Management Programme for the Parcelforce Worldwide - Essay Example

The Board of Directors The Marketing Manager 6th January 2009 New Relationship Management Programme for the Parcelforce Worldwide 1.0 Executive Summary It is evident that currently the company has seen a lot of competition in offering its services to its customers. This is due to the coming up of similar companies that are using the current technology in sending parcels for their customers. Moreover, the companies are able to capture the company's long term customers by using better marketing strategies. Parcelforce Worldwide Ltd needs to recapture its customers by keeping in mind that their clients have become more informed in receiving better and faster services. For this reason, it is important for the company to come up with new strategies of delivering parcels faster and ensuring that their customers receive the best services by using effective means of communication (Don, 2004, pp.68-88). In addition, the customer relationship will be increased only if the organisation has competent employees. To come up with the new ways of managing customer relationship, it is good to critically look at the management of the organisation and how it has been offering its services in the past. This will also entail finding out how its competitors have been able to survive in the market thus look at their strategies and how they can be implemented within the organisation. The analysis will not leave out the macroeconomics issues that are bound to affect the company's performance which mostly entails the external forces like the economy, technological changes and cultures of its diversified customers(Don, 2004, pp.68-88) . 2.0 Key Issues As mentioned above the major issue is to increase the customer relationship within the organisation. This will ensure that the Parcelforce Worldwide will retain its customers and attract more. Thus it is important for the management to use new communication strategies for the services offered. The customers need to have first hand information on the changes made on how the organisation is offering its services. Effective communication can only be done through advertising in newspapers, posters, televisions, radios and more so the internet either direct emailing or within the organisation's website. The customers need to be informed about the organisation's website and there needs to be something to motivate them to visit it regularly. As part of effective communication, Parcelforce worldwide needs to ensure that it has the records of its customers. This includes keeping their telephone contacts, addresses and emails. This will make it easy for the organisation to communicate with its clients in case there is a change in the service provision sector or if there are any offers. As a company that deals with delivering its customers' parcels, it has to ensure there safety. This means that the parcels need to reach the targeted destination without any damages and without being lost or stolen. The organisation has received a lot of criticism from its clients in terms of safety. February 2006, letters and parcels were lost and some stolen and some parcels were damaged completely. This made the organisation to lose its popularity as many customers were disappointed and thus ran to the rival companies (Business Management General, 2008). To maintain the best consumer relationship, the company needs to develop an effective human resources strategy that will ensure that employees see the importance of acquiring a strong consumer relationship system. This will only be possible if the human resources department employs the competent and qualified employees for each department. Moreover, it has a duty to train new entrants on how the organisation runs its activities. This will avoid wastage of time as the new employees will easily adapt to the environment. Training should also be done on the old employees as they need to acquire the new skills on how to increase communication and relationship between them and the customers. To improve the employees' performance, a performance management strategy should be implemented to ensure that employees are rewarded according to their performance. More so, this will reveal where training is needed. The human resource strategies will definitely increase employees' morale and loyalty in working for the organisation (Business Management General, 2008). 3.0 Vision, Mission and Corporate Objectives For any company to survive, it is important for it to have a stated vision, mission statement and corporate objective. The vision of an organisation simply explains where the organisation wants to be in future. It acts as a yard stick of attaining the corporate objectives which are described in details and are known by the management and the employees. On the other hand the mission statement of a company is used to give the general public the basic information on the goals and objectives of the organisation. The mission statement is very crucial and needs to identify the core values, purpose and goals of the organisation. As the vision and mission of the organisation change, the corporate objectives are bound to change because they are highly dependent on the two (Business Management General, 2008). 