IndexO'ReillyAutoZoneComparisonO'ReillyO'Reilly started as a parts store in Missouri in 1957. First year sales were $700,000. The first branch opened in 1964 in Missouri. The first distribution center opened in 1975. In 1978, O'Reilly became a dueling market strategy. They started selling in the professional sector and retail market. In 1993 O'Reilly became a publicly traded company. They had 2,333,332 shares at $17.50 per share. They are now present in 47 states and have 5,021 stores total. I chose to interview the manager of the O'Reilly in Magnolia, AR, which opened in 2001 (The O'Reilly story). Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Rachel is a manager at the O'Reilly store in Magnolia, AR. His duties at O'Reilly include sourcing parts for customers, customer service, de-escalation of hostile situations, cash management, inventory control, scheduling and stocking shelves. The training he received to become a manager included some corporate training sessions, but was primarily done on the computer as training and skills testing. Supervises the local plant in Magnolia, AR. He also has to communicate with other stores in his district (R. Jones, personal communication, March 26, 2018). Some changes Rachel would like to see happen at O'Reilly involve manager expectations. Some managers have made friends with the managers above them and are not expected to do their job and work as hard as some of the other managers. His favorite aspect of the job is the salary bonuses and the clients (R. Jones, personal communication, March 26, 2018). The most significant event that has happened since Rachel has been working at O'Reilly is the change in manager of the Magnolia store. When this happened, store employees were unhappy that there was a Shreveport store manager instead of one of the current employees being promoted to store manager. The effects of this were that the store employees were not as responsive to making a sale because they thought it would make the store manager look bad. Next, the district manager came to Magnolia and had a meeting with all the employees to figure out why sales were suffering since the new store manager had started. If there was a problem with how employees were being managed, the area manager wanted to make sure to address it up front with the store manager rather than letting problems continue to occur (R. Jones, personal communication, March 26 2018 ).O'Reilly Auto Parts is a retail chain that has a corporate headquarters, hub stores, and local stores. Each local store reports to a hub store which in turn reports to the company headquarters. The main office has many different departments. Some of these departments include credit, collections, customer service, human resources, and payroll. In the local store there is a regional manager, a district manager, store managers and assistant managers. The regional manager and district manager supervise each store in the region and district and must visit them every now and then. The company is divided into different regions and districts. This is done to accurately maintain store standards in all stores. The strength of this division is that regional and district managers are able to build a personal relationship with each store and team member. The weakness of splitting the store in this way is that each store in a district is expected to be productive and achieve goals with the same capacity.This is expected even if the store is smaller than another store in the neighborhood. An example of this is that Magnolia, AR needs to reach the same amount of sales as Shreveport, LA. Shreveport is a much larger area than Magnolia but should still have the same productivity (R. Jones, personal communication, March 26, 2018). O'Reilly's mission statement is "O'Reilly Automotive intends to be the dominant supplier of auto parts in our market areas by offering our retail customers, professional installers and workers the best combination of price and quality delivered with the most highest level of service possible. To achieve this mission, O'Reilly will provide a benefits and compensation plan that will attract and retain the kind of people who will enable the company to achieve its growth and success goals” (Company Overview) .This mission statement is quite generic and can be used for different companies. This is an important mission statement because it tells how they will treat their employees. O'Reilly does not have a code of ethics or a values statement a fairly unified culture and can best be described as a hierarchy. Communication that happens within O'Reilly consists of weekly team letters and emails. These chronicle the store's progress over the previous week. Managers then communicate to employees the information they have been provided. This is expected of all managers so that employees are all on the same page. I think O'Reilly is a market-driven company. One of its biggest competitors is AutoZone. O'Reilly is an auto parts store, so the role is primarily male. For this reason, many women in the workplace are insulted by customers because they generally only want to be helped by male employees. Each shop must find the best way to deal with this situation. At Magnolia, female workers typically stand up for themselves and tell them they can help them as much as a male employee can. The company relies on rules to keep all unethical behavior away from the company. The most common ethical problem is theft. This can happen internally, but most theft occurs at the hands of customers. To prevent these occurrences, every employee must go through a mandatory background check before they can be hired. To ensure that employees do not steal company time, computers are monitored and restricted by several websites such as Facebook. Whistleblowing is encouraged and can be done via an anonymous tip line. This tip line goes directly to the company to report anything that is unethical. Unethical behavior will then be further investigated. Charitable activities are very important to get O'Reilly's name known in the community. It shows people that they care about individuals and things that happen in the community rather than just worrying about making money. Just this month, Magnolia's O'Reilly donated to the men's club, Southern Arkansas University, and some of the local festivals that are coming up (R. Jones, personal communication, March 26, 2018). O'Reilly has a problem motivating its employees because the pay is low and because the employees look up to their leaders. Sometimes leaders are lazy and don't have a good work ethic. The company addresses this behavior by sending managers to company meetings and offering coaching. O'Reilly employees have good fringe benefits as well as several opportunities to receive bonuses. They also receive a commission for all sales made (R. Jones, personal communication, March 26, 2018).AutoZoneAutoZone first opened in 1979 inArkansas. It was originally called Auto