Customer Satisfaction Means a Lot - Assignment Example

Reflective Journal Table of Contents Topic 3 satisfaction means we can wrap up our projects more rapidly” 3 Topic 2 4 “Excellent communication between customers and suppliers is the key to total quality performance” 4 Topic 3 6 “A strong competitive advantage…provides direction and motivation to the entire organisation” 6 Topic 4 7 “Everything we experience in or from and organisation is the result of a design decision, or lack of one” 7 Topic 1 “Customer satisfaction means we can wrap up our projects more rapidly” In today’s world of business, customers are regarded as the main force of total unit. Without the presence of customers, the life cycle of any project does not get completed. In this regard, Frame inferred that customer satisfaction is one of the decisive elements of project lifecycle. In order to wrap up projects more rapidly, project management should communicate with the customers about quality management, time as well as cost supervision and other related issues. These factors eventually contribute into increasing the satisfaction level of the customers at large. In my opinion, the perception of Total Quality Management (TQM) is essential to consider by an organisation, as in recent times, customers have increased their expectations towards availing their respective desired products. To fulfil the sophistication in products that would raise customer satisfaction, project management must have to introduce TQM concept. Justifiably, if customers do not accept the exact service that they want, they seek for other alternatives and thus create a worsened situation for any particular project. There usually lay several chances for having customer’s dissatisfaction in terms of cost as well as quality along with service. From the basis of discussion, I would like to state that when a project results into cost-effective with minimum quality as well as fulfil all the desirable characteristics from customers’ perception, they become satisfied and after that, such project could be wrapped rapidly (Frame, 2002). For instance, in terms of an online product like a dress material, a customer may select the material through online marketing site of a company and likewise order that particular item. The site would provide opportunity to the customers like cash on delivery and free shipping. Three days later after ordering, the product would reach to customers’ destination. If there does not exist any such problem in the product, the customer should be happy and remain satisfied with the product and likewise provide the purchasing costs without any hesitation. However, I think these circumstances would change if the product does not contain the same colour or the expected material does not get matched with the delivered product. By considering the above stated circumstances, the customer could refuse to accept the product and the management should recreate the whole process again for gaining the satisfaction level of such customer. After smooth completion of the process, the online company could be able to receive cash from the satisfied customer. This situation clearly reveals the picture that if the customer feels the deliverable does not contain all its promised features or it has deficiency in quality, the final payments would be delayed and the extra expenses would be paid out. Thus, in this context, I could say that any project could be wrapping up more rapidly by ensuring increased level of customer satisfaction. Topic 2 “Excellent communication between customers and suppliers is the key to total quality performance” Communication is the key word for any organisation’s supply chain procedure. Total system would base on suppliers’ and customer’s relationship in terms of communication. The quote tells about “excellent communication”, which possesses the ability to communicate with people clearly and simply for making the activities to be performed in an efficient way. In relation to the above context, Oakland indicated that when customers need a product, they desire to possess a clear view about their liked products in their mind, but at certain times it would become difficult for suppliers to understand the expectations of customers due to poor communication. From this context, I could say that sometimes customers could not able to draw a clear picture of their expectations to the suppliers for a particular product and this results in creating customer dissatisfaction. The situation is same when suppliers also could not able to create an excellent communication with their respective potential customers. When dissatisfied, customers often come to suppliers, which signify that they need to improve their perception about the product for further delivery to the customers. In that case, communication should occupy a vital role. If there would lay problems in communication, a greater level of misunderstanding is deemed to persist between the customers and the suppliers. It is projected that the above stated factor would hamper any project’s Total Quality Management, making the suppliers bound to offer quality products to customers. For maintaining the quality of products, suppliers have to incorporate continuous excellent communication process with the customers in their respective supply chain methods (Oakland, 2003). Thus, based on the above discussion, I must say that excellent communication formed between customers and suppliers is deemed one of the key aspects towards improving total quality performance. Topic 3 “A strong competitive advantage…provides direction and motivation to the entire organisation” ‘Competitive advantage’ signifies the capability of an organisation to attain market superiority amongst the other existing competitors. For ensuring