QUESTION $1$

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Reflect on the observation below and answer the following questions.

While the article highlights the financial underperformance of Pick $n$ Pay as the group's primary challenge, it is Gareth Ackerman's statement, Chairman of Pick n Pay, that points to the root of the issue: $"$It was distressing to find that operational changes over many years had caused the core business to decline to its position at the end of the $2024$ financial year."

$1\mathrm{.}1.$ Critically discuss how effective integration and alignment across the three $(3)$ major functional areas

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$-$finance, operations, and marketing$-$and across their supporting functions, impacts overall organisational performance. Your discussion should integrate theoretical perspectives from operations management literature and provide detailed supporting information from the article to demonstrate how these interrelationships have influenced Pick $n$ Pay's current situation.

$1\mathrm{.}2.$ The article further notes that "a misguided strategy caused tremendous harm to the retailer, which

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used to outperform Shoprite" and that $"$It became evident that key elements of the strategy were not working in the core Pick n Pay supermarket business." Considering these challenges and focusing exclusively on the operations strategy, a key element of the business strategy, discuss how Pick $n$ Pay can develop a new effective operations strategy that leverages Chase and Aquilano's $(2006)$ concept of 'four perspectives of operations strategy'.