Workout World Pty Ltd Business Process - Case Study Example

Analysis of Business process By Insert Name Subject, Semester Institution Instructor Date Table contents Introduction…………………………………………………………………………..3 Company background………………………………………………………………..3 Mission……………………………………………………………………………….4 Target market………………………………………………………………………...4 Strategy……………………………………………………………………………….5 Business process Identification………………………………………………………5 1. Purchase…………………………………………………………………...5 2. Staff recruitment…………………………………………………………..6 3. Customer complaint…………………………………………………….…6 Relationship maps……………………………………………………………………7 Analysis………………………………………………………………………..........8 Discussions…………………………………………………………………………..9 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………….10 Recommendations…………………………………………………………………..11 Reference list……………………………………………………………………….12 Introduction Business process has become the key factor in all contemporary business organizations. These processes must be carried out efficiently and effectively for an organization to achieve its set objectives and goals. The management in charge of the operations must ensure the processes are properly monitored and improved. Apparently, the sole purpose of setting up any business organization is to make a profit. What determines the amount of the profit to be yield by the organization is the business processes (Brocke 2010). Hence the organization must divert all its resources in ensuring the process are effective and are moving smoothly. Typically, the business does not exist in a vacuum; it must exist in an environment. The said environment is not static but dynamic; these means the business process also must change accordingly to match any change in the dynamic environment. For instance, the technology keeps on changing. This calls for a close monitoring and viewing all the arising needs and how the processes can be readjusted to responds to these needs. The report endeavors to identify an organization which lacks standard procedures, identifying and mapping some of its process. This is followed by thoroughly analyzing one with the intention of inefficiencies and making recommendations on how to correct such inefficiencies. Company background Workout World Pty Ltd is a company dealing with fitness equipments. The company sells the fitness equipment to its clients. Its products include: treadmills, elliptical, exercise bikes, boxing equipment and various types of fitness equipment. The company also offers after-sale services as a way of attracting customers. The management of the company also offers free transport to clients who made purchase in bulk. The organization offers a variety of discounts; cash discount is given to clients who made prompt payments, quantity discount is a warded to customers who buy in bulk; that is, the customers who buy several goods, trade discount is offered to retailers which further resale the fitness equipment to its customers. The Accounting department has continuously reported to the management a serious tendency of low sales leading to low profit. The Operations department has also reported to management that customers are complaining of ineffective services from the company. The Store department has continuously complained that cheap and defective equipment are purchased that customers rarely purchase. The company lack standard procedures leading to inefficiency. Mission The mission of Workout World is to be the leading in the provision of quality, effective and efficient customer service. It strives to do these by providing timely and admiring services to all its customers. That is, supplying its clients with durable and well designed products and responding promptly to customer’s complaint. Target market The Work World realized that majority in the public domain suffers from heart diseases. Some clients also have a serious challenge of retaining their shape. Most of these problems are caused by lack of regular exercise. The company thereby deals with customers who prefer to retain their shape through gym. The company also deals with customers who prefer gym as a way of increasing their blood flow thereby relieving them from avoidable heart diseases. The company has continuously caution the public on dangers of not engaging in regular exercise. The company considers this as a way of advertisement. Typically, majority in the public value and appreciate regular exercise. The latter become the target group of Work World organization. Strategy For the Work World Pty Ltd to achieve its missions, the management has come up with the following strategy: Timely service to the clients 1. Ensuring its product are of high quality 2. Valuing customers’ complaint and promptly responding to the said complaint 3. Providing effective and efficient services to clients 4. Provision of variety of products to customers as these will increase the clients’ choice Business process Identification The business process is a combination of activities or set of activities found within an organization (Arlbjorn, & Haug, 2010). The process is set to accomplish the organization objectives and goals. The set of activities represents structures from start to end in correlation with inputs and outputs. The management must monitor and review these processes all the time. The fact that the business is located in a changing environment the process must also change accordingly to fit in the environment (Barnes 2001). The management must also critically evaluate and analyze all the business process. It must identify the process that are efficient and process that are inefficient in the system. 1. Purchase The company’s directors delegated the purchasing role to the accounting department. Once the stock has gone down, the store department will communicate through writing a list of products to be purchased. The list will be provided to the finance department/accounting department. The said department will verify the list of products to be purchased. The Accounting department then purchases all the products which are listed. 2. Staff recruitment When the organization is understaffed, the human resource department will announce for the vacancy. This is subsequently followed by application from job seekers. The human resource department will scrutinize the application and invite qualified candidate for interview. Only the candidate, who has passed the interview, is hired. The hired employee is requested, by the human resource manager, to start work immediately. 3. Customer complaint When a customer is not served sufficiently or is not satisfied with the product he/she has purchased. The customer will table the complaint to company’s supervisor who will then communicate to operation department; the said department will contact the store department. The two departments will hold a meeting to iron out the customer’s complaint. Relationship maps Figure1 shows the stages the for purchasing a product by the company Figure 2 shows the process of staff recruitment Figure 3 shows how the organization handles customers’ complaint Cross-functional maps Figure1 shows the stages the for purchasing a product by the company Figure 2 shows the process of staff recruitment Figure 3 show how the organization handles customer complaint Analysis The analysis is the critical evaluation all the business process taking place within the organization. The question that the management must ask itself includes: First, which process do we have in our organization? Is the process effective? If not, can the organization identify the inefficient in the system? Can changes be made to remove any infectiveness in the system? Can we improve the performance of the process? Customer’s complaints show there is inefficiency. Low sales and unpleasing profit also show that there is inefficiency in the system. Tightness and dependence: Tightness is the relationship between two departments. For instance, Store department and Finance department, they are directly related. Dependency also occurs between the said departments. For instance, without finance department the orders for purchase from store department cannot