Introduction and background
As stated by Nezhad, Ahmadirad and Mohammadi (2024), a business needs to maintain a structured workflow along with effective management to ensure its growth and success. However, in this research assignment, the impact of digitisation on Asda will be discussed in detail. As per the information highlighted on LinkedIn (2025), Asda is a retail company that offers services in fashion, logistics and the production industry, along with online services. It has its headquarters in Leeds, West Yorkshire, and the UK. According to Asda (2025), the company is one of the leading Britain retailers that were established in the 1960s in Yorkshire. Moreover, about 98% of the households in the UK use Asda’s daily products, and the company serves around 18 million people every week. Apart from that, the company is dedicated to providing quality services to its customers and colleagues.
The areas in which Asda can take measures to improve it will be evaluated in this assignment. As per the information provided by Asda (2025), the Executive Chairman of the company is Allan Leighton, and the Co-owner of Asda is Mohsin Issa CBE. The leader board of the company aims to provide the best value and services to its audience. Apart from that, as stated by Asda (2025), the company initiates specific priorities to have a positive impact on the people, society and the environment. It includes providing healthy and sustainable products at an affordable price to its customers. The second priority is to reduce its carbon emissions to net zero by 2040. Furthermore, it also takes measures to maintain resilience and sustainability in its supply chain to ensure a positive impact on the natural resources. Additionally, it also adopts the principle of reduce, reuse and recycle to optimise its waste management strategy. Hence, these polices enhance the brand value of the company and help it to maintain its competitiveness in the market.
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Aims and Objectives
The research aims to analyse the impact of digitalisation on the HR function of Asda.
The objectives of the research are as follows:
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To understand the concept of digitalisation.
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To evaluate the impact and influence of digitalisation on the HR function of Asda.
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To identify the challenges that Asda can face while implementing digitalisation in its system and environment.
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To provide some recommendations on areas where Asda can take the initiative to improve its development for better development.
Literature review
As demonstrated by Gradillas and Thomas (2025), digitalisation refers to the usage and implementation of the latest and modern technologies in any system or application of an organisation to improve the existing processes, along with developing new products and services. Moreover, through digitalisation, an organisation can shift towards automated devices. Thus, as stated, automation can reduce human errors and increase the speed of processes, which can eventually lead to an optimisation of the efficiency of an organisation. Apart from that, it also improves customer experiences through automated 24*7 customer service. Further, it has been stated to be contributing to boosting the innovation and creativity rate of a company.
Digitalisation has been allocated with the presentation of a significant impact on the Human Resource (HR) department of an organisation. As stated by Murugesan et al. (2023) in addition to that, the HR department can implement the usage of digital tools and online platforms to attract and retain top-talent candidates. Thus, this can increase the productivity and performance of an organisation. Apart from that, it can also organise online learning and development programs to upskill its employees. Hence, these measures can improve employee management along with optimising the productivity of the company. However, digitalisation has several drawbacks. Data security and high implementation cost are some of them.
Thus, an organisation can implement the principle of human capital theory along with digitalisation to improve the overall performance. As stated by Islam and Amin (2022), human capital theory describes an individual’s learning and experiences as their future assets, which can help them to secure a promising career. Thus, an organisation can invest in training its employees, along with equipping them with the knowledge of modern technologies. This can help in the successful implementation of digitalisation. Apart from that, as demonstrated by Cottrell (2021), skills and experience can help an individual to be successful in their respective career. Thus, investing in digitisation can optimise the efficiency, while investing in a development program can optimise the productivity of an organisation.
However, an organisation can face several challenges while implementing digitalisation in its system and applications. However, as stated by Wang (2022), an organisation can face cultural resistance while shifting towards digitalisation. Employees may fear losing their jobs; thus, they can act as a barrier to this transformation. Apart from that, skill and resource gaps can also hinder the process of digital transformation. Additionally, improper leadership and an unclear vision of the goal can also obstruct the process of modern transformation to the digital world. In addition to that, a lack of proper budget and infrastructure can also halt the process of digitalisation. As demonstrated by Kraus and Kraus (2021), huge investments and proper infrastructure are required for changing from a traditional process to a digital process.
Thus, an organisation can use the theory of resource-based view to identify its resources and capabilities, which can help implement digitalisation. As discussed by Nayak, Bhattacharyya and Krishnamoorthy (2023), resource-based theory is a business framework that identifies an organisation's potential and capability to provide a competitive advantage to it and assist it to maintain its existence in the industry. Hence, an organisation can assess its current resources along with developing new capabilities by upskilling its employees to swiftly adapt to the changes. Apart from that, it can also develop strategic planning aligned with its resources to achieve its targeted goal. Finally, it can track and monitor its strategy to understand the effectiveness of the new system.