Shack. Sales for the first day of opening were $300. In 1996, AutoZone started its business program offering credit and delivery to professional technicians. Some of the Magnolia stores that can use this service include Spitler's and Bridges. In 1998, AutoZone expanded outside the borders of the United States to Mexico. Since this happened, AutoZone has become a much larger company. It now has over 65,000 employees. Because of all the growth, AutoZone needed more than just a CEO and store manager. They now have a CEO, a president, a regional director, a district manager, a store manager and an assistant manager. I chose to interview the store manager of the AutoZone store in Magnolia, AR. April is the store manager at AutoZone in Magnolia, AR. He has worked for AutoZone for 12 years. His duties include opening and closing the store, employee management, accounts payable, inventory management and customer service. There was some training she needed before she became a store manager, but since she went from employee to store manager, she hasn't needed all the training others may need to receive. April had to have in-depth knowledge of the parts. He also had to take some manager training and take some quizzes on the store system. Most managers are promoted from within, so they are sure to already have partial knowledge. April is responsible only for Magnolia, AR AutoZone (A. Colvin, personal communication, April 2, 2018). April likes the culture at AutoZone because everyone is committed to helping customers solve their problems. The only thing that would change is the ability to be able to hire more employees during peak periods such as tax season (A. Colvin, personal communication, April 2, 2018). The biggest change that has happened since working at AutoZone is a theft. Before he became manager of the store there was an incident where an employee was stealing parts and selling them at a discount. The employee spent a long time before being caught but once caught he was investigated and then arrested. After this incident, they had to start taking inventory more frequently (A. Colvin, personal communication, April 2, 2018). AutoZone has a corporate office and local stores. The corporate headquarters is in Memphis, Tennessee. The main office has payroll, benefits, store support, customer service, sales, accounts payable, technical support and many other offices. In local stores, there are distribution centers that deliver goods to the store and return all shrinkage, cores and damaged products. Local stores have DIY departments and professional installers. Management includes regional and district managers, store assistants and sales director. However, the AutoZone in Magnolia, AR does not have an assistant manager. Since there is no deputy director, the commercial director is the second manager. It is divided in this way so that customers have the feeling of a small home shop when they visit the stores. The store's strength is that customers are able to build personal relationships with employees as most customers are repeat customers. The weakness is that the district and regional manager fails to meet some of the business customers. Another weakness is that upper management does not communicate with employees, so they do not always get the whole message (A. Colvin, personal communication, April 2, 2018). AutoZone does not have a mission statement. He has a commitment that allemployees need to know. “AutoZoners always put customers first! We know our parts and our products. Our stores are amazing! We have the best goods at the right price” (Our commitment and values). This is unique in that the company chose not to label it as a mission statement. Includes industry-specific but not company-specific statements. Commitment is very important because it appears to be powerful. AutoZone has a values statement. “An AutoZoner always puts customers first, cares about people, strives for exceptional performance, energizes others, embraces diversity, helps teams succeed” (Our Commitment and Values). This is very important and really tells team members and customers that AutoZone cares about their image. AutoZone has a very unified culture. It has a strongly market-oriented culture. Preserve the culture and values by including them in training and posting them in every store for employees to see. Hiring the right person and putting them in the right position is very important for company culture. Training begins on the first day of employment and from then on, employees begin to learn the company culture. Rules and procedures are important to company culture. I would also describe the company as a market-driven culture. AutoZone is a very diversified company. It has programs in place to keep the company diverse. Globalization is something that corporate office members deal with, so local shop members don't know much about it. The biggest ethical problem at the AutoZone in Magnolia, Arkansas is theft. The company relies more on rules and procedures to reduce unethical behavior. The company is known for promoting trustworthy people. The company conducts background checks on all employees during the hiring process. They also monitor everyone's sales and daily activities. Charity events are important to AutoZone. The local AutoZone donates most times when a donation is requested (A. Colvin, personal communication, April 2, 2018). The biggest motivational problem for AutoZone employees is that there is a large workload and they have low wages. Employees are rewarded with promotions and raises. Full-time employees receive vacation and benefits (A. Colvin, personal communication, April 2, 2018). ComparisonThe companies are similar in background in that both have always been an auto parts store and both have DIY parts businesses or retail markets and professional markets. Both shops also have the ability to supply parts to their respective professional markets. The biggest difference I see in the two organizations is that AutoZone has stores internationally while O'Reilly only has stores in 47 states. This may be because O'Reilly doesn't think they are ready to be moved to the international market. I think the history of both companies is typical of the auto parts industry (our history and timeline). AutoZone and O'Reilly have the same organizational structure. They each have regional, district, store managers and assistant managers. The biggest difference I see in the organizational culture between O'Reilly and AutoZone is communication with team members. O'Reilly communicates a lot within the company, but AutoZone uses a chain of command. This sometimes causes the message to be changed from person to person based on how they interpreted it. The main reason for this difference may be that regional and district managers may feel above other employees and not need to talk to them. This means that all messages are then communicated to,.
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