3.1 Vision Parcelforce Worldwide vision is to ensure that in future it has better, faster and safer ways to deliver parcels and other materials for their customers. The organisation needs to diversify its vision by coming up with mew and different ideas like running a bank or being in charge of a natural park. This will enable it to expand in its vision. It should not only rely on sending parcels and letters. More so, it needs to expand its services worldwide by taking it to other countries around the world. This will make it go before its rival companies (Business Management General, 2008). 3.2 Mission Statement The mission statement is supposed to report on the core values of the organisation and that is safety, honestly, fair prices and health standards. This will definitely attract the customers as they do send very fragile and expensive parcels that need a lot of care. Other than that it needs to assure the customers that it has the potential to offer better services in the future to meet their vision. This will briefly give the goals of the organisation thus the customers will feel that they are part of the company as they have not been left behind in what the company aims to do. Since the website does not have the mission statement, it is important for it to be incorporated in it so that the customers can have an idea about it (Business Management General, 2008). 3.3 Corporate Objectives Parcelforce worldwide has defined its goals from the time it was formed. It continues to define its goals to the recent time. This is to remind its customers and its employees on the reasons the company was formed thus keep them on track in achieving the targeted goals (Business Management General, 2008). 3.3.1 Delivering Parcels The main aim of Parcelforce worldwide is to deliver parcels for its customers. It should not only end their but it needs to aim at winning its customers' commitment. This will ensure that it has constant customers every time. While delivering the parcels that customers entrust it with, it must put high safety measures to avoid theft, loss and damage of the properties. The reduction in such complaints will definitely increase the commitment of customers in the services offered by the organisation. More so, by employing competent work force, the customers are assured to get the best services from the company. This means that the parcels will be handled with care and the processes will be faster and better. The company measures its customers' loyalty for every parcel it receives every day. To increase it service delivery, it needs to keep records to know its permanent customers. This will enable it to have an idea on the new customers thus rightly gauge itself if it is increasing its sales or not. Evidently, this strategy will enable the company to give special offers to either new or old customers. Parcelforce Worldwide aims at increasing its use of technology in delivering parcels. For this reason, it has won a price for implementing the best information technology strategies in offering its services. Lastly, it strives to be innovative to beat its competitors by offering highly differentiated services of delivering parcels (Business Management General, 2008). 4.0 Situational analysis The current situation is that customers have become very informed on how and where to get the best services (Don, 2004, pp.68-88). Thus Parcelforce Worldwide needs to put this in mind. This will ensure that it quickly captures what its customers require and implement it. Customers are looking for safer, healthier and faster service provision methods. With the current increase of ventures in the industries, it needs to be very innovative in convincing its customers and the general public that it is the best company in delivering parcels. More so, customers need to be handled with care as they know that they need to be treated well if they are paying for services. It is not like before when they could take any mistreatment from organisations and still wait to be served. With the increasing competition, they have a wide range to choose from thus can deny to be served if mistreated. 4.1 Macroeconomic Analysis It is important for Parcelforce Worldwide to know the economic situation of all countries it has expanded its services to. This will ensure that it does not make losses or over charge its customers. The global economy is not doing very well right now because of the fluctuating fuel prices and this has affected not only Parcel force's strategy but very many countries. It was forced to raise its prices to meet the increase of the cost of fuel it uses in sending parcels which made it lose a lot of customers. In such a situation, the company can not control the rise in prices. For it not to lose its customers, it needs to communicate to them earlier before setting up high prices. It needs to give a strategic outline to convince the customers why the prices had to increase. The customers will understand as they will feel important for being given the first priority in knowing the organisation's future strategies. Secondly, technology is another macroeconomic effect that the company has embraced very well over the years to the point of getting an award. This should not stop here as it needs to keep incorporating the new technology that keeps changing day by day. Lastly, as it plans to expand to other countries to increase its customer's number, it needs to be aware of the change in culture that people are going through. It is not expected to use one particular method of offering services to all regions but use what the people of that region prefer. For instance, if it aims at expanding its services in developing countries, it does not need to fully rely on the internet because most people do not have access to computers but use the road to deliver the parcels (Ennew, 2006, pp. 94-100). 