Issues on Operations Management - Coursework Example

Operations Management work 10/28 Executive Summary The client is an organization engaged in providing hotel services and accommodations in each of their twelve holiday centres spread over the Mediterranean and the Caribbean. Each holiday centres also provide water sports facilities including restaurants, bars, entertainments and retail establishments. This paper shall provide the integrated definition of the organization covering the organization model, the functional and process model. Included in this paper is the recommended strategy to address the customer service problem of the organization. Key performance indicators that will measure the performance of the effort have been included for consideration. Table of Contents Executive Summary 1 Table of Contents 2 Introduction 3 IDEF 12 – Organization Modeling 4 Process description capture 5 IDEF0 – Function Modeling 6 Accommodation 7 Water Sports 7 Bar, Restaurants, Retail establishments 8 Key Performance Measures 8 HQ Functions 9 Accommodations 9 Water Sports 10 Restaurants, Bars, Entertainment and Retail 10 Integration Strategy – Change Management 11 References/Bibliography 12 Introduction The client is an organization engaged in providing hotel services and accommodations in each of their twelve holiday centres spread over the Mediterranean and the Caribbean. Each holiday centres also provide water sports facilities including restaurants, bars, entertainments and retail establishments. The engagement is to automate the production of quarterly reports for submission to Headquarter and to provide real time daily reports to local management and weekly reports to senior management stationed at the Headquarter. The proceeding pages will indicate the integration definition of the organization (Podeswa, 2008). Part of the engagement is to overcome the following challenges that need to be resolved quickly. Improve if not overhaul the image of the organization to negate the impact of disgruntled customers that obliterates their ability to have repeat customers. The primary focus is to determine what part of the business is having difficulties if not the part of the business where customer experience is at its worst. Gathering data related to customer satisfaction is an essential foundation for the solution that will be recommended since its success or efficacy can only be determined if a baseline performance has been measured. A primary solution that can be implemented to resolve the reporting requirement is to automate the frontline portion of the process to get an accurate data capture process that can provide reliable data. The same mechanism or process can also be employed to measure key performance indicators (Bissessur, 2010) that are primarily designed to measure customer satisfaction. Customer complaints and feedback methodology will also be used to determine if not validate the data reflected by the metrics that measures the key performance indicators for customer satisfaction. IDEF 12 – Organization Modeling Process description capture IDEF0 – Function Modeling Accommodation Head office Room Availability Sales Room rate difference Customer Preference Real time booking Customer Satisfaction Real Time information Advance Knowledge Of customer preference Survey Forms Water Sports Front Desk Availability of facilities Sales Difficult Customers Rate Discrepancy Real time booking Waivers Customer Sign Service Invoice Bar, Restaurants, Retail establishments Front Desk Availability of Seats Sales Difficult Customers Rate Discrepancy Real time booking Availability of Items/ Preferred Food/Drinks Customer Sign Service Invoice Key Performance Measures The following key performance metrics will be gathered to determine the efficacy of the recommended strategies for the organization to address its image challenges. HQ Functions The following performance indicators will determine the effectiveness of the marketing efforts at Headquarters. Occupancy rate = Sold Accommodations/Available Accommodations x 100; as the number approaches 100% the more effective is the marketing effort of Headquarter. Customer Satisfaction rate = Customer Complaints received/Total Number of Customers served x 100; as the number decreases the more efficacious the effort to improve the image of the company and the more effective are the efforts to improve customer focus and satisfaction. Repeat Customers rate = Number of repeat customer/Total number of customers served x 100; as the number increases the more effective are the effort to improve the image of the company and the more effective are the efforts to improve customer focus and satisfaction. Accommodations The following performance indicators will determine the effectiveness of the efforts being made to improve customer satisfaction in each of the holiday destination of the organization that is focused on the accommodations. Customer Satisfaction rate = Customer Complaints received/Total Number of Customers served x 100; as the number decreases the more efficacious the effort to improve the image of the company and the more effective are the efforts to improve customer focus and satisfaction. Number of Customers who are satisfied with the services/Number of Customers surveyed x 100; a number of customers will be surveyed to determine if they are satisfied. A Likert scale type of survey will determine the level of satisfaction of each customer surveyed. Local Customers/Total Customers served x 100; will measure the number of customers sourced locally. This will determine if tapping the local market is more profitable than relying on the efforts of Headquarters. Water Sports The following performance indicators will determine the effectiveness of the efforts being made to improve customer satisfaction in each of the holiday destination of the organization that is focused on the water sports. Ergo, the customer satisfaction surveys previously discussed should be measured as well. It should be noted that there might be differences on the kind of water sports that is available per destination that is more conducive to the local environment. Thus it is prudent to determine the most popular water sports per destination in order for the marketing department to focus the promotion of each holiday destination. Number of Patrons/Number of guests that availed of water sports x 100; will determine the most popular water sports in the destination. Restaurants, Bars, Entertainment and Retail The performance indicators under this heading should determine the effectiveness of the efforts being made to improve customer satisfaction in each of the holiday destination of the organization that is focused on the kind of customer service the restaurants, bars, retails and other entertainment establishments of the destination. It should be noted that each destination may have its own local food and beverages that identify the uniqueness of the destination from the other destinations. Thus, it is prudent to survey the kind of food and beverages that guests prefer in the destination they have picked. There are instances that entertainment and even items in the retail stores should serve the local specialties. A Likert survey will confirm if not validate this theory. The changing tastes and the dynamic preferences of guests may change over time, thus it is prudent to conduct this survey to determine if the destination is serving the needs and preferences of their customers. Thus the performance indicator should determine any change in the preferences so that when there is a slight change the destination can or may change its menu, beverage, items in the retails establishments and even the type of entertainment being offered. Integration Strategy – Change Management The changes should be integrated into the culture and psyche of the organization to ensure that the efforts are given the kind of chance it deserves along with what has been practiced overtime (Cameron & Green, 2009). The best strategy in acculturation is to make the changes part of the operation. Thus, the operating manual, the policies and procedures as well as the rules and regulations of the organization should be geared towards ensuring the mandatory execution of the changes. Monitoring the key performance indicators specifically designed to monitor the changes as described above will ensure that the organization adopt the changes to improve its customer service and comply with the reporting requirements of Headquarters. The frontline employees as well as those employees tasked to gather surveys should be prudent to use the automated tools that will gather in real time the data needed by the reports. Each transaction should be entered in the system using the tools provided thereof. To monitor the compliance of each of the employees it will be prudent to monitor each employee’s use of the tools. Thus a specific username and password combination should be assigned to each employee. Each transaction should be attached to an employee any aberration in the transaction will be the responsibility of employee that entered the transaction. A review of the performance of the changes thru the review of the key performance indicators assigned to each change to improve it further should be conducted regularly. It is recommended that a threshold be used as a baseline for an acceptable performance. Failure to meet the threshold should trigger a recommendation that is aimed at improving the numbers. References/Bibliography Bissessur, D., 2010. Design of a Standard Template to Assess Conformity of ISO 9001:2008: Verifying the extent to which a company satisfy the requirements of ISO 9001:2008. Boston: LAP LAMBERT Academic Publishing ISBN-13: 978-3838398075. Cameron, E. & Green, M., 2009. Making Sense of Change Management : A complete guide to the models, tools & techniques of organizational change. London: Kogan Page Ltd. Podeswa, H., 2008. The Business Analyst Handbook. 1st ed. New York: Course Technology PTR. Read More