Restructuring Management Structure and Hierarchy of United Package Express - Coursework Example

?To, The Chief Executive Officer, United Package Express 25th February Dear Sir, I am pleased to access your companies position with regards to the current dynamic situation internally and industry wide and propose the following three projects which shall contribute to achieve your vision for the merged company. Project I – Restructuring Management structure and hierarchy of United Package Express Description In cases of Mergers and Acquisitions it’s of utmost important that all the companies and its top management know where they fit in the whole gamut of newly incorporated changes. They need to understand their role and others as well to put the overall administration in perspective. It’s only then they shall optimize the resources and take full advantage of the M&A which has taken place. If there is a communication gap between management or structural deficiencies, it will directly effect the business and hence its profitability. SMART objectives Specific: What exactly do I want to achieve Create a structure which is acceptable to all top management of merged companies. Who reports to whom? Why? Who is senior to whom? Why? Is single reporting structure better or should there be dual reporting? How about dotted reporting? Should companies still consider their staff separate from other companies? These are few of the questions which can be asked in order to achieve this project, because I believe that its only a healthy management team which can fulfill your target of increasing revenue and decreasing costs by correct delegation and reporting. Measurable: How will I know I have got it? Seamless flow of administrative instructions with 99% accuracy will be a point where one can say that the structure is running smoothly. There can be staff members identified from the top management who shall be responsible in implementing the whole plan and giving feedback to overall management team about its progress and improvements required if any. Since time in hand to revamp the whole system is only 6 months, keeping in mind the Bonsai business, this needs to be done on priority and within 6 weeks or so. Achievable: How do you know you are capable of reaching this goal? A step is already taken by identifying the CEO, 3 VPs and 3 GMs all from different erstwhile companies. The rest of the structure should fall in place whereby the remaining Ex GMs and VPs and COOs of the merged companies find their best fit in the organization. There are innumerable examples of good and bad management structures available by research on other companies where one can learn from in case of such M&As. Hence its certainly achievable, but its success depends on its planning and execution. Realistic: How realistic is this goal? Putting a structure in place for better organizational management is achievable with correct information and cooperation from all team members. This is a prerequisite and there is no question of it being non realistic. Timed: How long will it take me to reach this goal? Time is of essence here, but that should not lead to a haphazard structure or strategy. Huge effort has to go into this, within a significantly small time frame. 6 weeks is what I have set with scope of 2 weeks delay. This is assuming that its not only the restructuring work being carried out but other projects being implemented side by side in operations, logistics and administration. Contribution to your goals This project will be the hidden secret to your success if its well executed. Team work specially between staff of different merged companies is key to success of the united entity. Your goal to make UPE a company which is most exciting to your staff and suppliers and eventually become best distribution and Logistics Company worldwide can be possible if this goal is achieved in early stages of new company. It is these joint teams which will enable the company to be agile and responsive to customer’s business needs across the world. Challenge 1 - Relatively less cooperation from management team of either of the merged company This has to be tackled by passing board resolutions, understanding what motivates each manager and how the decision making committee can try to achieve it. Option needs to be given to each manager as far as possible for the role he wants to take in the new organization which is in sync with his skills and designation. Challenge 2 – Devising a reporting structure which is similar throughout the globe Different countries have different number of regional centers, different numbers of delivery depots and different numbers of hubs. Due to this the structure might be little different in each country and more number of layers might be required to be added in larger countries giving a larger chain of hierarchy. This should not give any undue advantage to a person from any region to grow in the company. This can be tacked by giving different designations but similar internal grades of employment and that they are treated at part when it comes to appraisals Challenge 3 – Time management When management team is trying to manage and restructure its own existence everything under it gets affected. Hence time is very important. In no way should the strategy and the impact of restructuring be affected in pursue of finishing the project on time, but due importance needs to be given to time factor as you wish to bid for few new projects in due course of time. Project II - Contact