Introduction
Problems are inevitable in the process of conducting business. Change has become a part of every industry. Though change comes with its advantages, the major setback that it brings is the urgency to deal with unpredictable phenomenon. Businesses find themselves in the middle of unforeseen competition while others wake up to the reality of declining income.
In every problem that the business encounters, a solution must be found, failure to which the company is likely to experience withdrawals and at times closure. In line with this, ClubCorp Inc has been experiencing numerous challenges. This paper aims at getting at the root of the problem, presenting a thorough investigation and providing a solution to the current setback for the company.
Background
ClubCorp Inc is a Dallas based club that has enormously grown in the recent years. The Club was founded in 1957 and has thrived to become a global leader in private club services.
The club runs a connection of more than 150 private clubs that mainly range from golf and sport clubs, country and business clubs as well as clubs formed by alumni members of various institutions and organizations. The club, though based in Dallas, has its wings spread at a worldwide level in 24 states of the United States.
Having been in the business for a long time, the company offers a wide range of services to its members. Such services involve the opportunity for members to network as well as conduct business. In terms of leisure, the members are able to enjoy golf as well as tennis. The membership ranges from peak time members and normal time members.
Having a wide range of facilities, the club is able to host a variety of clubs at the same time, and give the members an opportunity to intermingle. The club is able to give members the opportunity to hold wedding events, business meetings, private events outings and tournaments among other range of activities. In the recent years, the club has grown to host over 350, 0000 members. Membership to the club occurs yearly.
Individual members are able to get information at a global level about the individual member clubs of the club through the company website. Just like many membership clubs, the members of the club constitute of the working class who club with the main purpose of getting away from work. The Business members also get the opportunity to conduct business in a serene environment away from their organization confines.
While the employees of the club constitute of different gender and demographics, the subscribed members are mainly the male gender. This is mainly because golf has a wide number of male funs and players. Other than gender, income and class, the members vary in terms of other demographic elements such as religion.
Legally, the Club is guided by the club guild; the subscription of members is voluntary and guided by the constitution of the club. The organization has been in operation for a long time and consequently a majority of the employees including the top management are over 40 years of age.
The company offers long term employment contracts to the employees and many of the employees have been in the organization for a long time. Having been in the business for a long time, the company offers a wide range of services to its members. Such services involve the opportunity for members to network as well as conduct business. In terms of leisure, the members are able to enjoy golf as well as tennis.
The membership ranges from peak time members and normal time members. Having a wide range of facilities, the club is able to host a variety of clubs at the same time, and give the members an opportunity to intermingle. The club is able to give members the opportunity to hold wedding events, business meetings, private events outings and tournaments among other range of activities.
In the recent years, the club has grown to host over 350, 0000 members. Membership to the club occurs yearly. Though based in Dallas, the club has its wings spread at a worldwide level in 24 states of the United States.
Problem statement and scope
ClubCorp had been growing in the past few years. Currently, ClubCorp revenues have been reducing. As discussed above, the club has been in the business world since 1957. At the time of its formation, the area of specialization had little competition. In addition the company was formed with the goal of creating a niche market among the business class and the elites in the society.
However, times have changed and the company is facing a major problem in retaining customers. With a constant economic crisis, even the business class hardly has the money to keep up with the initial subscription fee that is set by the club. Consequently, customer retention has become a major problem for the club. This has been worsened by the rise of competition since customers have other options to choose from.
On the other hand, the employees in the organization are experiencing a great challenge in keeping up with new software in the organization. The operational incapacity among the employees is mainly because of the current global evolution in technology.
Many of them constitute of the over 40 years of age who have not fully embraced modern technology. The software that are bought by the organization are also too many to be utilized to their full potential.
With the current problem that the company is facing, major customer drawbacks may be experienced if something is not urgently done to resolve the problem. At one hand, the problem in customer retention is directly resulting to a drastic drop in the financial income of the organization.
