Operations Management - Essay Example

Introduction to Operations Management work Assignment: Derby Castle) Ans a. Market Segmentation: Market segmentation is a relatively newidea for guiding marketing strategy. In this strategy marketing people identify customer’s needs and interests and then devise their marketing strategy for each type of ‘interests/ needs’ or segments. Marketing of any concept, services, products etc require that the marketer should not treat all the customers alike, nor should he treat all very differently. People, organizations or groups have certain needs which make a market. Market segmentation process involves the identification and grouping of similar needs of the market. Segmentation than helps the marketing team in devising better marketing plan for different groups and better satisfying their needs. Derby Castle is a historical monument of UK. The marketing team has the task of inviting attention of more and more people towards the interesting features of this castle so that they feel like visiting this monument again and again. This will help in good revenue generation and will help in the maintenance of this castle. It is highly likely that different set of people come here with different purposes. For example a team of school children would love to play in the sprawling green lawns the whole day while a research scholar will spend his day in studying the architecture and other historical features. Visitors to Derby Castle can be categorized as; Researchers: This segment prefers to learn about the historical facts, architectural features etc. Students: This segment too could be here on a learning mission or may just be here on a picnic tour. But the ‘learning’ needs of students are vastly different from ‘research’ needs of researchers. Art Lovers: This segment is more interested in the artistic features of Derby castle. Young Couple: Youth desirous of spending some solitary moments in the company of their chosen ones can make use good use of the gardens of the Castle. Tourists: General tourists happen to be on a sightseeing spree. For them attractive features i.e. ‘worth seeing’ features of Derby Castle need be highlighted. Party Troups: Quite often organisations, companies, political parties and individuals require a place for organizing concerts, get-togethers, plays, etc. where good number of people could be entertained in soothing ambiance. Non-UK Residents: For example the Asian population is quite high in UK. They can be treated as a potential segment as well. b. Derby Castle offers the visitors a range of interesting and historical features blended into modern times; It offers the glimpse of a marvelous monument of mediaeval times. It offers a place for a day out for an entire family, with facilities for picnic, restaurant etc. It also provides a place for young one’s to hang around and appreciate the beauty of the monument in the company of their lovely friends. It provides a treasure of information and learning to historians and researchers. It provides a beautifully landscaped environment for young one’s and school children. It offers, at reasonable cost, a place for organizing musical evenings, get-togethers, plays etc in the company of an overlooking castle. c. Operations is the term generally used in league with the term productions, as the processes by which services and goods are effectively produced. The operational demands of visitors differ depending upon their pursuits in Derby Castle. And the management has to plan out accordingly for each segment, for example; Historians, art-lovers and researchers will require a library or archives where they can study the books, listen to informative audio tapes or watch videos. Students too require some learning experience, but there requirement differs from that of researchers. Students require more of colorful illustrations, interesting facts and a learning experience not heavily loaded with bookish information. They need the information in a way that they can relate it with their surroundings. Young one’s in the company of their friends require graceful silence and surroundings to better understand each other. For them the management will have to plan out some space in restaurant or in the gardens. A general visitor or tourist is more interested in seeing the main places in minimum amount of time. The management will have to plan for them accordingly, so that they may not get lost in the maze of crowd and the main features of castle remain untouched. Organizing parties, get together, concerts etc require good liaisoning with other related activities and department like the kind of expenditure involved in organizing such a big party will invite the attention of tax department. The management will therefore need to set up a mechanism through which the organizers of such events could seek prior clearance from concerned departments. Also organizing a party involves a sound system, light arrangements, catering, etc. Management will have to liaison with such companies as well. d. Operational flexibility allows the industry to make suitable adjustments in its operational practices and services environment to cater to the needs of the market in a better way. This results in an increasing number of satisfied clients/ customers/ visitors and more business for the service provider. In a manufacturing industry it is defined as the flexibility that enables manufacturing systems to respond with speed and efficiency in order to change the manufacturing environment while maintaining an effective level of control. For Derby Castle, there’s room for adjustments in operational practices to improve the services like; Reducing the waiting period at the counter Making judicious use of the manpower in handling the crowds and if required recruiting more professionals to handle the crowds. Efforts for even distribution of the number of visitors coming to the castle Efforts for more number of visitors during lean periods. Ans 2: a. In a services sector, maintaining quality at its best requires the customer to be satisfied. It calls for total quality management in offerings to the visitors as well as to the business partners. To increase customer satisfaction at Derby Castle following improvements are suggested; i. Encourage people to visit the site in the morning hours. ii. More media campaigns iii. Inviting Schools During off-peak hrs/ off-peak season iv. Liaisoning with tour operators v. More facilities for researchers and serious students. b. Justification for the above mentioned improvements: i. After undertaking the visit in the freshness of morning hours, may be they can relax a bit in the garden during the day. This’ll also help the