AMP Bank Limited-Service Process - Coursework Example

AMP Bank Limited Service Process Student’s name: Instructor’s Name: Class Name and Code: University: Date of Submission: AMP Bank Limited Service Process A business exists to offer products and services to the consumers. The production of goods and services in the business require costs like labor and capital. Business must come up with most efficient processes to reduce costs. The main objective of business is profit making, and this can be achieved by improving process to ensure that fewer resources are used or by price increase. Both ways require streamlining of the activities that take place in the production of goods and services. Efficient and effective business process ensures that on the production side, the resources are used optimally and on the consumption side customers have great user experience. Hence, there is great need to ensure that business implement the best services process in the industry. A business process refers to set of logically interlinked activities which are interdependent and uses resources to produce a defined business outcome (Weske, 2012, p. 5). The outcome of one business process may be used as input to another business process to achieve a result. The outcome may be physical, information or monetary. The outcome of a business process differs by the type of business; for services companies the outcome will be a service while for manufacturing companies, it may be a product or a service. Moreover, the type of the service processes will be determined by the service focus, customer contact time per transaction, degree of customization and desecration. Other factors which come into the play are value added, back office/front office, and whether the product is product or process focused. Consequently, there are different types of business process which can be employed to improve the delivery of services. Business management may choose to use professional services process, service shops process or mass service processes. The process that a company uses has consequence on the design of the layout of the business and the management of the process (Nankervis et al., 2005, p. 227). The company designs the layout of the business depending on the dominant service process. The essay will identify the dominant process in the AMP Bank Limited and show the consequences of that process on the design and management of the process. The process management of AMP Bank Limited emphasis fast delivery time, on-time delivery, low-cost operations and consistent quality. Though, the objectives compete among each other, the bank desire is to offer quality services at the lowest possible cost (Law Institute Journal, 2005, p. 11). The objective calls for innovative service process that reduces the cost but doesn’t compromise the quality of the service. The dominant service process in AMP Bank Limited is service shop. The retail and corporate sections of the bank use service shop type of process while the call center section uses mass services. In the call center section, there is a large number of customers calling for advice on different issues, and there is also less customization. Moreover, the center uses phones and other communications equipment to help customers, and the bank office staff can offer these services. The above qualities enable the mass production of the service. On the hand, the main sections of the bank use services shop type of service process to offer its banking services. In these sections, there is high customer participation. The customer fills the request form and converse with the bank teller for clarification. Each customer request may different and hence in service shop process there is high adaption of service. The aim is to suit different customer needs. Moreover, these two sections cover the main function of the business. They have a high volume of customers who are seeking different banking services like loans, deposit services, and financial advice. The high volume of customer ensures that there is a fair amount of customer interaction in the bank. A Fairly skilled front office staff handles the high volume of the customer. The skilled employees can standardize services to the customer with similar needs. The shop service process has its implication on the management and design of the bank processes. The key decisions involve the vertical integration, resource flexibility, customer involvement and capital intensity. The decision on this factors determines how the successful the bank will be in a certain year. The management must be able to control the each of the above in a way that the overall performance of the bank improves. Vertical Integration Banking involves getting inputs and transforming them into final services like deposit, safe keeping, financial consultancy, etc. The inputs are the skilled employees, banking hall, security and advertising services among others. The management chooses the level of vertical integration by examining the activities undertaken from acquiring the resources to the delivery of the final service. Vertical integration is concerned with the value chain: from the raw material to the final service (Hill and Jones, 2007, p. 312). High vertically integrated company controls most of the process in the supply chain. If the company does not perform most of the processes, it then opts to outsource most of them to consultancy firms and suppliers. Vertical integration may be backward or forward i.e. the