The company is neither able to sustain the expenditure nor provide quality services to customers. Clubs which have currently subscribed are threatening to withdraw membership if the service quality does not improve. The financial crisis has also led to poor motivation among the employees and poor payments.
The importance of technology in modern business world cannot be understated. The issue of the inability of employees to use software efficiently has drastically reduced the level of customer service. Being a global company, technology would have played a big role in reaching global customers and in utilizing online platforms to get feedback and acquire competitive advantage.
With poor technological knowledge among the employee, the ability of the company to utilize the internet to put it ahead of its competitions in a field that is faced by continuing changes and growth has been compromised. While competitors are strongly using the internet to market their products, get current information about customer needs and get online subscription the company is drastically lagging behind.
In addition, competitors are using skilled employees to utilize technology in aspects of communication, online purchases and even service provision. Reaching the global market has become a major issue for the company. This will soon lead to more loss of customers if measures are not put in place to reverse the situation.
In regards to purchasing, the company is buying too much software that the company is not able to utilize. This is a direct implication of wasted resources.
While the company is facing income constraints, more constraints are being imposed by the wasted expenditure on software that the company is not able to utilize. The software is depreciating in value day by day and if more software continues to be purchased, the company will be on its way to bankruptcy.
The problem that the company is facing requires urgent measures in order to reverse the situation. The changes in the business environment are putting enormous pressure on the management. Clearly, unlike in the past, today, there is a different criteria being used to evaluate the effectiveness of an organization. In a struggle to survive, managers have to constantly deal with competition and the global environment.
This is imposing tension forcing management to adopt new operation management approaches. The management must clearly come up with a means to solve the problem failure to which the company will be forced to withdraw from the competitive world.
Root Cause analysis
Evaluating the root cause of the problem being experienced by the company strongly shows that three areas in the company have directly contributed to the current situation. At one level, R&D is not doing proper research on the state of the economy globally and domestically.
Though globalization has brought with it major opportunities for the business class mainly through a larger market, it has also brought in key challenges. Constant research has to be conducted by the R&D department in order to implement solutions from a global level.
At one hand the department failed to predict constant economic crises that are imposing a challenge to the members. ClubCorp Inc is a company that provides leisure activities. People will only choose leisure when the income is enough.
There has to be constant evaluation of the economy. Currencies should be evaluated not only at the local level but also at the global level in order to adequately predict the market fluctuations. In terms of development, the organization seems to lag behind greatly.
The same policies and strategies that were formulated in its foundation are still the same strategies and policies in place today. The company has not incorporated new talent and ideas in its framework. There are no current developments in the organization.
In regards to the underutilized software, the purchasing department is purchasing software with the claim that it will increase revenues, while this is not fully proven. The main cause of the problem is lack of proper consultation between the purchasing department and the financial department.
While the purchasing depart may be using past statistics to purchase software in the hope that it will generate more revenue, the financial situation of the company dictate otherwise. Proper communication between the two departments would have helped in eradicating the unnecessary purchase.
On the other hand, the purchasing department need to rely on relevant inform information in order to conduct appropriate purchases. There has to be proper consultation with the human resource department in order to accurately gauge the capability of the employees in solving the purchase problem. Employees also need to be educated thoroughly on the use of software in order to utilize the capacity of the software (Hammond 45).
The management of the club, through the C.EO, is imposing a great challenge to the organization through the purchase of new entities without proper consultation of the team. These entities are imposing a great challenge to the financial capacity of the organization. The funds used by the management in purchase of new entities should be directed to more beneficial activities in the organization.
Recommendations
In coming up with a solution to the problem that the organization is facing, the R&D must get more involved in research about the current global trend. Assessing the needs of the customers and their feeling about the current membership fee will act as a perquisite tool to solving the problems of the organization.
In conducting R&D the company might use questionnaires and interviews so as to get proper feedback information. Expert in the financial department must also liaise with R&D in order to come up with a clear prediction of the economic condition both at the global level and at the domestic level (Sanchez 11).
