Pricing Policies, Demand and Supply Management - Assignment Example

Name: Tutor: Title: Pricing Policies, Demand and Supply Management Course: Date: Report Analysis Background of the Study In the normal understanding of quality, most people perceive and link it to products in terms of values, but ignore the fact that services also need quality. Abari et al. (2011) notes that people perceive quality to be delivery above the customers’ expectations, which is a safer basis for the business. Service providing organizations including the higher learning institutions are increasingly recognizing the importance of measuring the quality of services that they offer, a practice that is becoming necessary to all organizations. According to Qureshi, et.al (2010), institutes of higher learning are the highly contributing service providing sectors in the economy, where the lecturers and facilitators are the service providers and the customers are the students. There is a rising need to analyze students’ views on the services they receive in order to have an upper hand in improving their services and meeting the needs of the customers. This raised a need to study the difference (gap) that exists between the quality of service students expect from their facilitators and what they actually receive from them. SERVQUAL technique of analysis serves appropriately in the procedure of analyzing the services of teachers. Scope and objectives of the study The study aimed at determining the quality of general educational services that higher learning institutions provide to students. The degree of quality in tutoring that teachers and facilitators of higher learning institutions offer was one of the objectives of the study while employing the SERQUAL analysis technique. The sports area was another of target, where it involved the rating of the students’ contentment on the sports services. The study also involves evaluation of the quality of these services among students, to determine their current view of the services and future expectations of the same. From the objectives, the scope of the study touches on the general services that institutions offer and test on their extent of reliability, responsiveness assurance and empathy in order to attain quality. The study limits extent of research to technical colleges, private universities and public universities in Iran such as the University of Sistan and Baluchestan in Iran, and only services that the institution offers in relation to the student. The study also limits its scope to the SERVQUAL approach of analysis and not any other model. According to the study, departments within institutions also participate in the study where the research obtains information. Having to collect information from higher learning institutions mean that there is a wide range of data since the students include those in technical institutions and the postgraduate students. Methodology The study involves explanations and expressive models, employing different methods of data collection and cross-sectional assessment of ideas. Participants include students of different universities and colleges within the area of study. The study opts for self administration of questionnaires to students (customers) as the most effective method for the relevant data of the study since the response records positive, three quarters of the questionnaires were collected back. It does not involve telephone calls, online surveys, mails or the all of them. The methods are time consuming compared to the self administration. Self administration ensures efficiency, saving of time and cost efficiency since hiring assistants for the administration procedure means cash outflow and sending questionnaires to participants may lead to delays in delivery and at times they might never send them back. The study samples the students using the stratified random sampling method to attain the adequate number of participants for the exercise. The questionnaires that the study uses are closed with limited illustration of the participants’ perception since it employs linkert scale which is seven-point for scaling the responses within the questionnaires with ratings ranging from strongly oppose and strongly agree. Assuming that having open questionnaires would take more time for analyzing the responses since the sample size is large including students of large institutions, closed ended questions serves better in this case, however, it limits the responses that the students give. The study involves no interviews in any case. However, the linkert scale gives exactly to what extent the students feel satisfied or dissatisfied with the services they obtain. Analysis of data employs the T-test method of analysis since the data takes a normal distribution pattern and by means of the linkert scale, the scaling term is known. The survey method saves the duration for the study and ensures efficiency. Findings The findings of the study illustrate the five different aspects of SERVQUAL approach. The study records the findings statistically in terms of regression, standard deviation and mean. The findings point out that most of the scale indicators of service quality respond at average levels with and exception of tangibles which is slightly above the average level. This means that, in terms of reliability, the higher learning institutions have limited ability to accurately offer the services they promise students and deviate in provision of the facilities that the students require or rather perform their promises but not to the level of expectation. The fact that most of the higher learning institutions in Iran acquire funds from the central government, suggests that the government is likely to play a part in the short falls in reliability. The responsiveness of the institutions to the students needs in the form of protection and immediate help falls at an average level or more or less below. This shows that such facilities like medical care, students’ notification through