ASDA is the British subsidiary of WalMart and holds a large share of the UK grocery market. The company have taken steps in order to become more social and connect with all of their 175,000 employees around the country by launching social business projects. These projects include The Green Room – a staff-focused web portal – as well as Your ASDA – a website that houses the 'happy to help' promise. Read this case study to discover how ASDA have become a well-rounded social business.

1. SOCIAL BUSINESS CASE STUDY
ASDA
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2. • British supermarket chain (subsidiary of WalMart)
• 564 stores in the UK
• Founded in 1949
• Operating income £638 million
• 17.5% share of the UK grocery market
• 175,000 employees
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3. ASDA’s social business aims
What does ASDA want to achieve?
Speak to ASDA Discover and share
Connect employees
employees directly amazing stories
from around the
to gather feedback about ASDA and its
country
and opinions employees
Inspire everyone,
whether customer or Share ASDA’s story
member of the team, with the public
to work harder
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4. Social business programmes
How are departments across the organisation involved in the programme?
The Green Room MARKETING
• Website for ASDA staff that’s
open to the public
• ASDA employees can come HR SALES
and share their stories about
their working life and the
charity work they do on
behalf of the company
• Customers can use the portal
to tell stories about wonderful
in-store experiences and PRODUCT
exceptional members of staff B2B SALES
PLANNING
• The Green Room aims to
inspire other members of
staff to work harder
CUSTOMER
SERVICE
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5. Social business programmes
How are departments across the organisation involved in the programme?
Connecting the whole MARKETING
company
• The Green Room connects all
HR SALES
employees who can simply
log in using their colleague
number
• The ‘benefits book’ portion of
the website allows employees
to collect rewards for being
part of the team
• The site incentivises hard PRODUCT
work by rewarding staff B2B SALES
PLANNING
members who go above and
beyond for the company and
its associated charities CUSTOMER
SERVICE
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6. Social business programmes
How are departments across the organisation involved in the programme?
MARKETING
Something in it for everyone
• ASDA staff can get together
to find out what’s happening HR SALES
around the company as well
as share their own stories,
pictures and videos.
• By sharing colleague stories,
the communications team
hope to inspire other workers
to do amazing things
• The website acts as a host for PRODUCT
B2B SALES
all important content, from PLANNING
employee stories through to
social media policies
CUSTOMER
SERVICE
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7. Social business programmes
How are departments across the organisation involved in the programme?
Making the most out of MARKETING
social
• ASDA adopt multiple
channels to keep their ‘happy HR SALES
to help’ promise
• The ‘Your ASDA’ website
features videos and photos
from the company in addition
to blogs from senior staff
members and customer
feedback forums PRODUCT
• The homepage features all of B2B SALES
PLANNING
ASDA’s social profiles,
including Facebook and
Twitter CUSTOMER
SERVICE
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8. Social business programmes
How are departments across the organisation involved in the programme?
MARKETING
Adopting real-time
• ASDA owns a multitude of HR SALES
Twitter channels for different
purposes
• @asda acts as a news source
and a promotional channel to
highlight key offers in-store
• @ASDAServiceTeam respond
to consumers complaints and
PRODUCT
queries in real-time on a one- B2B SALES
PLANNING
to-one basis
CUSTOMER
SERVICE
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9. Organisational culture and approach
What values and approach did ASDA need to adopt to make it happen?
Collaboration
• Aiming to connect ASDA employees to each other nationally and share stories with each other
Celebration
• Adopted a culture that encourages staff to tell their stories
Openness
• Internal staff stories openly shared with the public, invitation to public to contribute too
Customer-centric
• Emphasis on customer feedback, involvement and response
Inspirational
• The most inspiring staff and customer experiences are incentivised and promoted
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10. “At Asda, we try to be as transparent as possible, the
Green Room was created on this very premise. We
hear amazing stories about our colleagues on a daily
basis, whether that’s a colleague saving the life of a
baby in store, or someone having their head shaved for
charity (I’m talking about a female colleague as well!)
Asda colleagues always go above and beyond.”
Steven Murgatroyd, ASDA
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11. References
" Calum Brannan
How Asda tip-toed into social media
" Inspire: retail design blog
Asda – the green room
" Jon Weedon
Asda’s Greenroom re-visited
" Rachel Miller
The Green Room has a facelift
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