Adequate funds must be allocated to the R&D department to conduct the economic survey. Afterwards the findings must be properly utilized by the management in order to reconstruct the membership fee to a lower level.
Also in solving the current economic condition, the company should result to the shareholders of the company for financial contribution. If the shareholders are involved in rescuing the company from the financial crisis, the company will be in a better position to grow and refund the money back to the company.
On the other hand the human resource department must get involved in training the employees on software use. The company is losing more when the employees are not in a position to utilize technology since the software has already been purchased by the organization. Training might require the employment of experts in software use who have the skills to train the rest of the employees on how to use the software.
Any new recruitment must be based on the knowledge that the new employee has about software use. In addition, the human resource department must implement policies in the organization to encourage the employees to learn how to use the software.
Reward schemes can go a long way in motivating the employees. Tough measures will have to be implemented in the long run for the employees who are unwilling to learn the software use (Simon 9).
In regards to the unnecessary purchase, a proper framework of consultation must be implemented by the organization management. Different systems of communication such as the downward communication, upward communication and lateral communication between departments will help curb unnecessary purchases.
Meetings, emails, letters, open door policy among other channels of communication within the organization will play a big role in solving the misunderstanding resulting to unnecessary purchases. There has to be a proper chain of command in regards to purchasing comprising of a team from the purchasing department and the financial department.
The management of the organization must embrace the fact that modern business decisions can never be made by a single individual. In matters of purchases, of new entities, the board of the company must be thoroughly consulted. The entities must be gauged and evaluated in order to incorporate new members who serve as an asset to the organization rather than a liability.
Overall, the organization must embrace change in order to solve the current problem. Strategies and policies that were put in place in 1957 are outdated. The company has to engage the employees and the customers in generating new ideas and creativity into the business. Constant customer surveys have to be carried out in order to keep up with the changing customer needs.
A talent acquisition department will play a big role in nurturing creativity and fresheners in the organization. In addition, by utilizing feedback forums such as face book, twitter, and suggestion boxes the management will be in a better position to come up with critical decisions for the organization.
Limitations
Coming up with the research problem and recommendation might be easy. The real problem lies in the actual implementation problem. For a start, change in the organization will be inevitable. In implementing the change, there is likely resistance from the employees who have been used to the current trend of conducting their business activities.
Secondly, there is a big probability that the shareholders will not like the idea of contributing money to the organization. Convincing them into the idea will pose a great challenge to the implementation. The process of training the employees will involve additional funds and time. Unless the employees embrace on- the-job training, the process might pose a threat to the organization performance.
On the other hand, on the job training has its own challenges such as limited concentration on the training process. The organization is currently experiencing problems in its income. This is a major challenge for the R&D department because more funds will have to be supplied to the department for the conduction of the recommended research.
Implementation
Since various departments will be dealing with the problem at the departmental level, resources will be supplied at the departmental level. The R&D department will require more financial resources to conduct the economy research at the global and at the domestic level (Allan 23).
The funds are directed towards the research as well as to paying the extra Manpower that will be involved in conducting the research. In addition to the resources, the employees will have to be equipped with the additional skills necessary to conduct the research process.
Time is a necessary resource that will have to be apportioned to the RD department. At times the team will have to work overtime in order to accomplish the additional workload.
In order to introduce creativity and innovation into the organization, a talent acquisition department will have to be created. Having been in operation for a long time, the department will help the management in formulating new strategies and ideas that reflect the current business trend.
In addition, the department should closely liaise with the public relation department in conducting campaigns that are geared at formulating a new corporate image for the organization. The actual implementation process will require additional manpower specialized in this field, financial resources as well as time.
The human resource department will require additional resources in order to eliminate the problem. At one hand, the department will be conducting training among the employees to enable the employees use the software already purchased by the organization. The department will have to employee an expert in the field to conduct the training.
There will be time spent on formulation of the policies as well as on conducting recruitment for the right employee. It will allocate resources for the process of soliciting, interviewing as well as selection of the employees with the right skills (Francis 33).