Gap
However, in this research, details about Asda’s employee management, along with the measures to improve it, are not being discussed. Apart from that, the steps taken by the company to mitigate the challenges faced by digitalisation are not highlighted.
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Justification of the Value and Methodology
Introduction and Value of the Research
The rapid rise and advancements of technological advancements in the digital grounds in the industries and in the retail markets face various HR functions transitions (Haugom et al., 2025). Hence, it has brought fundamental transitions and has reshaped the landscape of the retail business, specifically the Human Resource (HR) functions and operations in the retail sector. The advancement of digitalisation in the functions of HR in using latest management technologies like the Human Capital Management (HCM), Artificial Intelligence (AI), cloud computing, and data analytics for automating the regular and the routine task in order to streamline the processes in the operations within the organisation so that the process of decision making remains strong and useful (Sun et al., 2025). Asda is known to be a major retailer of the UK that has more than 150,000 employees (Global Data, 2025). The company went through a significant digital transformation in the HR department and consolidated the strategy of the HR into an integrated platform by the name Workday HRM.
The mini research work is regarded to be a significant one for the below several reasons:
For Asda: The research will provide an analysis that will be empirical in nature and show how the implementation of the advanced and the latest systems has affected and impacted the various functions of HR. The functions include recruitment, performance management, and engagement of the employees while working within the organisation of Asda (Marchington et al., 2025). This can help the company in identifying the areas which require further improvement and optimisation. It will also consider and address any known or unknown consequences, which include issues such as payroll issues or others, such as leave balance and updating of the employee details during the time of the migration of the previous system to a new system.
For the Academic Community: The research project will serve to be a relevant and real case study, as it will consider the retail company Asda and its transformation in the real-world HR digital transformation. The findings will explain all the understandings that are related to the roles of HR and their functions towards the employees and the company. The impact will also be seen in the high volume of recruitment done for the company, along with the unique operational challenges.
For HR Practitioners: The insights gained from the mini research project will be able to guide other organisations that are going through similar pathways and will highlight the best practices taken by the HR of Asda and the platform for the mobile self-service.
Research Methodology
The methods used in doing the research are called research methodology (Susilawati et al., 2025).The mini research project has been done to apply a mixed method approach that will include the qualitative primary data collection through interviews and the secondary data collection done with the use of the thematic table. It has been done to provide a comprehensive understanding of the chosen topic of the impact of digitalisation on the functions of HR at Asda, which has captured both trends and learnt about the human experiences during the digitalisation that is happening in the retail world, specifically in the chosen organisation of Asda.
Research Onion
The research onion provides a detailed and clear picture for outlining the steps of conducting the research on the given topic.
Figure 1: Research onion
(Source: Research Gate, 2025)
According to García-Lázaro and Reyes-de-Cózar (2025) the research onion, the first step is research philosophy and has been adopted by interpretivism philosophy that helps in making clear concepts and analysis done in proper form.
Research philosophy (Interpretivism) :Interpretivism is defined as the research philosophy that considers reality to be socially constructed, which is mainly combined with mixed methods for gaining a better understanding of complex phenomena in the research topic. By using both the methods of qualitative (interpretivist) and quantitative methods, the subjective meanings have been explored by the researcher and will allow giving rich results which a single approach could not have provided.
The Deductive Research Approach is defined as the way in which specific observations are considered to prove the hypothesis that is achieved or derived from the existing literature.
Exploratory Research Design is defined as the way for navigating or investigating topics that have prior knowledge or information for gaining insights, identification of the patterns and initiation of the theories that have been used for the future.
Secondary Research
Secondary research has been done here with the help of the thematic table that will consider the themes of the research that have been provided for the data and the information on the chosen context of the HR functions (Panait et al., 2025). The data will be collected from the existing sources that include various academic literatures from Google Scholar related to the retail company Asda.
Justification: The thematic analysis approach is regarded to be time-efficient and cost-effective, as it uses the readily available data for building a strong knowledge base on the benefits of HR digitalisation. This involves all the factors of gaining efficiency, data-driven insights and the specific details of the technology used by the HR at Asda for its operations. Moreover, it will help in the identification of the targeted goals of Asda and its perceived benefits while bringing digital transformation. Hence, the scholarly works will show about the services and the ways of streamlining the process of recruitment.
Primary Research (Interviews)
The mini research project will undergo primary research, which will include the questions asked to the employees working at Asda and their responses on the asked questions about the HR functions.
Method: Interviews have been conducted to a total 4 participants that includes the managers, HR executives and the employees of the company about HR related functions and operations that are taking place in the with a sample of Asda's HR managers, general employees and also the IT support staff those are responsible for being involved in the HR systems. Interviews help to get deep insights from the practical working areas about the specific topic.
