Operations and Project Management - Oman Arab Bank - Case Study Example

Operations and Project Management Part Introduction Operations management defines the process through which various process which convert inputs into outputs for value addition are managed within an organisation. The goals of the operations management process are ensuring that there is efficiency in the process through which goods and products are produced and they are meeting customer requirements effectively (Heizer & Render 2014). Within the process of operations management there are both long-term and short-term implications of the decisions made in relation to achieving the fundamental goals of operations management. The decisions made within the process have a vital part in ensuring the strategic elements of the organisation are met through the operations of an organisation. The strategic operations decisions are aimed at providing support for the various strategic plans of the organisation which have been defined by the organisation. The Oman Arab Bank is a financial institution that was established in 1984 following the acquisition of all the branches of the Arab Bank which had been operating within the sultanate of Oman. The created the first national bank in the country with an international presence in different countries. Throughout the years that the company has been operational, it continues to provide different financial services within the banking industry all with the aim of satisfying the customers of the company. The fundamental focus of the organisation has been on the meeting of customer needs through their services and products. This not only ensures the company remains competitive but also makes the operations of the company efficient by maximising available resources to meet customer requirements (Heizer & Render 2013). Some of the operations management decisions which the company has considered have been in the following areas; product and service design, quality design and job design within the organisation. Product and service design Product design seeks to ensure that the products which the company provides are designed with the capability to meet the customer requirements. The company has been involved in making decisions regarding the development of products within the market based on the market demands of the industry. Throughout the years the company has been operational, it has realised the need to focus on developing products which are based on the customer requirements (Lindemann et al. 2008). This involves making decisions regarding the market needs based on the analysis of various product development factors. This has continuously ensured the company remains within the top ranking banking institutions and a desired level of customer satisfaction has been achieved in the process. In focusing on the services that the company delivers, the needs assessment undertaken when developing the products must be continuously met through the delivery process. This is normally based on the expectations and perceptions of the market regarding the products which a company provides (Trott 2008). The bank has realised the need for establishing a good reputation within the market by offering services. By establishing the financial needs of the consumers within the market which the bank operates, the organisation has been able to focus on meeting these needs through services and products, Islamic banking products have been developed and remains some of the popular products which the company provides which have continuously been provided based on the market demands. By undertaking an analysis of the market needs the company has been able to create a balance between the variables involved in service and product design. The assessment of the efficiency which has been achieved in this design is undertaken through evaluating the level of customer participation and interaction with the employees of the organisation. These operations decisions within this design include transaction processing in seeking to ensure the services are delivered as per the client’s expectations (Slack & Lewis 2015). The bank has developed highly customised products and maintained technological approaches in the undertaking of the various services which are provided within the banks, various branches. This has resulted in the organisation becoming able to satisfy the customers and effectively increase its customer base due to the customer retention. In seeking to improve on the product and service design within the organisation, there is need to focus on ensuring the utilisation of current technology in undertaking the various activities which customers require. The company must ensure that it constantly upgrades its systems with the current technology to ensure there is a comprehensive integration of modern technological approaches in the services. While the company continues to observe and stick to the standards which have been established by industry regulators like the CMA and the central bank, there is need to develop internal standards which will better the national standards. Customisation of the services and products will be key to differentiating the products which the bank offers from those which are offered by other companies. This will be key to overcoming the growing competition for financial services within the country. Quality design In designing for quality, it becomes essential for the organisation to first define the meaning of quality in regard to the products which the company offers to the markets this causes the organisation to develop a quality plan which must be followed in seeking to ensure the products and services meet the requirements of the many customers of the organisation. Within the banking industry, there are various standards which have been established by the CMA and the central bank and complying within these provisions market the first step towards quality design. The company continues to remains committed towards meeting these requirements and exceeding the provisions in order to meet the precise