The process of creating a clear line of command in charge of purchasing will utilize time and manpower. The purchasing department will have to locate more of its time in the process of making consultation before making any purchases.
There will be more time spent in the communication process between the department and other departments in order to make the purchasing decision from a holistic point of view. On the other hand, the management will have to spend more of its consulting the board of the company before accepting new entrants into the organization.
Table for financial resources:
Timeline for the various activities per department (1st -30th November)
Impact
Organizational impact
In the long run the implementation will have a positive impact to the organization. For a start, the employees will be able to utilize technology in delivering the services to the customers. The company will be able to utilize software devices to go beyond the current geographical location and expand to other regions. The management will be able to network with other organization using modern software.
Such networks are likely to form a basis for greater beneficial mutual relationships. Also, when the employees become skilled in modern software use, the level of customer service is likely to improve drastically in the long run attracting more members and member clubs.
With the implementation of a proper communication plan between departments in the organization, the company is likely to reduce any misunderstanding. Communication between the purchasing department and the finance department will help eradicate the problem of unnecessary purchases. This is likely to reduce the strain on the organization expenditure.
On the other hand, a clear line of command in regards to purchasing will help improve accountability in the organization. Working as a team will help improve responsibility and reduce misunderstanding.
Communication will also enable the organization in gathering customer feedback in regards to the subscription fee. The charges will be fluctuated according to the customers need. This will in turn reduce the problem of poor member retention.
When the R&D team become more involved in researching the global and domestic economic trend, the company is likely to become more aware of the economic environment. The expenditure will be varied according to the economy and so will the charges of the member subscription fee.
The contribution from the shareholders will help the company go a long way in solving the financial crisis that the company is experiencing. It will help the company in delivering efficient and effective services to the members as well as in motivating the employees to work diligently for the organization. This will help attract more customers as well as retain the current members.
The talent acquisition department is likely to bring freshness into the organization. At one hand, the department will be able to work with the human resource department in recruiting employees with creative ideas. Also, the organization management will be able to formulate current strategies that are creative, unique and that attract more customers into the organization.
New ideas will enable the company in getting rid of unnecessary policies that have made the company lag behind in its activities over the past couple of years.
On the other hand, consultation between the C.E.O of the company and the Board of the company will have a long term impact in having loyal members in the organization who are assets rather than liabilities. This will also help cut back on unnecessary spending in acquisition of entities that bring in loss to the organization.
Financial Impact
As discussed in the implementation process, a wide range of financial resources will be required for the actual implementation process. However the long term impact will be positive. Investing financial resources for the employees training, Research and development and talent acquisition will enable the organization gain financially in the long term.
There will be more member retention and the quality services. This will help in attracting more customers to the organization. Though the shareholders of the company will have to contribute funds to rescue the company from the current situation, there will be long term benefits to the organization and to the shareholders through increased share value.
Time log
Conclusion
From the trend of the company, it is clear that every company consist of its weakness and its strengths. The modern business environment is full of competition and unpredictability. The success of any company depends on its ability to identify problems and come up with effective solutions to solve the problems.
As a first step to coming up with a solution, the company must conduct a thorough background check of its activities in order to identify any problems and loopholes n its operation. After identifying the problem, the company must go ahead to come up with effective solution.
The implementation face will involve an acknowledgement of both the limitations and the necessary resources. The process might be demanding but at the end the company gets an opportunity to enjoy enormous benefits.
Works Cited
Allan, Taylor. The Principles of Business: Solving Organization Problems, Boston, MA: Little Brown& Company, 2006. Print.
Francis, Rod & Bernard, Boyle. Evaluating Organization Problems: Critical problem solving, Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill, 2009. Print.
Hammond, Fared. The Practice of Management: Addressing Problems. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill, 2010. Print.
Sanchez, Moron. Addressing the root cause of a problem: An Organizational contexts. Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, 2009. Print.
Simon, Hung. Solving Organizational Problems: Critical evaluation of modern business. San Francisco, MA: Jossey-Bass, 2009. Print.