Operations Management in Manufacturing and Service Organizations Todays customers face a growing range of choices in the products and services they can buy. They base their choices on their perception of quality, value, and service. In order to meet and exceed customers expectations, manufacturing and service organizations alike have to implement operations management strategies aimed at improving product/service quality and retaining the existing customers. Financial analysis of customer acquisition compared to customer retention shows that gaining a new customer can cost four to seven times more than retaining an existing one. Such facts reinforce that proper operations management is not merely a trend but a key component in maintaining a solid, revenue-generating customer. Acquiring and maintaining loyal customers translate into lower marketing costs, more referrals, increased spending per customer, and most importantly, insight into performance improvement.
Despite the challenges posed, a conceptual framework of the determinants of product/service quality based on the efficient operations management has been introduced and widely accepted. This framework consists of ten determinants or dimensions of product/service quality: reliability, access, understanding of the customer, responsiveness, competence, courtesy, communication, credibility, security, and tangible considerations. Environmental factors can be assigned to each of the ten service quality dimensions. These environmental considerations can account for contrasts between developed and developing countries, and can be categorized into two main types: economic factors and socio-cultural factors (following the tradition of international marketing literature, countries are being classified as developed versus developing).
The Business plan on Customer Service Essay
... between service quality specifications and service delivery where the management understands the customers’ desired level of service and ... customer base through a variety of customer service research techniques. Have customer’s complete surveys about your products and service. ... sales staff to involve operations staff in direct interaction with customers * managing customer expectations by informing ...
The quality dimensions of reliability, access and understanding the customer are linked to conventional economic development aspects such as levels of affluence, technology, education, competition, and communications infrastructure. The responsiveness dimension is attributed to socio-cultural influences concerning the value of time. Service/product reliability means consistently performing the service or providing the product dependably and accurately. Portraying the reliability and consistency with which the service or product is delivered can take two routes.
The first involves emphasizing the technological superiority and dependability of the process by which the service/service is produced – a high-tech approach. The second concerns the consistent and dependable performance of the personnel – a high touch approach. Although these alternatives are by no means mutually exclusive, nevertheless the relative importance of each route differs according to the level of development of the market. Developed economies have taken long strides in terms of developing breakthrough technological innovations and in terms of manipulating those scientific innovations in a multitude of ways so as to be used in facilitating every day operations. Firms utilizing such state-of-the-art technology should take advantage of the generally high level of education and affluence of their customer base, which can comprehend the benefits of such technologies and can afford the costly technology in exchange for higher performance, quality and dependability. Continuous improvement is the key to providing a good service or product. Organizations in developed countries are constantly faced with intense competition and customers with higher expectations and lower tolerance, and therefore there is a relentless pursuit of continuous improvement in service/product quality.
The Term Paper on The Phoenician Resort Service Customer Event
... service product components; service product characteristics; service product dynamics; and the repertoire produced by the Resort's employees. Service product components are the physical items that surround the customer ... service in every service exchange situation. However, the Customer Service Transaction Model, developed ... bureaus in 28 countries. She related ... and mile-high flower arrangements flown ...
Customers in developing countries have lower quality expectations and therefore a wider zone of tolerance for ineffective services compared with customers in developed countries. Consequently, the pressure from the customers and the competition is often minimal in developing countries. A customer’s ease of contact with and timely access to the service/product supplier is crucial. The highly advanced and reliable communication infrastructure in developed countries presents various alternatives through which the customer/supplier connection is possible. Among these possible alternatives, non-personal contact modes, such as telephone, facsimile, electronic mail, and telex, rank highest in terms of both ease of contact and timely access. Unfortunately, the majority of developing countries are still plagued with limited or unreliable communication networks, thus boosting the relative importance of direct personal contacts between the customer and the service supplier.
One of the major determinants of service/product quality is timely and adequate response. Employees should be willing and able to deliver timely and substantive response to enquiries and complaints of customers. The relative importance of timely versus substantive response differs between developed and developing markets. Such differences arise as a result of the relative value with which time is regarded in each of these markets. Customers of developed countries place a higher value on time compared with those of developing countries. Thus merely responding to a customer’s enquiry or satisfactorily resolving a customer’s complaint – a goal that is generally regarded as sufficient in its own end in developing countries – tends to fall short of meeting a customer’s expectations of quality of service/product in a developed country.
In a developed economy, these tasks should be addressed and resolved swiftly. Possession of the required knowledge and skills to provide the service or produce the product is critical to the success of any company. Reflecting competence of the firm could be centralized on the organization as a whole or on the contact personnel. In developed markets, competence of individual employees is of a relatively higher importance. Such markets place high regard on individual initiative and achievement and are better targeted by emphasizing the unmatched skills of the service personnel. On the other hand, communicating the quality of the service/product with customers in developing countries is better achieved by focusing on the competence of the organization providing the product/service.