customer-centred company requirements customers (Gupta et al. 2005). The company has established higher standards than those which have been set by the regulators in seeking to ensure that the focus is on the customers of the organisation. There are various operating procedures which the company has established which have been utilised in determining the element of quality within the products and services which are provided. There are basic standards which have been set in relation to services delivery for the members of staff, which must be adhered to. In terms of quality within the organisation, two levels have been developed and these include the corporate and branch level of quality in services. While the bank seeks to gain awards from various regulators in the quality of services, internal quality assessment is also undertaken and it seeks to ensure that there are internal quality measures which each branch must meet. These standards which have been established include procedures to maintain the operations of the bank at the optimal levels. Meeting these standard operating procedures would be critical in ensuring the services provided meet the requirements of the customers in terms of quality. The operations function seeks to ensure that the products and services offered within the organisation meet certain quality specifications defined either at the industry level or by the company. In seeking to improve of the quality design within the company it is essential in improve on the employee training aspects to ensure the employees understand the requirements and expectations (Yang 2006). This would become relatively easy to standardise services if a similar approach of training is employed upon all the employees of the organisation. Supervision of this training must be observed in seeking to ensure that the required minimum quality standards are met by the services being delivered by the bank. Job design Employees within the organisation form an integral part of the entire system of the company. Operations management within this design is focused on ensuring that the working environment within which work is undertaken is conducive for the employees. This involves setting standards through different policies which govern how the employee skills can be harnessed in seeking to ensure that their output is maximised (Zomerdijk & Voss 2010). The decisions which are made within this design seeks to ensure that the people working within the organisation are efficiently and effectively utilised in meeting the organisational goals. This involves maximising their outputs within the constraints of the other factors which are involved in operations management decisions. The organisation remains committed toward ensuring the employees are satisfied both at work and in their life with regard to the compensation provided by the institution. The organisation has continuously realised the importance of having effective job designs by maximising and identifying the talents of individuals working within the organisation. Training opportunities are provided for employees in seeking to develop them in terms of career and skills as well. The individual differences existing between employees are harnessed by the organisation in creating a friendly working environment within the bank. The bank provides all have job specifications in seeking to ensure that the employees understand their duties and responsibilities as defined within the framework of the job design. The level of specialisation within the bank has been clearly defined by the departments within which the employees are assigned. The operational functions of the job designs include marketing, finance, and operations among others. This departmentalisation has resulted in the level of specialisation among employees being significantly improved. This has been fundamental in eliminating time wastage in training employees as their performance capabilities become maximised through specialisation following the determination of desired skills. In seeking to improve on the job design within the organisation, it would be essential to focus on the capacity development for different employees based on the departments within which they are working. Capacity building would improve the services delivery capabilities of employees. While this will be improving the level of skills of the employees, it will also play a fundamental role in motivating the employees as their responsibilities will become easier to perform. Enhanced skill level is critical in increasing the job satisfaction of employees as they find it relatively easy to perform their routine responsibilities. Quality design and corporate strategy The fundamental purpose for adopting different operational management decisions is the achievement of the long term and short term strategies for the entire company. The decisions made in regard to the quality design for the products and services provided by the organisation seek to ensure that customer needs are met. The company’s commitment to its customers, both internal and external, forms the basis upon which the design for quality is established. The elements of quality within the service industry is essential in ensuring customer satisfaction with the services (Dale et al. 2013). The strategic goals of the company are focused on the customers in seeking to improve on the profitability within the organisation. The quality of services involves making certain critical decisions that affect the company strategy and the approaches undertaken must comply with the provisions of the strategic plan of the organisation. Some of the strategic goals which have been developed by the Oman Arab bank and which are contained within the mission and vision statement involve pioneering the introduction of different technologies within the banking sector. Technological service delivery is a commitment of the organisation to the market and the entire banking sector. This seeks to ensure the services provided by the organisation meet the desired specification in terms of standards. The