Extra Credit Assignment - Essay Example

Management Principles Fall – Extra Credit Assignment What are the most significant challenges facing you as manager of this store? As the manager of a reputed retail store the most significant challenges I am facing are 1.1 How to retain the customers who remained loyal to the store for 25 years and convincing them that only the ownership has changed everything else is same? The retail store has been acquired recently from a private owner by a national retailer. The loyal customers had an established relationship with the previous owner and they patronized this store out of loyalty and relationship towards the earlier owner and might be apprehensive about the new management and consider it as a stranger to the locality.

Retaining these customers and convincing them is a significant challenge as without these customers increasing sales will be difficult and maintain the reputation of the store. 1.2 Attracting and attaining new customers and increasing the sales of the store. As the store is located on the outskirts of the city attracting new customers is also difficult because inflow of new customers is limited so that would be another significant challenge. 1.3 Attaining the loyalty of old employees towards new management and making them accept the changes without resistance.

About ten of the store employees are with the store for several years and are experienced, I have to gain their acceptance towards the new management, myself and new changes being brought in the store as older employees are more resistant toward changes. The timings of the store has also increased and more people need to be recruited, till then existing employees have to work for more hours and might not like doing so. Their resistance cannot be neglected as they know the loyal customers and acquainted with the community.

Therefore it will be a challenge to make them accept the changes and adopt new policies without resistance or reluctance. 1.4 How to motivate my employees and bridge the gap between the old and new employees? To increase sales I need to provide quality service to the customers. For that I need to direct and motivate my employees. Apart from that, the age gap between old and new employees is wide and it might cause some conflicts. I need to organize, direct and control them so that it does not impact the service quality and hamper the business of the store. 1.5 Staffing and Directing employees.

As 5 more employees are needed to fill all the shifts of the store the other challenge I face is to hire more quality people to fill the gap and train them. 2. What steps would you take during the first 90 days as manager to address these challenges? To address the above mentioned challenges during the first 90 days as manager I would go by the principles of management (Koontz and Weihrich, 24, 25) 2.1 Planning I will lay down the objectives and strategy to achieve these objectives. My primary objective is to increase the sales of the store to avoid closure.

Strategy would be, retaining the loyal customers and attracting new customers by providing “qualitative customer service” (Mohana Rao and Manikyam, 7). I will also assess the man power requirements and plan accordingly (Koontz and Weihrich, 24). 2.2 Organizing I will organize the store to make it more convenient for the customers to shop and also delegate more responsibilities to experienced employees, making them more approachable by the customers, improve the service timeliness, and overall improving the perception of the customers regarding the service experience in the store (Mohana Rao and Manikyam, 7). 2.3 Staffing I will improve the quality of the sales force and after the accessing the manpower requirement to achieve the sales objective I will recruit more people who can work as a team and improve the quality of service.

In the meanwhile I will see that existing employees are not feeling burdened with the increased timing of the store. 2.4 Directing and Directing and motivating the employees is must to avoid conflict between older and new employees and to make sure that any changes made are accepted easily. I will devise on-the-job training to new employees, supervised by the older employees as they are more experienced and know the local customers. So that the quality of service improves, the employees attain the ability to understand the problems faced by the customers in the store and able to provide support to the customers in their buying and shopping and improving the after sales service.

Also will provide them training to recognize high value customers to provide them service accordingly (Mohana Rao and Manikyam, 7). All this is to give the customer a very good experience while shopping, buying and maintain a long tern relationship with him. 2.5 Controlling Controlling is one of the important principles of management as it will help in assessing whether the desired goals have been achieved or not and whether strategies are effective or need to be revised (Koontz and Weihrich, 25).

Therefore periodically I will review the whole process, analyze it, collect feedback and reports to ascertain whether we have achieved the objective of increasing sales or not. Also assess the individual performance of the employees. 3. What will be your management style - how will you lead, communicate, establish a team, etc? My management style would be team management style and I will try to give total dedication to both production and people. I will lead by being a participative or democratic leader where my employees are able to express their ideas or suggestion and I will consider their concerns and ideas ((Koontz and Weihrich, 318).

Because I think this is the most appropriate and best suited style for the present scenario. But I will not hesitate to use other styles if the situation demands. Communication style would be two-way communication (Koontz and Weihrich, 267) where I will be communicating my ideas, strategies to my employees and be open to their feedback ideas, and suggestions. According to me this is the most effective way of communication and team management and democratic leadership can only be possible if there is two-way communication.

The employees will feel more involved in the day to day running of the store and as they are the people dealing directly with the customers know their problems better. To review any strategy their feedback and suggestions are essential for improvement. For team management, team work is very important and their participation is very crucial. I will make teams that will include experience and non experienced workers so that there is mutual learning and nobody feels insignificant or left out. End Notes Koontz, Harold and Weihrich, Heinz, Essentials of Management, 8E, McGraw-Hill Series in Management, Tata McGraw-Hill Education, 1990.

Mohana Rao, K.Rama and Manikyam, K. Ratna, “Customers’ Service Experience in Small Scale Retail Stores – A Case Study”, International Journal of Sales & Marketing Management (IJSMM), Vol.1, Issue 1, Aug 2012, pp 7-16, International Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology, Web 6 Dec, 2012.