Ultimate Travel Services - Assignment Example

Running header: New Company Student’s name: Instructor’s name: Subject code: Date of submission Ultimate travel services Introduction Ultimate travel services limited mainly specialize in the provision of adventure and business travel and related services to the travellers. As such, the company is a specialist in provision of travel services from where the majority of its revenue is generated from. Mission statement The company has the sole aim of providing memorable travel services and hence holidays in Sydney, which are both environmentally and socially responsible while satisfying the needs of our customers and ensuring that we always exceed the client’s expectations. How the mission will be accomplished In a bid to achieve the above mission statement, we will undertake the following steps; i) We will ensure that we hire highly qualified and trained staff that have knowledge and experience in various areas including marketing, finance, tours and travel, management among other relevant areas. ii) We will constantly invest in both innovation and marketing in a bid to expand our market strength not only through marketing but also through offering superior services compared with our competitors thus helping us stay ahead of the competition. In this regard, we hope to have five branches both in Sydney and Melbourne within five years. In 20 years’ time, it is our hope that we will have expanded to all states of Australia. iii) We will always aim at constant development of business opportunities through offering unique travel services which meet our client’s leisure and business travel needs. iv) We will endeavor to maintain flexibility for adapting to both local and international travel trends thus establishing our company as the optimum travel services provider throughout Australia and indeed internationally. v) We will continuously operate while complying with all the required standards and principles within the industry. The Company’s Organizational Structure at Inception Initially, the company structure will be as shown in the figure above with the members playing the roles detailed below; i) Board of directors- they will come up with corporate policies and give the general direction to the company while advising the company’s management on management related issues. ii) The Chief Executive Officer – He will be responsible for the day to day management of the company as well as implementation of the board’s decisions. iii) The tours and travel department will be the core department for the company and will be responsible for sourcing clients by the consultants as well as advising them on the best travel packages while advising the management on the best tours and travel practices. On the other hand, the tour guides will be involved in the day to day guiding of our guests during their tours. iv) The finance department will be responsible for collecting the money charged to the clients as well as in planning for how the money will be spent and invested. In addition, the department will be responsible for advising the management on various financial related matters. v) Marketing and advertising department will be responsible for marketing the company while advising the management on all emerging opportunities for revenue generation. vi) The administration department will be responsible for the day to day administration of the company. The staff in the department will include secretaries, the customer care officers and managers of the clients travel documents. vii) The human resources department will be responsible for the welfare of all our employees including their management. After three years The issues we will face running the business at two locations i) It will be difficult to give both the branches or locations equal time and attention or at least the attention that each deserve since when one branch say the primary branch gets too busy, it will be hard to give the other branch the attention and time it deserves. ii) As stated above, there will lack spontaneous communication since the management will not be able to see all its employees at one pace easily as it was when there was only the primary branch. iii) There will be problems with logistics since when there are things that cannot be sent electronically, they will have to be sent through mail or a messenger would have to be hired for that purpose. iv) There will lack team cohesiveness and us versus them mentality may arise as employees in both branches do not know each other well a situation that might affect quality of service. v) General supervision will be more difficult and hence it will be difficult to know whether employees at the other branch are working and behaving appropriately. Resulting from the above challenges, the organization structure below will work for the company. The company’s organizational structure after three years In a bid to overcome the issues described above, the company will be converted into two branches with each branch having its own manager who will oversee its day to day running. Eagle Vale Branch will also act as the head office where finance, marketing, operations and human resources departments will be based though they will offer services to both the branches and will also supply the branches with employees according to their needs. However, each branch will also have its own employees who will mainly include travel consultants and tour guides. It is however worth noting that all managers will report directly to the CEO and will be responsible for the performance of their departments or branches. After five years To keep in touch with all the five locations, I will have to invest in technology. In this case, all the branches will be connected to the same server so that they can be controlled from the same location. In addition, I will have to change the organization structure so that branches within the same city will be controlled as a unit that is independent from the other. However, all the managers will be answerable to the group CEO who will in turn be answerable to the board of directors. This way, we will not have to be present in every branch at all times in a bid to ensure their smooth running. As stated above, issues to do with control and coordination will arise. This is because the CEO can only be at one branch at one given time and hence without a proper organization structure and management skills, some branches are bound to be mismanaged. However, by appointing regional managers for each city as well as branch managers for each branch, it will be possible to ensure smooth running of all the branches. As such, I propose the following as the new structure for the company after it has so expanded. In a bid to overcome the coordination and control issues discussed above, the above organizational structure has been deemed appropriate. In this regard, there will be an additional line of management in the organizational structure. This is because there is need to establish regional manager offices for ease of control and coordination. The regional managers will be in charge of managing branches in a region and will control all the branch managers in their regions who will in turn manage their branches. On the other hand, all senior managers including the regional managers will be answerable to the CEO who will in turn be answerable to the board of directors. After 20 Years After 20 years, we have become an international company operating in five states. However, this comes with its own challenges since the number of the employees has increased significantly with each group of employees having different needs. We are also faced by the cultural differences that exist across the states while the distance from the head office to each of the branches makes it difficult for control and coordination of each branch. We are now dealing with clients from diverse backgrounds and cultures which imply that customers would call for closer and more personalized attention if we are to satisfy their differing needs effectively. It should also be noted that by now, competition has increased since now we are operating on a more global scale. This implies that we have to increase our marketing and innovation efforts if we are to stay ahead of the competition. These problems could be solved using an appropriate organizational structure that allows the branches to be controlled and coordinated more closely while maintaining close ties with the head office. Some of the levels to be added in the structure would include vice presidents for each state as well as an independent customer care divisions in each of the states. The tours and travel division, the operations as well as the customer services departments would be responsible for customer satisfaction by ensuring that customers are provided with innovative services on time while answering their complaints promptly thus ensuring that they get value for their money. As shown in the organizational structure above, information and hence command would flow from the board of directors who are the policy makers to the CEO who is charged with the responsibility of implementing the board decisions. Information would then flow to the state vice presidents, the regional managers, the branch managers and finally to the employees and vice versa. However, it should be noted that some departments would be standalone departments offering their services to the entire organization and sending employees to the branches depending on their needs. Such departments would include the finance department in charge of overall organizational finance as well as the company’s human resources department in charge of staffing and employees welfare. The company’s organizational structure after 20 years is shown below; References: Jared, B2011, Introduction to business management, London, Rutledge. Read More