Business Operations - Essay Example

Business operations I am a pursuing a in International Business at Lynn Florida. I am a senior student originally from Saudi Arabia. This paper focuses on business operations in a Spa called Brazelia Med Spa in Boca Raton where I underwent my internship. I worked in this Spa nineteen hours per week from 3/9/2014 to 5/3/2014, five days a week from Tuesday till Saturday. To ascertain various issues regarding businesses operations in general, I interviewed one of cousins in Saudi Arabia through Skype. Brazelia Med Spa is a B2C (Business to Customer) business with products and services ranging from medical, Intravenous nutrition, medical aesthetic, massage therapy, weight management, aesthetic, body care, chronic pain sports injury, and labs. There are also a number of procedures conducted in this institution such as intravenous nutrition therapy, Botox/dysport and dermal fillers, weight management, and hormone replacement therapy. There are other Spas in Florida that compete with Brazelia in offering these services. One of these include the Forever Young Med Spa in South Florida. Brazelia is a for-profit institution that has been open to the public since the year 2007 and hence has a strong customer base. This institutions mission is "to bring familys health to an optimal and harmonious balance". During my internship, I worked at the reception, insurance department, and financial department. My roles and responsibilities included organizing patients applications alphabetically, filling out patients information such as name, cell number, date of birth, and email address in a sheet, and putting all the important patients details in the system. It was also my duty to ensure that all patients confirmed their appointments. It is worth noting that managers face many challenges blending knowledge, skills, ambitions, and expertise of a diverse group of employees. It is therefore imperative for managers to have leadership attributes that would help them in the achievement of organizational goals. A huge percentage of effective managers have conceptual, communication, effectiveness, and interpersonal skills. A manager must have interpersonal skills for him or her to effectively communicate and socialize with colleagues as well as other employees. According to Griffin and Moorhead, "The manager uses interpersonal skills to communicate with, understand, and motivate individuals and groups" (10). Additionally, Griffin and Moorhead posits that "conceptual skills are the managers ability to think in the abstract. A manager with strong conceptual skills is able to see the big picture. That is, she or he can see opportunity where others see roadblocks or problems" (11). Conceptual skills of a good manager include ingenious and inventive thinking, philosophical reasoning, ability to evaluate and scrutinize intricate circumstances, and the ability to comprehend divergent topics or concern and subsequently resolving them. Interpersonal skills include the ability to consider peoples feelings in decision making, demonstrating empathy i.e. showing admiration for other peoples opinions or ideas, and listening to the concerns of employees. Examples of communication characteristics that effective managers ought to have include ability to communicate in a method or technique that all employees and stakeholders can comprehend, and selecting the correct channel for communication. Effectiveness in terms of leadership skills denotes a managers ability to encourage communication, involve all stakeholders, being flexible, and support for personal development (Training 41). In demonstrating conceptual skills, the management at Brazelia Spa compares the work being done by the employees with the laid down objectives, and whether the activities are in line with the organizational goals. Best practices are then communicated from the top level of management to the other levels of management and plans put into place to ensure that these activities are replicated in all the departments. In times of conflict between among employees and between the management and employees, the management listens keenly to both parties involved in the conflict and subsequently makes a resolution in a peaceful manner. This is how interpersonal skills and effectiveness is demonstrated at Brazelia Spa. In addition, the interpersonal skills are demonstrated through discouraging gossip in the workplace, showing courtesy, and respecting other peoples opinions. All communications are made in through the right channel and in a language or technique that all employees are able to understand or comprehend. There are two views that can be used to demonstrate the effectiveness of management principles. These views include omnipotent and symbolic views. According to Patterson, "The symbolic view suggests that group and situational factors have the greatest influence on organization performance and the managers have minimal influence. The omnipotent view suggest that managers have complete control and influence on organizational performance" (29). One of the important figures in Brazelia Spa include Dr. Brazelia who is the President of the institution. Her management style can be regarded as the coaching style. As postulated in the Spas website, Dr. Brazelia "prides herself on ensuring that each and every one of Brazelia Med Spa patients receives the very best and carefully tailored protocols specified to their restorative treatments and needs". In other words, she is very committed in encouraging all employees