take place. Bottlenecks: This occurs when the amount of resource placed on a department is equal or less to amount demanded by the department. This will limit the outcome result. For instance, if the Finance department supplies the Store department with fewer products then there will be a shortage in customer’s product. Service blueprinting: This is how clients interact directly with the company’s process service. In the Store department, there is a line of visibility. The said department must place the order which has a list of product that are of customers choice. Store department must also ensure the purchased products must reach the sales department promptly to increase efficiency in the system. Process measurement Process measurement enables an organization to evaluate its performance and to affirm if the process is in a line with the set standard and goals of an organization. Quality must be seen the products purchased by the company. Additionally, the quality of delivery must be observed in the system. For instance, store department and finance department must ensure the products are purchased and supplied to sales department at a shorter time possible (Draheim 2010). The organization must also focus on the speed of delivery; that is products the finance department must ensure it takes a shorter time to purchase the product in the market. The store department must ensure products are supplied to sales department promptly. On the other hand, process velocity deals with time. It considers the time when the order is placed by store department and the time the finance department to actually supply the stock. For instance, suppose it 40 days for stock to be supplied to store department and the finance department takes 10 days to process the purchase then process velocity will be Process velocity= 40 days * 8 hours/10 =32 This means it effectively takes 32 times longer than expected. Discussions The management should address the key factors in the system. The factors are the cause of the inefficiency hence the organization must turn its attention towards giving a sound solution to the ineffectiveness in the system. The profit in the organization is in direct proportion to the effectiveness in the system (Milo & Deutch 2012). Continuous and unaddressed inefficiency leads to a huge loss to the organization. It leads to lack of standardization and collapse in the management. The organization is, therefore, left with no choice but to address any inefficiency in the system. The organization must address the issue of the finance department involving itself in purchase. Customers are only moved by products of high quality. Seemingly, the said department has little or no knowledge pertaining to product quality and customers’ choice. Such purchase will leads to poor sales and loss of customer’s loyalty. The management of the organization must therefore address this loophole. This is an inefficiency which has great impact on the survival of the organization. The profit of an organization completely lies on huge sales (Jeston 2008). The inefficiency will reduce the said profit. The finance or accounts department should be relieved from purchasing responsibility. The organization must come up with a clear role of responsibility. Each department must perform the role which it deem fit. The finance department must not be allowed to audit itself. If such is allowed, it will lead to severe unethical issues. The department may be tempted to collaborate with inexpert suppliers for tenders. The management must also address the key issue which includes the orientation of new employees. It must look into the importance and the aftermath of orientation; through orientation, the new employees will know the mission, vision objectives and goals of an organization. The orientation must be accompanied by vigorous training. The management must address training since it is vital and essential factor (Harmon 2003). The training will lead to competent and qualified staff. Apparently, qualified staff will lead to customer’s confidence. If the organization can address the necessity of training, then service delivery can significantly improve. The Workout World must, therefore, expand its requirement process to include orientation and training as part and parcel of the process. The customers are of considerable importance to the organization. The complaints act as a yield of measuring whether the firm is satisfying the customer’s complaint. The organization must look into the procedure of customer’s complaint. The procedure must be simplified to allow the organization to respond to customers promptly and effectively. Conclusion In conclusion, the organization must come up with clear role of responsibility. Each department should perform in its area of specialization. All the staff in various departments must know its roles. The said roles must be performed effectively to attract customers. The complain procedure has many department involved. When the structures are too much in the system, some customers may shy away from such a system. Simple and flexible procedures should be redesigned to ensure complaints are solved promptly and effectively. The said system should be customer friendly; this will induce customer loyalty (Susan, 2010). The sole purpose of operating a business is to generate profit; the profit entirely depends on the business operations within the system. The process, which is inefficient, must therefore, be improved to ensure quality customer services. Apparently, the only way to attract a customer is to get rid of inefficiency in the system. This will lead to effective and efficient customer service. The organization must come up with ways of evaluating the performance of its employees. This will assist the organization to know ineffective workers; such workers must be trained before they are returned in the system. This will lead to effective customer service. Recommendations The management should allow the store department to handle the purchase of products. The finance department should only issue the funds. However the department must ensure the all purchases is accompanied by receipts. Additionally, the department must ensure there is total accountability. Apparently, the store department has experience in product’s quality. This means quality products will be purchased. The procedure of customer’s complaint is bureaucratic. The said procedure should be simple and flexible. The customers should be allowed to table their complaints to sales department which in turn should liaise with the store department. The two departments should take a shorter period to respond to customer’s complaints. The supervisor and the operation department should be removed from the channel. The human resource department should take the newly recruited employees through orientation. The orientation should be followed by engaging employee in training. This will equip the new staff with knowledge and skills required. The human resource department should liaise closely with related department when recruiting the new employees to ensure the process is transparent, effective and impartial. Through this, competent employees will be recruited. Reference list Arlbjorn, J. S. & Haug, A. 2010. Business Process Optimization, Ontario: Academia. Barnes, D. 2001. Understanding Business: Process. New York. Routledge Brocke, J. V & Roseman, M. 2010. Handbook on Business Process Management. New York. Springer Draheim, D. 2010. Business Process Technology: A Unified View on Business Processes, Workflow and Enterprise Application. New York. Springer Harmom, P. 2003. Business Process Changes: A Managers Guide to Improve, Redesigning and Automating Process. San Francisco, CA. Morgan Kaufmann Publishers. Jeston, J. And Nelis, J. 2008. Business Process Management: Practical Guidelines to Successful Implementation. Oxford. Elsevier Ltd Milo, T. And Deutch, D. 2012. Business Process: A Database Perspective. University of Waterloo. Morgan and Claypool Publishers Susan, C. 2010. The Power of Business Process Improvement. United State Of America. Susan Page Read More