long-term sustainability, it should mark an organisation over the average performance. From my perception, sustainability in market by coping up competition, achieving goals and fulfilling customers’ expectations are regarded as the determinants of general life cycle for an organisation. Each organisation should determine appropriate strategies, policies, plans, as well as goals for market penetration and develop necessary procedures along with operations to execute their vision. Papulova & Papulova argued that competition is deemed to provide any organisation a clear perception about the respective market, vision, create a strategy planning to achieve that vision, understand the markets’ needs, customers’ anticipations and generate unique resources for making further improvements. These improvements may provide appropriate direction as well as motivation to an entire organisation. Their basically includes two sorts of competitive advantages that entail ‘low cost’ and ‘differentiation’ (Papulova and Papulova, 2006). Firms could produce high volume of products to attain superior competitive position by offering products to the customers of low prices. Low cost could prove to be effective for ensuring high productivity as well as high capacity utilization, which would ultimately raise the motivation level of entire people attached with any organisation. On the other hand, differentiation strategy is widely valued by the customers. Slight differentiation in products could generate better amount of profits for any existing business enterprise. For better understanding, the case of H&M could be taken into concern, which is planning to enter into the Indian market in the running year. H&M is a multinational company, which would enter to Indian market with the help of FDI norms and utilising the strategy of getting adapted with Indian policies and culture to penetrate easily in the market as well as maintain long-term sustainability. In India, there already exists certain multinational companies, thus, H&M must adopt and implement certain effective marketing strategies with the inclusion of competitive advantage for entering into the Indian marketplace efficiently. H&M may follow the low cost advantage factor and provide quality fashionable products with low prices that could grab the attention of the Indian people at large. This type of diversity would be helpful for H&M in Indian marketplace, which could provide direction as well as motivation to the entire organisation. H&M will face business market competition with the already existing companies operating in the Indian market. For instance, ZARA is duly considered to be one of the strongest competitors of H&M in Indian market, which would necessitate H&M to create competitive advantage by following the procedures of low cost and differentiation. From this real life example, it is clear for me that these action modes of H&M could provide a clear direction towards market sustainability along with motivational perception to the entire organisation (Papulova and Papulova, 2006). Topic 4 “Everything we experience in or from and organisation is the result of a design decision, or lack of one” Design is a continuous procedure. In this always-changing world, design is an on-going process, which never should stop or become stagnant. For an organisation, it should always remarkable to contain present perception with future concept. To prepare for future sustainability, there should be a rough-work of making effective planning in relation to the aspects like strategy, competitive advantage, proper direction and motivation towards any organisation. In my opinion, decisions should be combined with functions, planning as well as procedures to achieve the predetermined vision of an organisation. In today’s market, one organisation should take enough responsibility along with capability to take decisions in critical situations. The people involved with any organisation should learn also from the management about the persisting problem areas, probable solutions or steps that must be taken from the management of organisations and making effective decisions among others. Oakland and Marosszeky affirmed that the design decision would not apply just to the tangible products that would meet the requirements of the customers, but would also be applicable during the situation of after purchasing of the products (Oakland and Marosszeky, 2006). From this perception, I consider that design decision would also put on intangible products like the systems included within whole organisation’s planning, its people as well as stakeholders and processes including strategic planning decisions that affect the generation of products and delivery of services. Generation of products would influences the people of organisations by motivating them towards positive influences that help in increasing the productivity of the organisations. Lastly, I would like to state that design decision in any path of organisation or life should be practical and authentic. The design decision would always be changed after the attainment of desired objectives and the next goal should be targeting along with preparing for next design in terms of making new decisions (Oakland and Marosszeky, 2006). References Frame, J. Davidson. 2002. The New Project Management: Tools for an Age of Rapid Change, Complexity, and Other Business Realities. UK: John Wiley & Sons. Oakland, John S. 2003. Total Quality Management: Text with Cases. Routledge. Oakland, J. S. and Marton Marosszeky. 2006. Total Quality in the Construction Supply Chain. Routledge. Papulova, Emilia and Zuzana Papulova. 2006. “Competitive Strategy and Competitive Advantages of Small and Midsized Manufacturing Enterprises in Slovakia.” E-Leader: 1-8. Read More