utilisation of technology within the banking sector has been significantly important in improving the quality of services delivered and has improved the service delivery capacity for many banking institutions. The expectations of the customers of the organisation are based on the promises made in the mission and vision statement by the company. In seeking to meet these strategic plans, the quality of services provided by the institution is critical and such consideration in quality of services play an important role in achieving the strategic targets. The goals of the organisation in maintaining profitability and remaining competitive within the market have to be achieved by maintaining exemplary quality in the products and services (Slack & Lewis 2015). Focusing on the customer satisfaction is important in ensuring that the operations of the company provide the desired efficiency in terms of maximising resources to produce products that completely satisfy the needs of customers. The attainment of the strategic goals as well as objectives requires a controlling the resource utilisation on seeking to ensure efficiency in utilisation of the available resources. Various quality parameters like reliability and availability of products and services have a direct impact on the customer satisfaction. The application of the quality function deployment approach will be critical in ensuring the needs of the customers are addressed by the organisation (Brown et al. 2013). Continually meeting the customer needs is one of the strategic goals of the institution as it seeks to become a leading provider of financial services within the country. The evaluation process of achievement of the various strategies of the organisation includes focusing on the quality of services and products. This involves comparing the quality of services at the bank to those of other competitor institutions through ranking systems developed by the regulating authorities. Part 2 Project plan for upgrading of internet banking in OAB Business case The use of the internet banking platform in providing financial services has transformed the banking industry as well as the customer experience. While these services have been important in enhancing customer experience, providing rudimentary internet banking services is not sufficient to retain and attract customers. It, therefore, becomes necessary to ensure that the online banking channels are updated with the latest technology, tools and features (Corvoisier & Gropp 2009). OAB needs faces the fundamental challenge of transforming the internet banking application as way of keeping up with the competition being offered by other applications and improving the online customer experience as well. Without a perfect solution in today’s competitive banking industry, it becomes relatively easy for customers to switch to competitors who are deemed to provide useful and better online capabilities (Ganguli & Roy 2011). Channel business and technology within the banking and financial industry continues to change at an unprecedented pace (Padmalatha 2011). This has made it extremely difficult to justify the costs and risks which are associated with outdated systems that take long delivering business value to the customers. This project will be seeking to enhance the internet banking capabilities which are mot demanded by the customers. These will include the following three mobile banking capabilities. Mobile functionality – there has been a growing usage of mobile devices like phones and tablet computers. The company will be seeking to enhance these functionality by optimising websites for mobile phone browsers, enhancing text alerts and providing mobile apps which can be downloaded to the devices. Online account opening – many customers prefer to have convenience in the services provided when opening new accounts. This will be aimed at making account opening a simple and quick process taking a few minutes. Enhanced alerts – for convenience, many customers demand timely alerts of account activities provided on multiple channels. The institutions banking solution will seeks to enhance the text and e-mail alert systems. Buy vs. build decision The upgrading of the system will include the activities which are aimed at improving the current internet banking platform. The applications and systems which will be used could either be built of bought ready-made. The element of buying presents a fundamental challenge in ensuring compatibility with the current system, hence the organisation will have to depend on a customised system in the upgrading process. The key benefits which the company will get will include the following Assured compatibility with the current system Control and agility in the process of development and deployment of the system The utilisation of in-house talent in the implementation of an upgraded system Meeting the desired customer requirements Milestones The following table indicates the major milestones that the project will meet Milestone Description Date Complete requirements gathering All the customer requirements must be determined in order to base the design upon them. 30th May Complete e-banking design This is the theoretical design of the upgraded platform which will be used in improving the service delivery 25th June e-banking coding All completed coding must result in software prototype 15th July Testing and debugging Functional capacity of the system must be tested and any errors present corrected immediately. 