centre centralization Description As the case describes each company over a period of time had developed its own way of customer service, by the way of a telephone call to the call centre or putting a web based email query to the central team. Either ways it’s the call centre which manages such queries by liaising with main operations team for having access to company information. Major Data centers of all three companies are located in different locations which makes information sharing difficult. All three companies have their respective call centers in different parts of the world. But one common link is India where all three companies have some presence. If this can be merged with one big Indian Business Process Outsourcing unit, it will be a huge leap for UPE to improve its customer service and to decrease its costs. SMART Objectives Specific: What exactly do I want to achieve? I propose to merge all contact centers and make one data hub. This may or may not include merging of data centre sites as that is the work of the IT infrastructure team. ZExpress caters to 400000 queries a day via phone and web. If we extrapolate data for other two companies based on ZExpress’s data the call and web volumes stand at 300000. 0.7 Million queries a day is a decent volume for it to be merged at a single place for better management and service to customers. Measurable: How will I know when I have got it? Once the existing operations are shut down and new operations starts at a worthy company in India we can start monitoring the improvement in customer service. That is when we know the project is complete. One single phone number for all your logistic needs is what needs to be made possible. A customer satisfaction survey can be done at each of the three centers for individual companies and then a holistic survey at the central call centre can be done to see the improvement in satisfaction. Achievable: How do you know you are capable of reaching this goal? Huge companies in finance, IT, health care or even Medicine have outsourced their phone and web based work successfully to call centers in India, China, Philippines and Brazil. All three companies are capable of managing outsourced work in India, then UPE should definitely be able to manage it. Realistic: How realistic is the goal? Stressing on the fact again that all three companies have operations in India and it is a better decision to outsource the work is realistic. This is a business where information is not as critical as it is for a Bank or other financial institution. The company can afford to outsource the phone and web based work to other counties and manage it from the head office. Timed: How long will it take me to reach this goal? This is something which will have to be done in phased manner. Shutting down of existing operations in native countries and shifting to BPOs in India will take significant amount of time and planning. This can be best done one by one country or region wise. Once one company operations are transferred the learning from that can be used for next company and same for the last one. 18 months should be a reasonable time frame to do this as by that time the GPS system, introduction of WEB based tracking in other two companies will also be in place. Contribution to your goals This project has a dual benefit which will help achieve your goals. One is it will be a huge savings in terms of operational cost of maintaining and running call centers at three different sites in world to handle volumes of 700000 queries a day. The way the merged company wants to grow, the traffic on the web and volumes of calls will only increase. Hence its best to outsource. Second benefit is it will achieve a standard of customer service which other competitors are not focusing on. It’s the experience of the customer with the call centre which will matter the most as he shall be calling them the most often. Challenge 1 – Finding the right BPO in India or other country It would be easy if there are BPOs in world who are already offering logistics related operations assistance to other companies. We assume they shall have necessary expertise to understand this business. But if not then significant amount of time will go in finding the right BPO for this project and creating a process note from scratch. All this needs to be done keeping in mind that there has to be significant cost savings and no compromise on customer service as well. Challenge 2 – IT Systems It’s the information with the call centre for which the customers shall be calling them. The information to the call centre will be provided by the companies IT system. This system has to be so efficient that the updation of status should take place real time and call centre should be able to retrieve the latest details within seconds. A new platform might have to be designed for the purpose of data sharing with call centre. Challenge 3 – Data security Who is sending the parcel? Who is the receiver? Where does the sender and the receiver live? What are the card payment details of the customer? Contact details of the parties involved? Value of items being carried and its traceability? These are some data security questions which come in mind when you plan to outsource. Wealth of information will have to be shared with the BPO and hence the company needs to be careful about its legal obligations to each other. Proper agreement and data security deals needs to be executed along with use of necessary data theft prevention softwares. Project III - Introduction of GPS tracking and WEB based tracking for all customers throughout all countries Description Pacific RIM Logistics does not have WEB based tracking system. Its updation is only done once the driver returns to the hub after collection or delivery. Home and Colonial Carriers also have no web based tracking system. This can prove to be a major handicap in the growth of these companies. A project needs to be undertaken to merge the operations of these two companies with ZExpress in such a way that its Website is able to handle the data generated by these two companies and people can check the status of their parcel online as well. SMART Objectives Specific: What exactly do I want to achieve? This is the age of internet and ability of the customer to track its parcel online is highly appreciated by customers. Its handy, quick and does not involve dependency on humans. Its more accurate than manual systems and is as good as real time. This internet integration will take place via creation of a new website on the new company’s name. It can opt to use the existing platform of ZExpress to save on the costs. If GPS system is introduced, ideally it should be a part of this project as GPS would be the key to real time tracking messages. Measurable: How will I know when I have got it? When each and every transaction information is available online to a customer this project will be accomplished. This includes past transactions of customers with us, payment amounts, history of delivery details and current delivery details. New schemes, offers and facilities can also be marked on the website. Acheivable: How do you know you are capable of reaching this goal? This is the age of Google and face book where everything is going virtual, so much that there are people who live a virtual life on the internet. Technology is advanced enough to provide this kind of a facility where by a person can track his parcel online from pick up point to delivery point real time. Realistic: How realistic is this goal? The existing CEO of ZExpress had taken up this project with 21C-COM while he was working for Global Express Deliveries. The complacent market leaded did not want to move ahead with the technological advances not because its not realistic, but the priorities for it were different. This is the real opportunity to become a market leader by innovation leadership. Timed: How long will it take me to reach this goal? This is a capital intensive plan and considering the cost cuttings to come a realistic time line can only be determined once we know the costs involved in it. If the costs are too high a phased implementation can be done. If they are reasonable then an execution can be done and cost added as capital expenditure on technology. 18 months seems to be a reasonable time for this project if money is not to be considered as a factor. Contribution to your goals You have created a new position for VP Innovations for a purpose. I am sure you are as excited about this new technology GPS by 21C-COM as much as I am. This will enable you to take UPE to greater heights technologically so advanced that other companies will have to bear significant cost to install it once the technology is implemented on full scale. Real time tracking means more customers are pulled towards you, a better web interface will increase the feel good experience of the customers and hence more revenue. Costs might be compromised here but this will be a key to make UPE a major force in the distribution and logistics market and to integrate all three companies to create a single worldwide distribution company. Challenge 1 – Cost This is a new technology and huge amount of money has been paid by the telecom companies for having the 3G license. Thought not cheaper, it can be managed by implementing it in phased manner in different countries at different times. Or only a limited service can be taken from 21C-COM. This will also lead to cost savings of managing three data warehouses, or different contact centre teams which will compensate for high cost of this project. You, as the CEO of the company, might consider options other than upfront payment to the telecom company. Like revenue sharing, equity share etc. to dilute the impact of cost on the company. Challenge 2 – Physical equipment maintenance and replacement Sheer volume of parcel processed in a day for ZExpress is 35,000,000. This is poised to grow as you aim to have at least 30% of market share in 2 years. Such numbers would require a large number of scanning devices and GPS tagging gadgets which adds to the cost of buying and cost of maintenance of the same. Many will be damaged, stolen or lost and hence the cost needs to be known before venturing into this technology. Challenge 3 – Acceptability by customers and staff New technology is not always welcome by staff members or even customers. Sometime minor changes in website annoys customers and staff members are confused on the new intranet site. Hence implementation of this technology should be such that it has a minimum negative impact on the customer first and then the staff. Integration of GPS with website should be done with minimal changes to the website. The scanning devices and gadgets should be easy to use and maintain for a long period of time. With sincere appreciation to the efforts you are putting to make UPE a truly global and world class Logistics Company, I would like to wish you Good Luck in all your endeavors. 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