tourists in spending more number of hrs at the castle, resulting in more business at the castle. ii. Such media campaigns are required for the prospective tourists to come to know in advance about the facilities at the castle. So that they can plan their itinerary accordingly. There are instances when the tourists realize about the vastness of Derby Castle area only after entering inside it. Also, Asian population in UK is quite high and they too form a potential market. Derby castle can invite some Bollywood stars or musical troupe and organize some concert or musical evening. These Bollywood film stars, from India, are hugely popular not only amongst Indian population but in almost all Asian countries. This will bring many more footfalls to Derby Castle. iii. During off-peak hrs/ off-peak season, management of Derby castle can approach the schools for organizing student visits and suitable discounts in entrance fee etc. can be offered to school groups. iv. Management of Derby Castle can liaise with tour operators, so that they can include Derby Castle as an integral part of the tours organized by them. Derby castle can also offer them some discounts as a recognition for their constructive efforts. v. Management can make Derby castle a suitable place for carrying out researches and studies in the calm and satisfying environment of the historical monument and lush green lawns. Making arrangements for historians and research scholars will appear to be initially a philanthropist service fulfilling the social responsibility for the pride of the nation, for the sake of history. But this task will bring dividends in the long run, when research journals start talking about Derby Castle. Many more interest groups, historians from other nations will follow suit. c. It is said that ‘change is easier to propose than to carry out’. Change, at times, proves to be very difficult to carry out, as it involves some shake up in established practices and habits. Let us carry out the feasibility study of operational changes in running the Derby castle; i. Arranging for a morning hour visit can be possible for people from nearby localities or for those who have landed at nearby places the last night. If someone is to tie up his visit of couple of other tourist places together with Derby Castle, then it will be an arduous task for him to come to Derby castle. In addition, if morning hours are to be encouraged, the staff will have to make it little early in full strength. That means hard duty starts right from the morning hours. Though from the case study it appears that the staff is quite helpful so far but some changes may be resisted initially. Staff may be told that if Derby Castle earns good revenue than the there will be some distribution of that increment in the form of monetary benefits to the staff as well. ii. Starting media campaigns require good amount of investments and the results are always not seen from the word go. Effects of such campaigns will have to be analyzed with patience. Moreover, the big budgets of media campaigns may be resisted by the top bosses. For that a proper business plan must be ready with the change agent. iii. Approaching schools has the advantage that the management will have to speak to the academic fraternity. The faculty will be quite amenable to the reasons for taking students on study tours. Some amount of reservations may come from the parents of the students, depending upon the kind of logistics the parents will have to arrange for their wards while preparing them for such a tour. The Derby Castle management can also facilitate in such matters if it can tie up with some tour operator providing logistics at reasonable costs to the students. iv. Liaison with tour operators is one of the trickiest tasks. It involves good marketing efforts. The terms and conditions of such an arrangement will have to be worked out with tour operators. Someone might be interested in profit sharing arrangement while some other might be ready for working on percentage of tourists’ inflows from their ends. But Derby Castle must make it a point to have uniform arrangements with the tour operators to avoid controversies. v. These arrangements too are capital intensive initially and require regular updation of facilities and other source materials for research scholars. Setting up of library and then waiting for research scholars to have a look at it (in this task, the media campaign will come handy). Therefore the management will have to be ready with a positive fame of mind that such facilities are very long term investments and remain loss making propositions for long times, if viewed in isolation. d. All changes cannot be implemented simultaneously for more than one reason, be it the financial aspect, human resources deployment or the technical feasibility. Therefore priorities will have to be fixed for activating these operational changes. In this case our priorities could be; i. First Step: To start with we can make suitable arrangements for the opening up of Derby Castle during the morning hours. This requires minimum investments. Only the support staff needs to be taken in confidence. But, it is worth pondering that the morning time opening starts from the month when climate is pleasant and not too chilly and windy. ii. Second Step: Media campaigns as such require no special time. Derby Castle will have to get in touch with some media houses to plan and prepare the campaign material. Such campaigns should be appealing to the targeted segment. As of now it appears that majority of visitors don’t turn up again. Such campaigns will also help in converting the ‘We may visit again’ type of tourist and ‘Don’t know’ types into ‘Yes we’ll visit again’. Media campaigns could be supported with mailers (e-mail or postal mail) or SMSes to the visitors having made it to the castle earlier. iii. Third Step: Once Derby castle is visible in the media, the management can start negotiating with the tour operators. Media campaign will definitely help in negotiation from a position of strength. iv. Fourth Step: Thereafter talks can be initiated with schools for organized tours of students to the castle. v. Fifth Step: Having once established itself firmly, preparations can then be made for research scholars and historians. References: 1. Philip Kotler, ‘Marketing Management’, 2nd Edition, 1974, Prentice Hall 2. Glenn Bassett; ‘Operations Management for Service Industries’, 1992, Quorum Books, London. 3. Jae K. Shim, Joel G. Siegel, ‘Operations Management’, 1999, Barrons Business Review Series. 4. Maria Fredriksson, ‘From Customer Satisfaction to Citizen Interaction’, 2004, Lulea University of Technology, Sweden. Read More