Financial - Sustainability and Integrated Reporting for Woolworths

Question: Discuss about theFinancial, Sustainability and Integrated Reporting for Woolworths. Answer: Introduction: The report is prepared to discuss of three different stakeholders of organization. It deals with demonstration of information required by each group of stakeholders and the reasons of such information required by them. In this report, selected organization is Woolworths Limited. Woolworths limited has always attempted to build stakeholder relationships and stakeholder engagement that has been integral part of doing business. The stakeholder engagement framework has been developed by setting up cross functional team and shifting to a more inclusive model (Ditlev-Simonsen Wenstp, 2013). The three important stakeholder groups of the organization includes customers, employees and shareholders or investors. Discussion: Customers- Woolworths engage with customers to understand their needs and growing revenue by enhancing brand. The information needs for customers involve understanding their needs and requirements as it is essential for providing them with right products at right time and getting exactly what they are looking for in the specific stores. One of the most important part of organization to become a customer oriented business is listening and understanding their needs. Customers seeks information about services, products and all format strategies by ensuring that organization understand their utilities and intent. They intend to provide organization with the new opportunities and enhancing the segmentation model so that business comes up with needed products. Maintaining close contacts with customers helps in satisfying their needs. Customers are able to share their feeling and thoughts by several feedback methods used by marketers or business. Customers are regarded as the key driver for decisions that is taken throughout the business (Lawrence Weber, 2014). It can be explained with the help of instance that customers might seek information about raw materials used in the manufacturing process and usage of such materials would be affected by reaction of customers to products design. Therefore, there are many reasons that is associated with requirement of information as customers want organizations to develop products that would satisfy them. Shareholders or investors- Investors and shareholders represents the owners of company as they own a percentage of shares of organization. Shareholders seek information about profitability position of organization as they are provider of funds. Information of total cash inflow and outflow, balance sheet position depicting the assets and liabilities and information about income statement of company is sought by investors. Profitability, efficiency, liquidity and solvency position of Woolworths would help investors in undertaking correct financial decisions. This will help them to provide with informed perception about organization so that positive investment environment is created. Such information helps in creating a timeous, relevant and transparent communication so that investors and shareholders are provided with through understanding of Woolworths performance and adopting strategy of going forward. Woolworths provide shareholders with several financial statements in annual report depicting their financial position (Rodrigue et al., 2013). The price of shares listed in stock market should be provided to them as it would assist them in making long-term and short-term investments accordingly. Favorable financial position helps in maintaining credibility position of organization and would generate favorable return to them. Information about financial position of Woolworths is of utmost important to investors (Wolf, 2014). Such information is required by this particular group of investors for evaluating their investments made in equity and gaining relevant and reliable data in the financial statement. It helps in gauging how well earnings are generated by organization. Suppliers- Suppliers are another important shareholders in organization such as Woolworths Holding Limited. Development of fair and reliable relations with suppliers help in sourcing raw materials for the products in proper and ethical way. Suppliers views the reputable position of organization and they supply with innovative, new and standard products by delivering consistent quality. Suppliers seek information about the raw materials are processed so that they are able to maintain and ensure environmental and social responsibility across their supply chain. One of the pre requisite of suppliers is adhering to business principles code. Demand of raw materials is determined by suppliers to provide them with timely delivery of products. Suppliers also assist organization in solving sustainability issues by extending the involvement in various sustainability program. Integration with the suppliers helps in maximizing the bottom value impact and business value. Managing suppliers helps in optimizing and helps in creating accountability and optimizing their performance. Suppliers relationship with organization helps in limiting business, reputational and organizational risks (Yakimova et al., 2016). Furthermore, information about efforts taken by organization to remain sustainable and socially responsible helps suppliers in analyzing the sustainability position. They seek such information for incorporating sustainability practice in the supply chain management. Conclusion: From the above analysis, it is concluded that suppliers, customers and shareholders are relevant stakeholders of Woolworths limited. They seek various information form organization and organization seeks information from them to bring changes in products or creating innovation. Customers seeks information about products design, investors seeks information regarding the profitability position of company and suppliers maintains their sustainability position by evaluating the efforts of company concerning the same. References list: Brummette, J., Zoch, L. M. (2016). How stakeholders personal values influence their value expectations for legitimate organizations.Corporate Communications: An International Journal,21(3), 309-321. Ditlev-Simonsen, C. D., Wenstp, F. (2013). How stakeholders view stakeholders as CSR motivators.Social responsibility journal,9(1), 137-147. Lawrence, A. T., Weber, J. (2014).Business and society: Stakeholders, ethics, public policy. Tata McGraw-Hill Education. Rodrigue, M., Magnan, M., Boulianne, E. (2013). Stakeholders influence on environmental strategy and performance indicators: A managerial perspective. Management Accounting Research,24(4), 301-316. Wolf, J. (2014). The relationship between sustainable supply chain management, stakeholder pressure and corporate sustainability performance.Journal of business ethics,119(3), 317-328. Yakimova, R., Merrilees, B., Miller, D. (2016). Engaging Internal Stakeholders: Revitalizing Community Organizations Through Rebranding. InLooking Forward, Looking Back: Drawing on the Past to Shape the Future of Marketing(pp. 764-771). Springer, Cham.