Response to Business Environment Questions
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Response to Business Environment Questions
Question 1
Change is one of the constant things in our daily lives. Like any other Earth’s aspect, a business environment encounters change. If a business can cope with the ongoing evolution of the industry that they are focusing on, then we can conclude that the job is half done. A company can only survive the continuous industrial change only when its workers avoid all the negative repercussions that the enterprise might encounter. This will minimize their learning curves due to the standards’ evolution. Essentially, this is one field that the business should look into to adapt to today’s enterprise environment.
Organizations need to look into their competitive priorities. This will help them to be ahead of their competitors in the race of marketing. These priorities are classified into four broad classes, namely Quality, Flexibility, Cost, and Time (Re Reid and Sanders, 2019). In the book “Operation Management: an integrated approach,” the author provides an exciting example of Southwest Airlines. The company has competed successfully with other airlines regarding cost. Many of their flight routes cover short distances, enabling the company to streamline its facilities, reduce scheduling crew changes, inventory, maintenance, and other such administrative expenses. Avoidable expenses in giving meals, seat assignment, boarding passes prints are reduced, therefore successfully applying the Competitive Cost Priority.
Another significant aim of any enterprise is change management, the analytical strategy for preparing a development company. Additionally,establishing processes that sufficiently deal with change in an enterprise environment. Comprehending the social, technological, and economic obstacles and the company’s marketing environment and how those affect an enterprise is pivotal to strategic planning. Change must be controlled, applied, and executed: this will help the company to be able to innovate and grow. The change execution will involve continuous communication between the staff and managers to feel that they are part of the change and thus empowered. Establishing, applying, and controlling growth in the business environment can sometimes come after a long period of experience.
In the past years, the business environment in various fields has been classified by fast changes. The major revolution has been the changes from a sellers’ market to a buyers’ market. Currently, the environment is that of the buyers’ market (Kennerley and Neely, 2018). This change is the result of global transitions and macroeconomic social, political, and technological changes. This environment’s characteristics are globalization of the global economy, new managerial strategies, timely availability of knowledge, accessibility of data, and fierce competition among companies near and across the world. Therefore organizations should keep seeking and testing new marketing approaches and try old ones they have not used before. Additionally, organizations should seek opportunities hidden.
References
Kennerley, M., & Neely, A. (2003). Measuring performance in a changing business environment. International Journal of Operations & Production Management.
Re Reid, R. D., & Sanders, N. R. (2019). Operations management: an integrated approach. John Wiley & Sons.ferences
Question 2
At the Prime Bank, this would be the recommendations;
Layout
The bank to adopt a branch layout should be doubled or should be the same with the number of staff approved in each branch. The cabins present remaining for attending client grievances. Also, the bank to offer a higher amount of withdrawal in ATMs installed in the premise. The ban should provide an individualized statement for commercial clients, depending on the frequency needed. The online platform to give the annual financial returns (in the form of PDFs). Moreover, ATM self-services should be offered in the drive-through counters in the banking premises or on the deposits’ frequency at each bank.
On staffing, there should be bank employees, workers to be trained in teller expertise and management. Clients should be offered instant ATM deposits with the guidance of bank workers. Also, staffing should be outsourced to the agency responsible for staffing. There should be a proposal to outsource the client service call center to minimize expenses, develop scalability and efficiency. Using the outsourced model, the bank can limit initial workstation expenses and connect it to certain SLAs to ensure that the client service center can suit the customer’s index satisfaction (C-Sat). Significantly, the bank could inspire the call center for each percentage growth above the set benchmark. As mentioned in the case of the Massachusetts Prime Bank, the banking sector encounters challenges in balancing customer service, confidentiality, and security.
The bank should also cater to holidays and ensure that client service is at its peak during this time. This is due to the lack of at the branch level. This implies that the escalation team should be empowered to manage tough calls similar at a branch level. Additionally, the bank should introduce bankers walking around on the premise. The bankers would reach where clients are and resolve the queries. This service would reduce the bank’s customer movement and offer outstanding service to high net worth people and commercial clients (Franceschini et al., 2018). It would be better for these individuals because it will increase loyalty, personalized attention, and greater client satisfaction.
As mentioned earlier, offering additional counters would help the bank cater to great customer traffic. For instance, allowing deposits for free at the bank ATM with immediate conciliation to the client’s account can ensure there are low footfalls at the counter. Generally, operation strategy decisions are critical in this procedure as they establish a bond between the business strategy and all other decisions. Workers should accept deposit cheque on I-Pads after currency validation and counter their clients (Kazami et al., 2016). In summary, the Prime bank should consider the above list of changes for the operation functions. The trend should be regularly be reviewed for four weeks and then after every two weeks and eventually after one month.
References
Franceschini, F., Galetto, M., Pignatelli, A., & Varetto, M. (2018). Outsourcing: guidelines for a structured approach. Benchmarking: an international journal.
