The Vision of Improving Service and Creating a Better Organisational Culture - Statistics Project Example

 1. Company overview Lidl is a discount organisation that provides supermarket items to a wide variety of mass market customer groups. The business sells everything from produce to liquor, using an everyday low price model with periodic sales specials. There are approximately 8,000 different Lidl stores currently in operation, including presence in the UK, Sweden, and 18 other countries. Because consumer behavioural patterns and buying preferences differ in each country where Lidl operates, there are distinct needs and lifestyles from diverse customer segments. This means that product offerings in each Lidl store must be adaptable to local cultural needs and in-store service concepts need to be regionally developed rather than centralized through headquarters. The company’s largest competitor is Aldi, a German-owned discount grocery chain. It competes with many different low-price model supermarket stores, therefore differentiation is key to improving sales, along with a strong customer service focus. Key objectives of Lidl, in terms of customer value creation, include clean and tidy stores, friendly and honest service imperatives, and wide-range of products with a high focus on quality (lidl.co.uk, 2010). Lidl has a functional organisational structure, with a management hierarchy that has clearly defined roles and job obligations. Employees report to divisional managers, who in turn report to senior executives. It is a traditional, functional structure with centralized controls. At the leadership and management level, the business considers itself transformational in terms of employee relations. Transformational leadership involves showing employees integrity, setting a clear vision of where the company wants to be, and the leader acts as inspiration to employees (Endrissat, Muller & Meissner, 2005). This is evident by Lidl’s acknowledgement of providing an environment that promotes employee satisfaction, interacting in a respectful manner and trust and loyalty philosophies related to manager and employee interaction (lidl.co.uk, 2010). However, despite the communication of transformational beliefs, media representation of Lidl’s management efforts have created a culture of mistrust with accusations relating to labour problems and employee surveillance. A less-unified organisational culture at Lidl can lead to many problems with implementing the new project, including resistance to change or failing to adopt the new service focus vision. The business has high turnover rates, which also might indicate problems with organisational culture or need to improve human resources policies. 2. The project stakeholders The project stakeholders in the new complaints process include the customers themselves, who must be measured by their market segment beliefs and their buying behaviours, along with cultural differences. Stakeholders also include employees and managers, who will be responsible for supporting, planning, and implementing the new change programme. Internal stakeholders will include divisional managers, information technology support, sales associates in-store, and the marketing division that must be responsible for research needed to support ongoing changes to meet customer demands outlined in their complaints documentation. The internal teams or divisions identified will have direct influence in the success of this project as their skills and knowledge related to unique business function will be necessary to support this change. Information technology support will be called upon to improve existing customer relationship management systems and implement new systems software packages. Sales associates are important stakeholders in this project as the majority of complaints will likely come from the in-store experience. Training will be a primary focus for sales associates internationally to assist in improving customer service philosophy. Because the business is privately owned and not a publicly traded organisation, Lidl has no investor stakeholders that might pressure the business to change its service dimensions. All decisions will be made internally without concern over investor influence. 3. The project communication plan High growth in international consumer usage of the Internet will be a primary advantage in communicating to the external customer stakeholder. Billions of citizens have Internet access (Aziz & Yasin, 2004). The Internet will be a foundational tool for convenience of placing customer complaints in a structured environment developed by information technology support teams. This will require a new web presence that puts Lidl into the actual households of international consumers, therefore the websites devoted to this process must be culturally-specific with language and society considered in the site construction and content. External customer stakeholders will also have direct communications with a support hotline that handles nothing but customer complaints. Lidl employees responsible for this effort will use only verbal skills to create a positive, lasting image of Lidl with customers internationally. Employees and divisional/in-store managers will have access to project-related communications via the company intranet, where training packages can be stored so that in-store managers can reinforce Lidl’s service concepts to all sales associates. The intranet, already in use, represents a low-cost method of improving communications between headquarters and each of the 8,000 + international locations. Employees that have direct involvement with customers will receive a monthly service appraisal that highlights specific criteria that must be met along with an assessment of their skills capability and focus on meeting new service guidelines. Information technology support teams will be crucial to implementing this project and guiding its systems focus. This team will be required to work directly with different project groups to offer their expertise and insight into how to incorporate new technologies into the existing software infrastructure at Lidl. They will be a day-to-day resource both face-to-face and through other electronic communications packages, such as email and extranet. The marketing team will be called upon weekly to compile data returned from the international complaints. This is a post-implementation stakeholder group whose services will be crucial in post-launch success, but much less during implementation and planning. The marketing team will report their results via the intranet on a bi-weekly or monthly basis (or as needed based on the volume of complaints received and their nature). 4. Project scope The largest expenses, financially, of this project include the development of customer relationship management technology systems and a heavier concentration in training surrounding customer service issues. This is a rather large-scale project that involves multiple divisions and support teams that encompass a multi-national customer market environment. Because the project will require hiring new employees to support the change, recruitment and retention will need to have a much larger focus during the coordination and implementation phases. The project timeline is estimated at six months in order to fully maximise internal talents and improve software technologies to make the project a success. 