and stakeholders to advance their strong points, and inspires employees through availing opportunities for them to advance professionally. Quantitative management as posited by Griffin lays a lot of emphasis on making resolutions, financial efficacy, statistical representations, and the use of technology (17). One of the applications of qualitative or scientific management is the management of accounts and records in Brazelia. Additionally, scientific management is use in Brazelia in designing job roster or schedule showing employees who are supposed to be on duty. Organizational culture is an important factor that contributes to the success of each and every organization or business. Employees at Brazelia Spa works together as a team and this is accomplished through encouraging communication and involvement of all employees in decision making. This makes it possible for all individuals involved in the provision of services such as doctors to share their opinions regarding particular cases, investigate and explore alternatives instantaneous. This helps the Spa meet its mission and objectives. It is a ritual in the Spa for all visitors to be greeted and welcomed with respect. The physical structure of the Spa also illustrates its organizational culture. In my opinion, restoring the health of individuals goes hand in hand with confidentiality and privacy. Rooms and enclosed and this helps provide clients with the privacy they require. Socially responsible activities significantly affect a companys economic performance. According to Lamb, Hair and McDaniel, "if business isnt responsible, then government will create new regulations and perhaps levy fines against corporations" (88). This increases a companys cost of operation and hence negatively affect its revenue. Socially responsible activities have already been put in place in Brazelia Med Spa. For instance, all employees are expected to be ethical or moral when dealing with clients or customers. They are expected to be straightforward, open, just, reasonable, and consider the feelings of others. In fact many companies have a code of ethics that acts as a guide for social responsibility. The key components of a code of ethics include standards, ideals, support from the management, a clear proclamation regarding the roles and responsibilities of each stakeholder in espousing the code of ethics, and compliance to ensure conformity. Social responsibility in Brazelia has helped discern the Spa from its competitors. In other words, adopting socially acceptable activities add the worth and significance of the Spa within the health and beauty industries and hence confers customer with a reason and basis for seek its services. This leads to more customers and increased revenue. Therefore, the stakeholders benefits from the success of the Spa. One of the problem that warranted action in Brazelia Spa involved ensuring the confidentiality of clients records. Since some of the procedures conducted are medical, clients are required to provide their medical history in order for the doctors and other individuals involved to plan their activities appropriately. Some of the information released by the clients include identification card numbers and bank details. This information can be used to steal money from the clients if it fall into wrong hands. When the Spa identified the need to ensure such information is treated with confidentiality, alternatives were proposed by the stakeholders. These alternatives included encrypting all electronic information associated with the clients, safeguarding all electronic files with a password, and physically limiting access to clients information. These alternatives were discussed in a bid to identify the most effective one. After discussions, the stakeholders agreed on safeguarding or protecting sensitive information by the use of passwords. This was put into practice and only a few individuals considered to have high moral standards were given the passwords. This significantly reduced the chances of sensitive information associated with clients from falling into the wrong hands. As mentioned earlier, Brazelias mission is to harmonize and optimize the health of families. The main objective of the Spa is to become a valuable leader in the healthcare sector. One of the projects that has been a success in this institution involved the provision of nutritional education. There were environmental opportunities and threats that impacted on this project. One of the threats involve competition from other Spas offering similar services. Opportunities included the availability of modern technology hence it was easy for the Spa to publicize the project through the social media and other advertising channels. There were also strengths and weaknesses to this project. The strong management skills of the individuals in management who have adopted a coaching style of leadership. One of the weaknesses was the scope of the market. Brazelia Spa is located in South Florida hence its scope is more or less around Florida. In this project, the corporate executives were in-charge of choosing the scope of the market and also the type of individuals to focus on. In other words, they formulate the business strategy and then transmit it into all the strategic business divisions. Consequently at the managerial level, the implementation of the strategies formulated by the corporate executives are discussed and implemented. The nutrition education project at Brazelia was formulated by the senior executives and then passed on