Justification: While the data collection will give results from the scholarly works of the researchers while on the other hand, interviews will give real experiences that are faced by the actual users. Thus, constant comparison has been done to do the analysis of the interview data.
Primary and secondary research findings
Primary Interview has been done on 4 participants from Asda from various departments like HR, IT and managers.
Primary Interview
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Q.1 Which HR tool is used the most and in what context? |
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Participant 1 |
My Asda app, rota management for working on the request of the holidays. |
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Participant 2 |
Use of Workday for approving leaves or any kind of request and doing performance management of the employees. |
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Participant 3 |
Workday, ATS software for recruitment and used for doing internal comms platforms that is used for communicating. |
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Participant 4 |
It is used for Workday approvals, reporting to the managers or the team leaders and MyAsda app for doing the management of the functions. |
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Q. 2 What are the main benefits of using HR Tools? |
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Participant 1 |
The main benefits are for the convenience of everyone, speed and can access through mobiles at any place. |
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Participant 2 |
In order to bring efficiency at work and functions, bring transparency in processes or any functions and bring data accessibility. |
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Participant 3 |
To do efficient allocating and managing of work by the HR departments for its employees, get data accuracy while performing complex calculations and forecast and the ability to focus on complex cases. |
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Participant 4 |
It helps in saving of lot of time, perform better planning to get targeted results and so that instant communication can be practiced with all the employees. |
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Q.3 What are the current challenges faced by the employees due to the current digitalisation in the HR functions? |
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Participant 1 |
The main challenge that is faced by me is during the breakdown of the app. Training about the new app and the working features are not done in a proper way so that I can handle with easily. |
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Participant 2 |
The new system might be slow and consume lot of time that would affect the performance. It moreover lacks the integration between different systems for running smoothly. |
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Participant 3 |
According to me, there can be bugs in systems and the updates which are necessary can show errors. This it requires better training. |
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Participant 4 |
One of the main difficulties would be the adaptation of the new system by some older employees. |
Table 1: Primary Interview Table
(Source: Created by the Learner)
Analysis
The findings from the interview table done on the employees of the Asda shows a clear respond about the impact of the digitalisation on the functions of the HR. The responses of the employees indicated a high dependence on the app of Asda called the My Asda app or Workday to provide effective HR functions that involves management of the shifts, request for holidays and their approvals (Riches, 2024). The employees significantly showed that they were satisfied by the new changes brought in the functions of the HR operations. Another benefit was in the reduction of the use of the paper decreased significantly that saved a lot of time.
However, a critical analysis is highlighted on some of the areas like the reliability in the systems. The issues laid on the factors of crash on the system and bugs with poor speed. In addition to this, the HR upgradation required for training on the new features so that it can be used smoothly and understood wisely about the personalised HR interaction. The primary data collected from the interview states that systems are developed for the functional for transactional tasks. It is also developed as the human power gets strained that brings in frustration. Thus, it is also known that, barriers are brought by the senior employees who do not like changes.
The findings from the questions 1 tells about the high operational efficiency that can be gained from the advanced digital tools for streamlining routines that allows both employees and managers in saving the precious time and gain better understanding of the data related HR insights regarding the performances of the employees. From the findings of question 2, it was known that significant usability and training gaps were present due to the technical glitches present due to insufficient user training. The third finding states about the requirement of automation balance along with the human communication where it shows about efficiency of digital systems for the functions of HR. From the findings from the last findings, it is known about the digital securities essential for bringing the new changes in the HR functions at Asda.
Secondary Data Analysis
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Theme |
Title |
Author |
Year |
Key findings |
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Assessing Operational Efficiency in HR through Digitalisation |
A digitalisation model for operational efficiency of operations in the insurance industry. |
Gama, S.M., Phahlane, M. and Malungana, L., |
2025 |
Digitalisation in the various industries have brought transformation in the HR company, enabling a shift from traditional functioning of HR to modern ways. |
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Evaluation of the user experience of digitalisation and its adoption in HR functions |
Digital Transformation of Employee Experience Management: Tools, Practices, and Trends. |
Kravchuk, O., Varis, I. and Liaсh, I. |
2024. |
HR professionals are empowered with the digitalisation of the processes of HR functions so that communication can be enhanced as well make the personal developments. |
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Strategic Impact on bringing digitalisation for HR roles |
Digitalisation and Performance Management: A Conceptual Framework for HR Governance |
Samir, M.I.R.D.A.S.S.E., |
2024 |
The ongoing digital changes have brought effective transitions in the management practices within organisations. |
Table 2: Thematic Table
(Source: Created by the Learner)
Analysis and Findings
In the thematic table, highlight has been done on the impacts of the digitalisation on the HR functions of Asda. It tells that, Asda has been able to implement technology successfully into its functions for meeting the primary objective of improving operational efficiency according to the standards of the industry. The objective mainly focused on automation and the time savings that are strongly supported by the literature review done and according to the feedback of the employees regarding convenience and access to receive information in a short time.