5. Project objectives Enhance the quality of customer service both in-store and in relation to verbal discussions occurring between Lidl representatives and customers. Improve training packages with a renewed focus on meeting specific customer service objectives. Help the company become more market oriented. This means building an organisational culture that is motivated and dedicated to ensuring the delivery of efficient and superior customer value (Narver & Slater, 1990). Improving employee and managerial competencies related to interactions with customers. New focus on cultural dimensions and international lifestyles of customers will have renewed emphasis. These objectives will give Lidl a better market reputation and equip the company with more skilled human resources that can assist both short-term and long-term because of the improvements being developed. They are strategic objectives with primarily a long-run outcome for improved competitive advantage and a better market position with international clients. 6. Project deliverables Completion of this project will deliver significant strategic advantages for Lidl, including: A completely new CRM (customer relationship management) software package. Enhancing the current and future use of the company intranet, giving it more presence throughout the entire organisation as a key resource for information. A wholly-new department devoted to customer complaint management A more efficient human resources system Better internal knowledge (documented) about what customers demand, allowing for better in-store merchandise selection or sales promotions. A better system of employee networking and team focus related to service vision. The tangible result will be a more unified organisational culture replacing the culture of mistrust currently perceived to be a problem at Lidl. 7. Project acceptance criteria In today’s markets, relationships between business and customers are considered to be not only a source of competitive advantage, but part of global value creation (Myhal, Kang & Murphy, 2008). There is much international focus on issues of environmentalism or expectations for corporate social responsibility in many different social areas, therefore relationships are primary drivers or predictors for consumer behaviour. This new project effort must include strong emphasis on customer value generation that renews existing customer relationships or tries to build similar relationships with totally new market segments. This project must be promoted both internally and externally as a relationship-focused, corporate social responsibility effort to satisfy customer demands for relationship. There must be very visible and active top management support for all changes related to the project, commitment of the project team members to meeting project timeline and budget issues and better group communications. All of these factors are linked with the need for a unified culture at Lidl that is better devoted to meeting the change goals. Approximately two-thirds of all projects undertaken at the business level “fail outright or do not meet some of their budget, schedule or functionality objectives”, as reported by the Chaos Report offered by Standish Group (VanDoren, 2009, p.38). This is due to failures in organisational culture that must be identified and combated using psychological theory and human relations theory, such as new motivational principles and constant reinforcement of service vision to all levels of the organisation. Information technology support must accept their heavy role in planning and launching this project, as this group’s expertise is paramount for achieving success. In order to gain IT support, there must be certain compensatory rewards that are offered for meeting project timelines, budget and efficiency guidelines. Senior managers and human resources managers will need to coordinate their efforts to identify an appropriate rewards system. This same reward system, though less individualised, will be promoted to international employees when they have achieved high standard targets related to their own roles in the project. The method by which the project is communication is another acceptance criteria. A recent survey identified that 95 percent of team members believed communications to be the reason for their project failures (Dyer, 2006). There should be some element of internal promotional literature created that reinforce the importance of the project and the benefits associated with meeting project or training goals. There will be a monthly measurement scorecard created to identify how well managers or employees are working together to isolate and improve problems. A wellness survey will also be distributed each month during the project, to key stakeholders, so that they can lodge their complaints anonymously to help remove deficiencies in project design or team efforts. 8. Project organisation Phase 1 – Senior managers will meet with key divisional managers (including human resources, marketing, and information technology support). The organisational structure of the new department will be considered in Phase 1, based on the availability of certain CRM software programmes and realistic time available to conduct new training. Issues of recruitment will be identified in Phase 1, with the outcome of these discussions to include a clear structural diagram or process flow chart that shows what job roles will be required and the scope of the new department’s responsibilities. Phase 2 –In this phase, human resources will be given the responsibility to develop new training programmes based on new service philosophy and ensure they are posted and distributed via the intranet. HR will also begin recruitment against these new service training guidelines to locate the most qualified applicants that can provide excellence in service concepts. This will involve external recruitment and, as cost savings, internal reorganisation of current employees to their new support roles. Information technology will work with divisional managers to test and pilot new CRM programmes based on the current processes that exist at Lidl. IT support teams will also, in this phase, create the new web presence needed to improve communications with external customer stakeholders. These activities will be monitored by the project manager and top executives as required. Phase 3 – This phase of the project requires the implementation of the complaints hotline, which will be routed to marketing to ensure that in-store promotional literature is created that highlights the new relationship between customers and the organisation. The hotline will be run through several tests to identify strengths and weaknesses in support and help develop employees to have better verbal or interpersonal skills. This phase will also include initial public relations of the project activities to give customers a positive impression of the new progressive service-oriented company and enhance their view of relationships. Data from the first couple of wellness surveys distributed will be compiled by marketing to identify where gaps exist in current teamworking philosophy or management presence in this project. Phase 4 – This phase of the project will have the senior human resources manager coordinating with multi-national store managers to identify training gaps or make improvements. A checklist will be submitted, for distribution on the intranet, showing that each store manager has complied with new customer service training. This phase will begin making transfers of employees that have been selected for movement to the new support role. Newly hired employees will be put through various service training scenarios to reinforce their knowledge of job role responsibility and how to handle difficult customer complaints. This phase will also conclude all testing of new CRM software and website designs and ensure they are ready for launch in the real-time Lidl business environment. Phase 4 represents the actual launch of the new complaints systems. 