to all the departments where the managers executed the project. In implementing these strategies, the managers established goals and objectives for the project. The main objective or goal was to achieve a healthy nutritional status of individuals and significantly reduce lifestyle diseases such as diabetes. Due to the high numbers of people living with preventable disease, this project was a success as many people were in need of nutritional education. Chain of command (Source: Internet) This is an example of a diagram showing the chain of command in Brazelia. Dr. Brazzelia, who is the president is the managing director. Each of the departments is headed by a manager. The sales unit is where all procedures are conducted, and services offered. This institution has an organic structure characterized by teamwork, delegation of roles and responsibilities, and effective communication. E-mailing, telephoning, and physical meetings have in important role in advertising services and products at Brazelia Med Spa. In the modern world, more people are using technology to look for services and hence these communication channels helps the institution relay important information to the public aimed at educating them. Subsequently, employees and stakeholders are encourages to convey their concerns and contributions through these communication channels. Training staff on writing and speaking with staff and customer is important as it ensures that communication is done in a clear manner that all individuals involved are able to understand or comprehend. There are differences in how men and women communicate in the workplace. According to Goodall, Goodall and Schiefelbein, "women tend to use a rapport-building style whereas men tend to use a report-making style" (113). Brazelia Med Spa generates its revenue through offering services to its clients. Some of these services include medical services, intravenous nutrition, medical aesthetic, aesthetic, massage therapy, weight management, body care, chronic pain management, sports injury management, and laboratory services. The most significant expenses in operating business in Brazelia Med Spa include labor. Cost of labor is cut through exploiting employment of temporary employees, and also through ensuring part-time workers exceed their working hours. Policies on pay and benefits in Brazelia Med Spa include medical insurance plans that covers all aspects of health, and retirement plans. Employees are also given leaves of absence either for academic purposes or medical purposes. It is also worth noting that employees are allowed to work overtime and are compensated accordingly. Incentives for rewarding employees at Brazelia Med Spa include travels, bonuses, issuing commodities or basic items, and cash incentives. Brazelia Med Spa uses the value bases pricing strategy. This is an effective pricing strategy since it focuses on the customer in terms of quality of services. The Spa depends on a number of communication avenues to market and promote its services to new and repeat customer. One of these include the social media and the internet. Many people today use the internet on a daily basis and hence it is a good platform for promoting business. Additionally, the Spa depends on the word of mouth as satisfied customers recommend the Spa to their friends and family. Available incentives to increase visibility and stimulate purchasing from its customer base include offering some free services for loyal customers, and free drinks for the customers. Operations management has a number of advantages to organizations and managers. Operation management helps an organization improve its level of productivity and hence leads to elevated levels of revenue or gains for the organization. Subsequently, the clients competitive precedence are met through effective operations management. In providing value, Brazelia Med Spa ensures that all employees understand and comprehend what value entails. The Spa also has a solution to all health related problems, and ensures that clients achieve more than what they were looking for. Brazelia has implemented a number of strategies geared towards meeting the criteria for W. Demings 14 points from improving management productivity (Kreitner and Cassidy 469). The Spa ensures constant improvement of its services, encourages employees to use available resources in an effective manner, minimize errors, builds strong relationships with its business partners, ensures regular training of staff, provides good leadership, ensures teamwork and motivation, encourages employees to have a positive attitude, minimizes pressure on its employees, ensuring employees involvement in all activities including decision making, and also encourages employees to advance their skills and knowledge through education. Works cited "Brazelia Med Spa." brazeliamedspa, 2013. Web. 02 May. 2014. < http://brazeliamedspa.com/ > Goodall, H L, Goodall Sandra, and Schiefelbein Jill. Business and Professional Communication in the Global Workplace. Boston: Wadsworth, 2010. Print. Griffin, Ricky, and Moorhead Gregory. Organizational Behavior: Managing People and Organizations. Mason: Cengage Learning, 2012. Print. Griffin, Ricky. Student Achievement Series: Principles of Management. Boston: Cengage Learning, 2007. Print. Kreitner, Robert, and Cassidy Charlene. Management. Mason: Cengage Learning, 2008. Print. Patterson, Coleman. Management Briefs. London: Bookboon, 2010. Print. Training, MTD. Effective Communication Skills. London: Bookboon, 2010. Print. Read More