[pic]UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF IRELAND, DUBLIN Bachelor of Science Programme (Singapore) Business Strategy
BMGT3001S
Lecturer: Shawn Wong Cubie Lau

SUBMIT BY: Zhou Yuelang STUDENT ID: 13209211 PROGRAM: BSC20E DATE: 05-09-2014

NTUC FairPrice Co-Operative is a supermarket chain based in Singapore and the largest in the country. The company is a co-operative of the National Trades Union Congress or NTUC. The group has 100 supermarkets across the island, with over 50 outlets of Cheers convenience stores island-wide. FairPrice was established by the Labour Movement in 1973 to ensure that essential items were available to all Singaporeans at affordable prices during a time of economic and social turbulence. Through the years, FairPrice has remained true to its social mission through various initiatives to moderate the cost of living. While this social mission has remained its fundamental focus, it also recognises that there are other important aspects of CSR that it can contribute towards.
Mr Seah Kian Peng, CEO (Singapore), NTUC FairPrice, said, “Our social mission has always been a fundamental priority for us and we will stay true to our role in providing affordable essentials to all. As a leading retailer, with over 100 supermarket and hypermarket stores, we believe we can create a bigger impact and extend our social responsibility beyond moderating the price of essentials. This is why under our new CSR framework, we aim to be the leading responsible retailer, caring and doing the right things for our customers, our staff, our community and our environment.”
To consolidate and drive its CSR efforts in a more strategic manner, a FairPrice CSR Committee was set up at both corporate and board management levels earlier in 2010. The committee comprises members from FairPrice’s Senior Management across business functions such as the human resource, purchasing, operations, organisation development and corporate communications. Central to FairPrice’s CSR strategy are four values – buying and selling responsibly, sharing with the community, protecting the environment and caring for our staff.
These values are translated to four strategic pillars – Responsible Retailing, Community Care, Sustainable Environment, and Wonderful Workplace – with data on its current performance and corresponding targets for the future. Having clearly defined key performance indicators will enable FairPrice to better monitor its performance and track its progress on its CSR front.
For example, under the Responsible Retailing pillar, FairPrice currently achieves a 95% Internal Quality Audit score, which is based on HACCP and ISO 9001international standards, for its stores. It aims to not only maintain this high standard for food safety and quality but also achieve greater excellence and increase this score to 97% in 2016. Under the Community Care pillar, FairPrice intends to increase the number of staff volunteers for community initiatives by over 7 fold by 2016. Currently, about 100 FairPrice staff are actively involved in volunteer work. Under Sustainable Environment pillar, FairPrice aims to achieve a 10 percent year-on-year increase in the number of plastic bags saved by 2016. In the last financial year, FairPrice saved 6 million plastic bags through its Green Rewards initiative.
Looking inwards, under the Wonderful Workplace pillar, FairPrice intends to achieve an average of 40 hours of training per employee annually by 2016, compared with the current average of 25 hours of training annually. FairPrice supports the local workforce and about 90 percent of its staff are Singaporeans or permanent residents. FairPrice also launched a pilot project earlier this year for seniors above 60 to seek employment as Customers Relations Officers, where they will be dedicated to assisting customers with their needs and queries and actively gather feedback from customers so as to improve the offerings at FairPrice.
Commenting on the FairPrice CSR Strategy, Mr Seah adds, “This framework is really just the beginning. Our newly launched CSR microsite is a new communication platform that will allow us to share how we are progressing in our CSR commitment as well as to gather feedback from our stakeholders, which will enable us to create an even greater social impact.”
On the survey of consumers’ response to CSR, Mr Seah said, “The survey reaffirms that we have taken the right direction in first providing safe and quality food that is affordably priced. Beyond this, we also see that shoppers want supermarket retailers to care for the community and the environment. FairPrice Foundation has been contributing to the community and sustaining the environment over the past few years and we will continue to do so for many years to come.”
FairPrice set up the FairPrice Foundation in 2008 to help provide a better life for the community. Fully funded by FairPrice Group, the Foundation has donated $28 million to the community to-date. The funds have been used to help the poor and needy with their daily needs, support nation building and community bonding events, as well as advancing workers’ welfare.
In 2009, FairPrice introduced the FairPrice Green Rewards Scheme in 2007 to help reduce plastic bag wastage. We were the first supermarket to reward our customers with a rebate when they bring their own bags to pack their grocery purchases at FairPrice on any day. The continued support from our customers has yielded good results with about 5 to 6 million bags saved per year in the past two years.
FairPrice also launched Singapore’s first eco-friendly supermarket at City Square Mall in December 2009. The store showcases the latest eco-friendly solutions in grocery retailing, which include usage of recycled and biodegradable materials for store fixtures, energy-saving equipment and lighting, as well as “green technology” like the reverse vending machine.
Apart from this, FairPrice has a Green Committee which looks into improving environmental management as a whole for the organisation. Last year, a Green Policy was initiated at its stores, corporate offices and warehousing facilities island-wide to reinforce everyday measures to reduce energy and water consumption and promote recycling. Some measures that have been implemented include encouraging staff to reduce paper usage by printing on both sides and to recycle. A pool of reusable grocery bags is also available for staff when they buy their groceries.

Reference List
- Ansoff, H. I. (1969). Business strategy: selected readings;. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
- Channel NewsAsia. (2006, April 18). Channel NewsAsia. Retrieved September 4, 2014, from http://www.channelnewsasia.com/new
- “FairPrice hypermarket opens its doors”. (2006, December 28). The Business Times.
- NTUC FairPrice leads with more strategic approach through measured goals and indicators to track CSR contributions. (2011, October 17). Green Business Singapore RSS. Retrieved September 4, 2014, from http://www.greenbusiness.sg/2011/10/17/ntuc-fairprice-leads-with-more-strategic-approach-through-measured-goals-and-indicators-to-track-csr-contributions-press-releases/
- Nur Dianah Suhaimi (19 August 2007). "Fancy exotic cheeses, live oysters? Try FairPrice". The Sunday Times.

[pic]Confirmation Certificate Congratulations!
You have successfully completed the Library Plagiarism Quiz.
Student Name: ...............ZHOUYUELANG......................
Student Number: ...............13209211..................
Date: .....................24 MAR 2014..............................
THIS IS TO CERTIFY THAT (signature)……………………… HAS COMPLETED THE PLAGIARISM QUIZ
Remember that the confirmation certificate is a statement by you that you understand plagiarism and know how to avoid it. If you think that you do not understand plagiarism and how to avoid it after working through this tutorial, you should confer with your module coordinator, no matter what score you have obtained on the test.
Please print out this page and attach a copy of the certificate to the final page in all assignments you submit on each module as part of your programme
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