However, the analysis done states about the challenges that arise from the point of user experience. The issues of system reliability along with the training deficiencies indicate the point that implementation was not done properly.
Discussion
As stated by Anastasiadou, Mpogiatzidis and Angelidis(2024), an organisation must take ethical consideration and follow the regulations while implementing digitisation. It includes maintaining transparency, fairness in its internal and external environment of an organisation. Apart from that, it also involves measures to respect the privacy and provide data and information security to its customers. In addition to that, ensuring the well-being of the stakeholders of the company is also essential while shifting to the digital world. Thus, Asda can develop clear and open guidelines of a code of conduct to ensure fair practices within its work culture. Apart from that, it can also apply ethical leadership practices to prevent bias, along with prioritising the safety and well-being of its employees first.
Ethical considerations
The researcher has analysed how the company has collaborated with global and well-recognised technologies to enhance the digitalisation process. As per the information provided on the official website of Asda (2025), the company is committed towards its responsibilities and upholds the highest standards of ethics. Apart from that, it also ensures to provide a positive and suitable environment for its employees. Moreover, Asda respects the local communities, along with adhering to the laws of the communities and the localities in which it is operating. Hence, as demonstrated by Efunniyi et al. (2024), all organisations need to maintain ethics and standards in business operations to remain corporate and responsible. Further, the provision of consent form has been important for this task.
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Recommendation
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Thus, to improve HR functions through the process of digitalisation, an organisation can focus on strategic planning along with the effective process of implementing the plan. Thus, Asda can define its goals and mission clearly, along with a structured and comprehensive plan to achieve them. Apart from that, it can develop a road map and work according to it. As described by Komandla (2023), a proper action plan and a road map can help an organisation to achieve its target more effectively and within the allotted deadline.
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Moreover, Asda can automate its applications and systems. This can reduce human error, along with accelerating the speed of production and performance. Furthermore, it can also reduce operational costs. As stated by Asda (2024), the company has significantly improved and added new features and processes to its existing system. The company has introduced over 16,500 checkout devices along with 28,000 Scan & Go devices to improve customer experiences. Thus, the company is shifting towards digitalisation. Apart from that, Asda has launched new processes with the help of its 26,000 trained and upskilled employees, along with 10,000 upgraded devices.
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Apart from that, an organisation can take measures to change its internal infrastructure and culture for the successful implementation of digitalisation. As discussed by Galeazzo, Furlan and Vinelli (2021), employees play a crucial role in the enhancement of the performance of the company. Thus, the HR department of Asda can take measures to organise development processes along with initiatives to provide financial benefits to appreciate the efforts and contributions of the employees.
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Through digital transformation, an organisation also aims to improve the brand value that can attract skilled and talented candidates who can contribute a better impact on the growth of the organisation. In addition to that, the HR can foster an environment which encourages and supports continuous innovation and growth.
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Furthermore, an organisation can also invest in Human Capital Management (HCM) systems along with Applicant Tracking System (ATS) to improve the workflow and to maintain a proper record of the performance of each employee. Thus, this can help an organisation to accelerate its growth and development rate.
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However, Asda can use the idea of diffusion of innovation theory to bring about the change in digitalisation, along with being sustainable. As stated by Guidolin and Manfredi (2023), the diffusion of innovation refers to the process of how an organisation can add new ideas and technologies to its existing products and services, which spreads through a population over time. This theory was introduced by Everett Rogers. Moreover, the primary components of this model are innovation, effective communication channels, time and the social system. Thus, based on this theory, Asda can focus on the characteristics of technologies, along with monitoring the stages of the adoption process for the successful and stable implementation of the change.
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Every individual has a different level of perception; thus, Asda can take measures to ensure that every employee has completely perceived and understood the ideas of digital transformation and adapted to the change. As discussed by Okou et al. (2021), HR leaders can effectively manage the internal environment and employees by using the principle of diffusion of innovation (DOI) theory.
Conclusion
To conclude, it can be inferred that by shifting towards digitalisation, Asda can be financially beneficial, along with being sustainable and competitive in its respective industry for a long time. Apart from that, it can take the initiative to implement the digital process in its HR department successfully. This can optimise the workflow, along with increasing the efficiency of the company. In addition to that, it can also invest in the latest technologies and detailed models to automate its services, which can reduce the need for human capital resources and reduce human errors. These measures can decrease the operational cost of the company, along with assisting the company in accessing new markets globally.
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