15th August Project team and work breakdown structure The project has twenty team members who will be selected from different departments and assigned various responsibilities within the project. The team will comprise of 18 employees of the OAB; nine individuals each from the e-banking and the IT divisions within the bank. The other 2 individuals will be professional consultants with experience in the maintenance and configuration of go-live systems. The IT division members will be responsible for the design and development of the application, jointly with the consultants, while the e-banking division members will be identifying the key stakeholders, collecting information of user requirements as well as enhancing communication and coordination of activities between the team members. The consultants will perform the function of design the application according to the user requirements. The work breakdown structure for the activities will include the following 1. Internet banking upgrade project 1.1. Initiation 1.1.1. Evaluation 1.1.2. Development of project charter 1.2. Planning 1.2.1. Project scope 1.2.2. Selection of project team 1.2.3. Develop project plan 1.3. Execution 1.3.1. Kick off meeting 1.3.2. Verification and validation of user requirements 1.3.3. Designing 1.3.4. Procurement of requirements 1.3.5. Installation of system 1.3.6. Testing 1.3.7. Go live 1.3.8. User training 1.3.9. Go live 1.4. Control 1.4.1. Project progress meetings 1.4.2. Risk management 1.4.3. Update of the project management plan 1.5. Closeout 1.5.1. Auditing 1.5.2. Acceptance of project 1.5.3. Archive project documents Activity list Activity ID Activity Name Description Responsibility 1001 Project planning This will include conducting an assessment of the various requirements within the project in order to establish what the project must achieve at completion and how this will be achieved. The entire project team 1002 User requirement assessment This will include collecting data regarding the needs of the users of the systems. this will be key to determining how these needs will be satisfied through the project The team comprising of members from the e-banking division 1003 Designing Considering the requirements of the users and then including them into the system being developed. IT division members and consultants 1004 Procurement Purchasing and sourcing for the materials and equipment which will be utilised in the project process. Procurement manager 1005 Installation Putting into place the equipment which will be responsible for providing the desired functions which have been defined within the system Consultants and IT division members Gantt chart Risk assessment The approach for the management of risks within the project will include methodological processes which will be utilised in identifying, scoring and ranking the various risks involved in the project. Every efforts will be undertaken in seeking to ensure the identification of risks if conducted proactively ahead of time in order to implement mitigation measures and prevent the adverse effects of the risk (Rafftery 2003). Risk managers will be assigned to the various risks and their responsibilities will be in providing updated status of the progress made in mitigating the risks. Risk Description Risk type Mitigation Compatibility This refers to the capability of the new system to functions together with the current system. Project A customised system will be utilised instead of purchasing a ready system form vendors Cost The costs of implementing the project might go higher than the estimated costs by the plan business An accurate cost estimation has been utilised using the prevailing market prices of commodities to determine the costs of the project Quality plan The team members within project will all be involved in the quality management within the project. It will be imperative for the team members to ensure that the work and activities which they are undertaking are completed at a desired level of quality (Schwalbe 2010). The organization will be involved in ensuring that the system meets all the required quality standards. All task will be reviewed by OAB, who is the main sponsor of the project for approval of various quality standards The quality manager of the project will be the individual responsible for quality management throughout the project life. This will be the individuals responsible for implementing the quality management plan while ensuring all the essential task are undertaken according to the desired quality measures. External quality specialists will be conducted to assess the implementation of the quality plan and also recommend tools which will be utilised in implementing quality within the project References Brown, S., Bessant, J.R. & Lamming, R., 2013. Strategic operations management, London: Routledge. Corvoisier, S. & Gropp, R., 2009. Contestability, technology and banking, Available at: http://ub-madoc.bib.uni-mannheim.de/2297. Dale, B.G., Wiele, T. Van Der & Iwaarden, J. Van, 2013. Managing quality 5th ed., New York: John Wiley & Sons. Ganguli, S. & Roy, S.K., 2011. Generic technology-based service quality dimensions in banking: Impact on customer satisfaction and loyalty. International Journal of Bank Marketing, 29(2), pp.168–189. Gupta, A., McDaniel, J.C. & Herath, S.K., 2005. Quality management in service firms: sustaining structures of total quality service. Managing Service Quality, 15(4), pp.389–402. Heizer, J. & Render, B., 2013. Operations Management 11th ed., New York: Pearson Education Ltd. Heizer, J.H. & Render, B., 2014. Principles of Operations Management: Sustainability and Supply Chain Management, New York: Prentice Hall. Lindemann, U., Maurer, M. & Braun, T., 2008. Structural complexity management: an approach for the field of product design, New York: Springer Science & Business Media. Padmalatha, S., 2011. Management Of Banking And Financial Services 2nd ed., New Delhi: Pearson Education India. Rafftery, J., 2003. Risk Analysis in Project Management, New York: Taylor & Francis. Schwalbe, K., 2010. Information Technology Project Management 6th ed., New York: Cengage Learning. Slack, N. & Lewis, M., 2015. Operations Strategy 4th ed., New York: Pearson Education Ltd. Trott, P., 2008. Innovation management and new product development, New York: Pearson Education Ltd. Yang, C.-C., 2006. Establishment of a quality-management system for service industries. Total Quality Management and Business Excellence, 17(9), pp.1129–1154. Zomerdijk, L.G. & Voss, C.A., 2010. Service design for experience-centric services. Journal of Service Research, 13(1), pp.67–82.  Read More