notice boards or school websites is still not at its maximum. Creation of assurance by the service providers is still at its minimum, meaning that the students do not obtain courage from the services they obtain and that aspects such as equity for all students and sufficient guidelines incase of a problem are still a point of weakness. Empathy is another matter of concern on the part of the student such as the students still feel there is insufficient attention by the personnel to their needs and that the service providers are less patient when attending to them. The students seam to be okay with the physical facilities (tangibles) that the institutions provide and their ease in accessing the facilities. Tangibles are the most performing indicator of quality of the five having a mean of slightly above the average. However, this is not a complacent zone since just like other indicators, service providers need to improve tangibles as per the demands of their customers who play a major role in sustaining the continuity of the organization. Higher learning institutions need to formulate and implement strategies that focus on motivating students and encouraging their involvement in the system like provision of incentives to students who participate in quality improvement schemes and those who give suggestions on how to improve the system. Responsiveness also needs improvement; the institutions can upgrade the whole system so that it responds to the students’ needs, while avoiding duplication of procedures. Use of information systems serves a major role in improving responsiveness. Assurance and confident on the part of the students requires that the institutions publish and circulate the regulations and rule to students so that they know what to expect from them. Circulars on notice boards and frequent updating of the school websites also serve well. Empathy lies on the part of the immediate service providers that frequently interact with students. Their improvement lies on the side of the management. Motivation of the staff helps them to actively provide the services and improve their connection with the work. Internal control procedures and external auditing also keep workers on their toes to provide adequate services to the customers. Performance appraisal and rewarding through incentives improves the quality of services that the staff provides. The general system of higher learning institution should always be up to date and constantly embracing the new changes in technology in order to cope with competition and also constantly improve their services. Conclusion The study focuses on the quality of services those organizations of higher learning institutions offer. To determine the quality of these services, the study uses the SERVQUAL approach of analysis which provides five bases of analysis, reliability, responsiveness, assurance tangibles and empathy. The bases provide a wide analysis of the whole organization, making it a suitable model for the study. The use of survey method saves the time for the study and ensures efficiency when using the questionnaires. The close end questionnaires provide the appropriate answers for easy analysis of the data and personal administration of questionnaires improve the degree of effectiveness in response. Findings finally indicate more of a negative than a positive gap in the services that institutes of higher learning offer. Limitations and implication for services marketing theories and practices Services just like goods are commodities which consumers need. For this reason, marketing is an important element of increasing sales in the service sector. However, ther are limitations to the theories that marketers of services attempt to put in place in order to achieve the goals of promoting sales. Most consumers have perception that only goods are commodities and not services. The marketers need to adopt theories that modify analysis to be more product-like in order to attract consumers, however, should avoid suggesting that services are different and like the physical products but rather balance the theories to also consider aspects of services. Inadequate information on the part of consumers of services is also a limitation to the theories of marketing services since they have limited information about the market that they participate in. practices of marketing like the SERVQUAL method of analysis bases on a limited section of the service market, it mainly analyses the reliability and responsiveness of organizations which leaves out other aspects that also determine the satisfaction of consumers. The marketing theories for services base only one stakeholder in the service markets, who is the consumer and fail to consider the service providers and third parties who also affect the market. They also concentrate on the internal factors that determine the satisfaction of the consumer when other external factors can also affect consumers and their consumption behaviors other than their association with the service providers. Bibliography Qureshi, T.M, Shaukat, M.Z. & Hijazi, S. T, 2010, Service Quality SERVQUAL model in Higher Educational institutions, What factors are to be considered? Interdisciplinary journal of contemporary research in business, Vol 2, No.5. Javadi, M. H. M, Samangooe, B. & Tanhaei, M.H 2011, Quality Assessment for Academic Services in University of Isfahan According to the Students opinions Using SERVQUAL Model. Interdisciplinary journal of contemporary research in business, Vol 3, No 4. Rezazadeh, M.V, Yaghoubi, N. M. & Nikoofar, M 2011, Review of Sport Service Quality by SERVQUAL Model (A Case Study), Interdisciplinary journal of contemporary research in business. Vol 2, No12. Akhlaghi, E, Amini, S. & Akhlaghi. H 2012, Evaluating educational service quality in technical and vocational colleges using SERVQUAL model. . Abari,A. A , Yarmohammadian, A.& Estek. M 2011, Assessment of quality of education a non- governmental university via SERVQUAL model. . Read More