company may desire to own sources of the raw material or acquire channels of marketing and distribution (Hill and Jones, 2007, p. 312). In AMP bank limited, the hiring process is done within the bank. The whole process of hiring, staff development and even firing employees is handled by the bank. The backward integration ensures that the bank hire the right people for the right jobs. It is also important to note that the human resource manager can design jobs in a way that foster employee morale and hence high productivity. On the other hand, advertising and security personnel are outsourced. The two services do not constitute the core processes of the bank, and hence it’s more appropriate that outsiders offer such services. The outsourcing of those services enables the bank to focus on the main services and thus produces high-quality services. The bank has fairly high level of integration due to the service process choice. The shop service process has high customer interaction and also require skilled employee. The bank can only achieve that only if it handles staffing services, training of the staff while outsourcing non-core services like advertising and security. Resource flexibility The service process choice determines the degree of flexibility of the company resources. For example, when the service has a short life cycle and requires high customization, the employees have to do a wide variety of duties and the equipment is usually set for general purposes (Kachru, 2009, p. 104). Another type of flexibility is volume flexibility. Volume flexibility is the ability of the business to operate profitably over a wide range of demand volumes. For example, can the business operate 12 or 24 hours profitably? The bank depending on its service process decides whether to have a flexible staff or not. The AMP Bank staffs are flexible, in that they perform a wide variety of duties. The tellers are capable of giving withdrawals, taking deposit and offering other services as the customer may demand. Most of the services that they offer have a short life cycle with an average life cycle of ten minutes. The shop service process employed by the bank comes at the cost of high training costs for the many tasks the staff may be required to do. On the other hand, the flexibility of the workforce enables the bank to offer reliable customer service and reduce staff shortage. Furthermore, there is low volume flexibility as the bank operates from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. The process also expects steady rate of output and thus most of the employees are permanent with regular full-time employment. AMP Bank customizes its services, and they have a short life cycle. Thus, the type of equipment used like computers and cash registers are flexible and can be used for general purpose. The low fixed cost can offset the high variable cost associated with the labor. Customer Involvement. The service process determines to which extent a customer interacts with the process. The involvement may range from self-service to customization (Wisner and Stanley, 2007, p. 282). The management must also decide the time and the place that the service is to be provided. The AMP Bank allows the customers to select the kind of the service they require before they can be attended by a staff. The customer then proceeds to a teller who handles the request. Therefore, the service has two parts; the self-service part and the customization part. The self-service part enables the company to lower costs while the customization part enables the company to offer high-quality services. Capital Intensity The process design determines the amount of capital intensity required. Capital intensity refers to the mix of equipment and human skills (Mayes and Wood, 2013, p. 250). The AMP Bank has fairly high capital intensity since most the process can be automated. The bank uses computer in most its operation like depositing and withdrawals. Furthermore, the withdrawal is automated by use of ATMs and hence require little human intervention in offering this service. The shop service process requires the management of AMP Bank to invest heavily in technology and capital to safeguard the customers’ information and money. Additionally, the high investment in capital and technology has led to increase in training and staff development cost. In conclusion, the essay has shown the dominant service process in AMP Bank and its consequence on the design and management of the process. In particular, the shop service process determines the vertical integration that the bank employs and the flexibility of the resources. It also determines how much the customers are involved in the service delivery and the whether the bank is capital or labor intensive. Word Count (1631) References Hill, C., Jones, G., 2007. Strategic Management: An Integrated Approach. Cengage Learning. Kachru, U., 2009. Production & Operations Management. Excel Books India. Law Institute Journal: The Official Organ of the Law Institute of Victoria, 2005. . Reviews Pty. Limited. Mayes, D.G., Wood, G.E., 2013. Reforming the Governance of the Financial Sector. Routledge. Nankervis, A., Miyamoto, Y., Taylor, R., Milton-Smith, J., 2005. Managing Services. Cambridge University Press. Weske, M., 2012. Business Process Management: Concepts, Languages, Architectures. Springer Science & Business Media. Wisner, J., Stanley, L., 2007. Process Management: Creating Value Along the Supply Chain. Cengage Learning. Read More