9. Project risks There are risks associated with scheduling. Lidl already operates in an environment where managerial job roles are stressed and burdened with multi-layer responsibilities. The project manager will need to be assigned as the scheduling champion that works with divisional stakeholders heavily involved in this project. The distribution of resources will be another project risk, as often resources get reassigned to what is perceived to be a higher priority project (Kappelman, McKeeman & Zhang, 2009). The project is working on a limited financial and employee support budget, therefore resource allocation must be controlled centrally by the project manager. Each divisional manager will need to create a short, yet detailed business case for their resource planning needs to ensure that budget is allocated properly and in the right priority. A final risk to the project includes gaining employee or management support, especially those that have proven previous resistance to new change policies. Information technology, because of their concentrated investment in the project, will have many new responsibilities that might lead to disputes over their project role or timeline to complete projects. This again reinforces the need to have a well-detailed and attainable set of goals that lead to bonus compensation for meeting deadlines and budget requirements. 10. Additional project assumption Human resources will have a very concentrated role in this process, already working under difficult and time-pressed business conditions. If certain targets are met, all relevant human resources leadership should be given a bonus compensation package to motivate performance. 11. Managing change The development of a lower-level employee change champion should be accomplished in Phase 1 of the project. This person will be equipped with the transformational attitude related to vision and continue to reinforce the importance of this project to peers and managers. This change agent will periodically check in with all project stakeholders and inquire about how to make the process more satisfactory or improve staff relationships. Changing the culture of mistrust to one of harmony and trustworthiness will rely on the inspirational, visionary, and charismatic personality characteristics of the employee selected as change agent champion. This individual will, for the duration of six months, be completely devoted to promoting and applauding the change, working as a liaison between divisional managers and senior managers to highlight failures, strengths or weaknesses in project process. Creating a new culture where mistrust once existed is something that cannot happen overnight, over the change champion can reinforce that the business is devoted to improving relationships and making this project one that can be enjoyed by all participating stakeholders. This will give management and top executives new presence in team environments, building trust between all levels at Lidl. 12. Closing the project At the project’s end, right before or right after launch, bonus awards will be distributed to all stakeholders who met their project goals. This will be a very publicised internal event that celebrates the successful completion of the project and, again, reinforces that management keeps its promises about improving culture and motivation. This event will give top executives a better reputation, as they will be present as awards distributors, and improve the interpersonal dimension between managers, employees, and various peer groups. The marketing department will be consulted at the project’s close to assist in coming up with a plan on how to mine the data received so that new marketing or product-related efforts can be managed. The format by which this information is calculated and presented will be the marketing group’s decision, however at closure their insight will be highly important as the most skilled resource in understanding consumer behaviour and consumer needs at the international level. The close of the project will have the project manager create a final efficiency report that will be posted on the intranet, spotlighting people in the organisation who exceeded expectations in their own job or group roles. This report will include the original budget set during the planning phase and indicate whether budget was met or where it was over-run. This will help for future projects to identify where failures existed and isolate them from happening again in more projects. It will be an excellent resource to identify failures and help correct them. Further, by acknowledging the champions of the project who deserve special recognition, it again reinforces management’s strong commitment to the vision of improving service and creating a better organisational culture. 13. References Aziz, N.A. & Yasin, N.M. (2004). The influence of market orientation on marketing competency and the effect of internet-marketing integration, Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics, 16(2), p.3. Dyer, S. (2006). The root causes of poor communication, Agency Sales, 36(12), pp.52-55. Endrissat, N., Muller, W. & Meissner, J. (2005). What is the meaning of leadership? A guided tour through a Swiss leadership landscape, Academy of Management Conference. Kappelman, L., McKeeman, R. & Zhang, L. (2009). Early warning signs of IT project failure: The dangerous dozen, EDPACS, Reston. 40(6), p.17. Lidl.co.uk. (2010). Management philosophy. http://www.lidl.co.uk/cps/rde/xchg/SID-CEBFAA71-C1062180/lidl_uk/hs.xsl/5305.htm (accessed April 24, 2010). Lidl.co.uk. (2010). Our customer philosphy. http://www.lidl.co.uk/cps/rde/xchg/SID-CEBFAA71-C1062180/lidl_uk/hs.xsl/5306.htm (accessed April 24, 2010). Myhal, G., Kang, J. & Murphy, J. (2008). Retaining customers through relationship quality: A services business marketing case, The Journal of Service Marketing, 22(6), p.445. Narver, J. & Slater, S. (1990). The effect of a market orientation on business profitability, Journal of Marketing, 54(4), pp.20-35. VanDoren, V. (2009). How to avoid project failure, Control Engineering, 56(11), p.38. Read More