QUESTION 3 (QUESTIONS CONTINUE ON NEXT PAGE) GCR PLC. is an old large global clothing retailer which offers wide range of clothes, accessories to customer from all age groups around the world. The company conducts its operations through their own stores, and they have franchise agreements with many countries around the world. The company also offers its products online through the its newly established website. As is the case of its competitors, the profitability of GCR PLC. used to depend heavily on effective merchandising and marketing. As a large company, GCR PLC. also used to have an advantage in quality, distribution, marketing and diversity of product. The two critical issues were, however, diversification is a high-risk approach and requires heavy cost and franchising comes with the cost of losing control. The business strategies before the pandemic highlighted the followings: - Increase the online and international sales and diversify operations around the world. - Establishing some retail stores in specific locations. - Investing more funds on wide variety of products. - Providing high-quality brands to its customers at low price. - Increase the value of shareholders. The company has been in trouble for several years now, with the pandemic only serving to hasten its decline. Revenue remaining flat, share price has been falling since the start of the pandemic and the outlook is pretty poor. The company is bending over backwards to revive itself, having embarked on an ambitious restructuring programme that will see it close of over 400 of its stores by 2023. However, experts are concerned, if the company doesn't improve fast, there's speculation it could even file for bankruptcy protection in 2023. Recently, an experienced consultant suggested that the biggest problem was the company's fundamental inability to adapt and innovate. While fashion market moved to a faster model and shoppers shifted online, the company moved slow and continued producing more of its traditional products. The expert stated; "if to survive, GCR PLC. needs to provide 'gold standard' focus for s specific range of products. Furthermore, the company needs to identify a number of key competitors and focus on close cooperation with its customers in providing products to meet their specific design and quality requirements". He also stressed that efforts should be made to improve the effectiveness of allaspecis or the cycre irom product design improve fast, there's speculation it could even file for bankruptcy protection in 2023. Recently, an experienced consultant suggested that the biggest problem was the company's fundamental inability to adapt and innovate. While fashion market moved to a faster model and shoppers shifted online, the company moved slow and continued producing more of its traditional products. The expert stated; "if to survive, GCR PLC. needs to provide 'gold standard' focus for s specific range of products. Furthermore, the company needs to identify a number of key competitors and focus on close cooperation with its customers in providing products to meet their specific design and quality requirements". He also stressed that efforts should be made to improve the effectiveness of all aspects of the cycle from product design to after-sales service to customers and to improve productivity in conjunction with increased flexibility of methods. (QUESTION CONTINUES ON THE NEXT PAGE) QUESTION 3 (continued) Required: a) Explain Anthony's hierarchy and the key aim of the Performance Pyramid Model. (3 marks) b) Explain the term "goal congruence" and critically discuss how the Performance Pyramid model helps to ensure goal congruence using GCR PLC.'s information to provide examples. (6 marks) c) Critically discuss the external effectiveness and internal efficiency of the consultant's proposal in the context of "Quality", "Delivery" and "Waste" elements in the Performance Pyramid model using GCR PLC.'s information to provide examples. (12 marks) d) Explain how applying the Performance Pyramid model could help GCR PLC to survive. (4 marks)