The Term Paper on Developing Country and Developed Country
Introduction Developing country means the countries compared with the developed countries have lower degree of development of the economic and social aspects. Developing countries have a vast territory, large population, vast market and rich natural resources. There are many strategic places, in terms of economic, trade, or from the military, occupied an important strategic position. China is the ...
Expertise and skills are to be reflected in the organization. Another cultural factor that supports such strategies is power distance. Developed economies are characterized with a small power distance, whereby both superiors and subordinates of an organization regard one another as “people like me”. Hierarchy in organizations reflects nothing more than inequality of roles that is established for convenience. Thus employees are generally regarded as competent in their own role or domain. However, developing economies are characterized by a large power distance.
Employees at different levels of the organization are regarded as unequal in roles, power and skills. Since customer satisfaction with the service is largely dependent on his/her interaction with the service provider, the number, appearance, and behavior of employees in the service environment can induce either approach or avoidance behavior. Customers typically do not distinguish between the service and the service provider. Thus service personnel should respect and reflect the customers’ cherished values and norms. The difference between marketing services in developed versus developing economies lies in the manifestation of such courtesy. In the collectivist societies of developing countries, service personnel should not only abide by the widely accepted social norms of the community, but also mirror their respect and commitment towards these norms.
By way of contrast, in the individualistic societies of developed economies emphasis of service personnel is placed on reflecting a deep respect and dedication to individual rights, beliefs and privacy. Service companies encourage favorable word-of-mouth communication. In many situations customers seek the opinions of others before selecting a medical doctor, attorney or a mechanic. However, more detailed and complex information needs to be provided about the benefits of service to customers in the developed countries, since their level of education and their cognitive structures are well suited for such elaborations. In short, they have the ability to give more deliberate thought to purchase choices. They have a relatively high level of education that permits them to seek and understand information regarding not only the ultimate outcome of the service, but also the technicalities, details and consequences of the process of service delivery.
The Essay on Migration From A Developing Country To A Developed Country Pros And Cons
Migration from a Developing Country to a Developed Country: Pros and Cons Although the pace of international migration has somewhat slowed down, the number of international migrants, who are moving from a developing country like Jamaica, to the developed world, is consistently increasing. In this respect, international migration becomes the issues of the day, as more than any other issue, it puts ...
On the contrary, customers in the developing countries, despite high intelligence, are prone to peripheral processing in general because poor information flow restricts their ability to use central processing. These consumers collect their evidence more from endorsements of satisfied customers, brand and manufacturer’s image, and also through interpersonal factors like family, social group and social class. The trustworthiness, believability and credibility of the product/service supplier are a crucial determinant of patronage. However, addressing the credibility issue would differ according to a country’s level of economic development. Developing countries could be safely characterized as collectivist societies, where the emphasis is placed on belonging to organizations that are generally regarded as the source of expertise, order, duty and security in the society. Thus the product/service supplier operating in a developing country should stress the company’s long tradition and importance in the society as a means of highlighting the credibility and trustworthiness of the firm.
On the other hand, developed societies score high on the individualism dimension, and tend to emphasize individual initiative and achievement, autonomy and leadership. Consequently, the credibility issue in those countries is better addressed through conveying to the potential customers a glimpse of the firm’s outstanding performance through the years, supported by statistical data. Owing to the low reliability of firms in developing countries, there is a high concern and need for, first, physical security and, second, financial security. In some categories the physical risk may be higher than the financial risk. Along with the physical risk are the financial as well as the emotional risks. However, in developed countries the stakes are probably at the emotional level, since there is a very low chance that the above physical mishandlings would occur. Even if they do occur, the compensation is adequate and forthright. Customers in developing countries are generally satisfied with acceptable performance of the service or qualities of the product in terms of the core benefits it promises to offer.
The Research paper on Quality Of Instructors’ Service: Evidence From Higher Educational Institution
Abstract As higher educational institutions aim for competitive advantage, the evaluation of educational service quality has become essential. This study presents the result of an assessment of the quality of instructional service in a private university from the perspective of its students and using the SERVQUAL model. Three areas were looked into: (a) the most effective service quality among ...
In general, these consumers are highly functional in their choice criteria partly owing to personality factors which are in turn shaped by higher level influences such as values, meanings, culture and philosophy of life. On the other hand, customers in developed countries are generally satisfied only when the product/service offers extended benefits beyond the functional. These extended benefits tend to be more intangible than the core product/service. Thus, operations management strategies play an equally important role in manufacturing and service organizations. In the contemporary highly competitive business environment, efficient operations management system is one of the most significant things that determine the companys success on the market. Words Count: 1, 754..
