a short period and as well as its occurrence can be for an extended period. Short-term stress can be beneficial to health. It helps person to cope best with potentially dangerous problems. Sometimes stress enhances the thinking level like how to take a route to get over these problems and as well as make him strong enough to deal with these situations (“Stress Symptoms, Signs, and Causes, 2018).
Stress on the daily basis includes workload, school, family and other daily responsibilities. Stress also comes from a sudden adverse change like loss of job, divorce and illness. Traumatic stress can be due to war, severe car accidents and even from natural disaster where chances of killing rises. Stress that is the traumatic temporary effect the mental health of the person . However, some common symptoms can affect body, thoughts, feelings and behaviour. Stress sucks it not only effect mentally it also absorbs all the energy of the body to perform any work.
Not all stress is terrible sometimes it prepares people to perform well in some situation, e.g., in test performance and for new job interviews as well. Stress also helps to meet the challenges. In some cases, stress can be life-saving like in response to the danger it prepares people how to save yourself from threats. It enables people to bear risk and give solutions to flee from these life-threatening position. In fatal situation heartbeat increases, pulse rate rises brain start thinking more, and it needs more oxygen for its performance. In fact, during stress, overall body performance increased to cope with these troubles.
Stress-related outcomes vary according to the person-environment and its personality. However long term stress leads toward chronic health disorder. With constant stress life-saving responses suppressed with time to time. Due to continuous stress, life-saving reactions like immunes system, digestive, sleep and the reproductive system stops working correctly. Different people feel the level of stress differently like some people undergoing damage to digestive system whereas some only get headaches, sadness, insomnia, anger and irritability. People under chronic stress become frequent to viral infections like feel cold and get flue regularly (Mullan, 2014).
Constant stress is the hard type of stress to be noticed at an early stage. Due to continuous stress, it is hardest for the person to come toward normal health stage early as compared to traumatic or acute stress. During Constant stress, the body does not get the clear-cut signal to return to its normal functioning. However with the passage of time because of continuous stress pressure, serious health problem originates like high blood pressure, heart disease diabetes and many other illnesses such as anxiety depression etc.
Symptoms of stress can include nightmare, sleepiness, obesity, teeth grinding and frequent urination.it also gives the feeling of loneliness and overreaction to minor issues. Sometimes owed to constant stress usage of alcohol, drug usage and smoking increased. Whereas it also reduces the sexual desire and increases anxiety, guiltiness and nervousness. However, stress is also responsible for the reduction and increasing level of appetite. It was also responsible for weight loss and weight gain without diet (“How stress affects your body and behaviour”, 2018).
People who are stressed usually make poor food decision they just food as for their comfort and nothing else. Sleep deprivation because of stress has the small but constant effect on eating habits. Mostly stressed people go for chips and doughnuts.Stress disturbs the hormone level for these hormones are ghrelin and leptin which are responsible for the regulation of food desire. According to different literature, it is observed that not all people gain weight some also lose weight during stress. Some people under stress lose their appetite, and they go to the category of weight loss.
The stress put the more negative effect on pregnant women. When a pregnant lady become stressed hormones that are needed for the growth of baby disrupt the health of growing baby. Particularly maternal stressed leads to the schizophrenia, autism and reduced the cognitive talent of kid.stress is responsible for the adverse effect on the main body organs as well. According to different research, stress suppresses the growth of new neurons in the hippocampus.Chronic stress inflammation causes severe kind of depression. In short, stress is considered as a significant risk for the causes of diseases. It in fact severely affect the health whether it is physical or mental health ( horrible ways that stress messes, 2018).
Last but not the least stress not only destroys the happiness, but it is also responsible for the destruction of mental peace. It let down the person physically, mentally emotionally and swap the real joy of life. Stress has many side effects. These are mood swings, crying habit, suicidal thoughts, overwhelmed feeling, difficulty in making a decision, suspicious feelings, impatience, dreadful thoughts anger and frustration. However, stress can be controlled and even can be eliminated.It all depends on the type of stress. Acute stress can be managed and end in a short period compared to the chronic one.Stress can be controlled by having a plenty sleep because sleep is responsible for consolidation of memories in the brain. Sleep also accountable for repair and growth of new brain cells. Sometimes chronic stress seems to be an unavoidable problem of life, but it can be controlled by applying proactive strategies.Eat healthy diet because when the person is healthy can cope and even can fight stress and overcome this issue in good manners so, be thought what kind of food you are taking.By having nutritious and healthy diet body energy will boost, and it put the positive effect on overall health. When you are stressed take a long breath it will remove stress and lees the pressure on mind and whole body. Indulge yourself with healthy and positive activities like do exercise yoga, laugh because it relieves a stressed condition and improves situations. Medication can be used to overcome this severe problem (“Five tips to help manage stress”, 2018).
References:
- How stress affects your body and behaviour. (2018). Mayo Clinic. Retrieved 24 February 2018, from https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/stress-management/in-depth/stress-symptoms/art-20050987
- Mullan, B. (2014). Sleep, Stress and Health: A Commentary. Stress And Health, 30(5), 433-435. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/smi.2605
- Stress Symptoms, Signs, and Causes: Improving Your Ability to Handle Stress. (2018). Helpguide.org. Retrieved 24 February 2018, from https://www.helpguide.org/articles/stress/stress-symptoms-signs-and-causes.htm
- 9 horrible ways that stress messes with your body — and what you can do about it. (2018). INSIDER. Retrieved 24 February 2018, from http://www.thisisinsider.com/health-effects-of-stress-2017-8#it-can-also-wreak-havoc-on-your-hormones-5
- Five tips to help manage stress. (2018). http://www.apa.org. Retrieved 24 February 2018, from http://www.apa.org/helpcenter/manage-stress.aspx