Kazami, I., Soida, F., Shimomura, Y., & Serikawa, S. (2016). U.S. Patent No. 6,321,204. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
Question 3
The operation functions will explore the following questions: during the product screening level of the new merchandise, several questions need to be taken into consideration by the department of operations;
- Will the product production process lead to a beneficial decision or not
- While manufacturing the product, will the expenses be borne by the company?
- Whether the raw materials can be efficiently and quickly converted into finished merchandise or not.
- Can the whole process be controlled without challenges, and will the management have the ability to manufacture the merchandise with minimum time and cost.
- What alterations can be taken to attain the product goals?
- How they can reduce the time involved in the manufacturing and development process while delivering it to the client
On the other hand, there would be questions to be explored by the marketing function; in the merchandise screening level of the new merchandise, the following questions demand to be addressed by the department of marketing;
- Where in the market sector, the merchandise will suit the desires of the customers
- Is the type of merchandise being manufactured needed by the target market, or will it act as another substitute?
- Are the product features capable enough to suit the customer’s preferences, or some changes in the merchandise is needed?
- How the potential the merchandise is for marketing, and will the product have the ability to attract the target market’s attention.
Historically, in large the United States and European companies, the finance function has focused on operating budgets, cost control, and internal auditing (Gitman, 2019). In the new product’s merchandise screening stage, the questions that require clarification by the department of finance include:
- What the expenses involved while manufacturing the merchandise, and can the organization bear all the expenses or not
- Whether the merchandise turns out to be beneficial for the company and whether the product will be able to recover all expenses or not
- Whether there are efficient budgets in the organization to offer the best quality raw materials for the merchandise.
- How will the merchandise be offered and priced to the customers, and the product’s set to cost be fair enough for both the company and customers?
In summary, an effective finance enterprise partner aims to offer actionable insights to the administration at all business stages for sound decision-making and value development over time. The marketing department’s marketing solely helps in to know where in the market sector, the merchandise will suit the desires of the customers (Churchill and Surprenant, 2019). The primary role of the department is to ensure that the product attains the customer’s preferences. This is usually based on the marketing research performed before the manufacturing of the product. Lastly, the operation attempts to know whether the raw materials can be efficiently and easily converted into finished merchandise or not. Indeed, there are many considerations involved in the product screening stage; the stage aims to balance the company’s and customer’s needs.
References
Gitman, L. J. (2019). Introduction to Managerial Finance. Prentice-Hall, a division of Pearson Education, Inc.
Churchill, Jr, G. A., & Surprenant, C. (2019). An investigation into the determinants of customer satisfaction. Journal of marketing research, 19(4), 491-504.
Question 4
The internet clarifies information irregularly and establishes the balance of scale in line with other users. Information access regarding products and services is faster and easier to attain, primarily about pricing that aids customers (Rose et al., 2017). Sellers no longer have the ability to limits contact with primary pricing information. Clients find it easy to compare suppliers and find lower costs through internet-enabled systems like e-commerce. From pins on your Pinterest to images on your Instagram, the first and exact thing a retailer can choose to do is grow the store sales to inspire the clients. Various big retailers have digitally equipped storefronts; retailers with a low reputation might not achieve this.
However, they can always connect with clients at inspiration points. They would utilize key displays, store windows, and cash wrap places to narrate inspiration narratives through the merchandise they sell. The second factor is creating a merchandise mix; for one to develop inspiration narratives, they must establish the merchandise on their floor to suit the customer’s interests. One can quickly develop merchandise displays for friends or family types during the holidays. Also, during the low season shopping period, retailers can attain aligning and creative merchandising to lifestyle or fashion trends and add other exciting features like vintage products or limited edition.
Designing the store floor to suit the needs of customers is another approach. From the moment customers enter a store, it is significant to make your clients part of your space. Reflect on your intent. Utilize what your clients are looking for to inspire your floor plan. On the other hand, maximize the store layout to drive sales. Once you have evaluated why individuals come to the store, you must make it easy for clients to complete their specific shopping goals. If clients ordered a product online for pickup, have it in a place where it can be easily accessed: where the product can be retrieved without interrupting those people who might have inquisitively wandered in. On the other side, if a client visits and wants to buy a good and do not wish to ship something home, then provide deeply or free discounted (larger products) to complete a sale.
The growth of mobile shopping has blurred the boundary between the online experience and the physical store. Rather than having two varied channels, both combined can be utilized to maximize the customer shopping experience. However, there have been challenges encountered by the legacy-brick and-mortal brands to cope up with the growing e-commerce. This is not the kiss of death to the physical store (Jusoh and Ling, 2017). A scenario where the physical store might die is when organizations fail to create a seamless experience between offline and online shopping. The organizations that have successfully coped up with the transition have developed applications, maximized their e-commerce stores, and began selling merchandise via social media.
References
Jusoh, Z. M. & Ling, G. H. (2017). Factors influencing consumers’ attitudes towards e-commerce purchases through online shopping. International Journal of Humanities and Social Science, 2(4), 223-230.
Rose, S., Clark, M., Samouel, P., & Hair, N. (2017). Online customer experience in e-retailing: an empirical model of antecedents and outcomes. Journal of retailing, 88(2), 308-322.