4.2 Industry Analysis In setting up an organisation, one need to critically assess the industry to venture in. this means that Parcelforce Worldwide was able to look at the availability of the raw materials whish was basically the need to send letters and parcels within UK and other countries. As the world is slowly globalising, there has been the need to export goods and services out of the country leave alone within the country. 4.2.1 Service provision within the industry Many companies have ventured in the industry because of better transport networks and easy to use technology like the information technology system. The market is there as the exporting and importing goods are increasing daily. More so, very many people are moving away form their mother countries thus need constant communication with their relatives. This makes the companies within the industry to help its customers in sending letters and parcels to their loved ones. Though sending letters has highly reduced due to the internet and email services, the limited information and privacy within the information technology strategy has made a lot of people continue to rely on services offered by companies such as Parcelforce. 4.3 Market Analysis The people who are seeking services offered by Parcelforce are abundant but the organisation needs to completely win them over to defeat the rival companies. As mentioned previously, there are products that can not be sent via the internet thus these services will be required for as long as it takes. Thus it is important for the company to us the current transport machines like vehicles and airplanes that are faster. More so, it is important to fully market the services it offers to its customers and other members of the public world wide (Ennew, 2006, pp. 94-100). 4.4 Internal Analysis Leadership skills should not be fully bureaucratic but rather learn to use different leadership styles in different situations. This will lead to employee motivation thus increasing their performance. This means that they will deal communicate and offer better services to the customers. In addition, training should be done to increase employees' communication skills with the customers. For any changes made within the organisation, employees need to be informed immediately to avoid giving the wrong information to customers (Buckinx et al., 2007, pp. 32-40). 4.5 Summary of Current Situation Currently, Parcelforce is trying its best to recapture its clients' loyalty by offering safe and healthy services. More so, it is using the current technology thus ensuring that the services are offered are faster and efficient. Since its set back in February 2006, it has tried to ensure safety of parcels is attained by employing new and trustworthy employees (Don, 2004, pp.68-88). Despite this, it has increased it security surveillance within the company to monitor how the employees handle the parcels. Its main aim is to recapture the lost image. 5.0 Marketing Objectives The marketing objectives are to make sure that consumers have the knowledge on the services the company offers. It also reveals the different packages it offers to make it easier for customers to find their way when they seek the services from the company. 6.0 Marketing Strategies The marketing strategies to use are sales promotion, advertising, direct mailing and ensuring that there are good and qualified customer care receptionists to explain any inquiries a customer has(Ennew, 2006, pp. 94-100). 7.0 Implementation Implementation of the market strategy will be guided by the famous 4 P's strategy (Ennew, 2006, pp. 94-100). 7.1 Product The products offered are more of services; delivering parcels and letters. Ti is important to define the kind of parcels the organisation deals with and this should be communicated to the customers. 7.2 Place Place simply means the area where the organisation can distribute goods and where its sub branches are situated. The customers should know how far the organisation can send their parcels and where there offices are situated in. 7.3 Price The prices should be according to the weight of the parcel but they need to be competitive to avoid over or under charging. 7.4 Promotion This means that the advertising strategies have to be intense that is use of direct mailing, advertising in the company's website, newspapers, posters in supermarkets, malls and restaurants. 8.0 Budgetary Requirements The budget needs to consider the cost of advertising as it is not going to be very cheap. In addition, it needs to incorporate the amount of money needed to train employees. 9.0 Corrective Action Parcelforce Worldwide needs to put more focus in winning the trust of its customers. It needs to be more customers oriented and this can be done by improving its marketing strategies and ensuring that it avoids poor reputation like theft and damage of goods. References Buckinx W. et al., 2007. Predicting Customer Loyalty: journal of expert systems. Vol. 32, pp. 32-40. Business Management General, 2008. Resources and publications, business news, retrieved from http://www.thetimes100.co.uk/index.php on 6th January 2009. Ennew C., 2006. Developing a Strategic Marketing Plan: Products and Services Marketing: Pp. 94-100. Don E., 2004. Increasing Customer Loyalty: Five steps to deliver value and measure. Pp. 68-88. Read More