Introduction
Performance measurement is one of the tools that’ managers use to evaluate and improve the output of their employees and the overall performance of their companies. The main philosophy that guides the workability of performance measurement is that companies that fail to engage in their results cannot adequately determine their success or prevent failure. As a result, such companies find it difficult to reward success and may even reward failure unintentionally (Wu & Liu, 2010).
Dulsco LLC is one of the companies in the United Arabs Emirates (UAE) that apply performance measurement in their management systems. To understand how performance measurement is applied in the management of the Dulsco Company, this paper addresses a number of aspects within the company that are performance-related. The aspects that are addressed include: an overview of the company, the competition it faces from other players, its overall quality approach, its key resources and advantages, and the other issues it contends with. The paper also suggests a number of solutions.
An Overview of Dulsco
Dulsco has been in existence in the United Arab Emirates for over seventy years now (UAE). Dulsco is known for its significant contribution to the general growth of the UAE. The company played a great role in the transition of Dubai from a fishing village to an industrial state with a mega metropolis. The company has more than 6,000 experienced employees, who assist it to provide different services to all its customers within the region. The main businesses that the company engages in are waste management services and provision of HR solutions (Qasim & Ramaswamy, 2011).
The company together with its businesses fall under the human resources industry and works hand in hand with a number of firms to execute its services. Dulsco assists companies such as IKEA to outsource skilled labour including carpenters, electricians, and tailors. Dulsco also helps IT companies such as Alpha Data and Acer Computer Ltd to find the best IT specialists within the region. American Hospital is the main client of Dulsco with regard to waste management. Dulsco assists the hospital in chemical and radioactive disposal of medical wastes and incineration management. Apart from HR solutions and waste management, Dulsco also provides services such as tank and marine cleansing, industrial and warehousing, and property services (Qasim & Ramaswamy, 2011).
Dulsco’s success is accredited to the proper way it treats its employees, who comprise the professional, technical, and specialist, skilled and unskilled categories. Dulsco’s employees are drawn from around 20 nationalities within the UAE. The company’s management values and retains the employees since it understands their contribution to the company’s growth and expansion. As a result, the management has put in place effective performance measurement tools and talent management programs to help it assess the capabilities of the employees and the company’s overall performance (Qasim & Ramaswamy, 2011).
Competition
Competition is one of the factors that affect how Dulsco carries out its operations in the UAE. Firstly, competition affects fluctuation in the supply and demand for the services of the company, which normally occur as a result of other firms that deal in the same line of services; this causes Dulsco to lower or increase the prices of its services. Before several similar companies sprang up, Dulsco enjoyed the advantage of being a monopoly in the region and made huge profits by setting good prices for its products. Secondly, competition results in added value on the products that Dulsco offers in the region. The company is at times forced to lower its prices accompanied with added value to the products to survive amidst the heavy competition. Generally, competition enhances economy, monetary value, human resources reward, and product variations (Behery, 2011).
There are a number of companies that offer stiff competition to Dulsco. Most of these companies are those that offer HR solutions and waste management services. JAMS FZE is one of the firms that offer HR solutions in the UAE. This company was founded in 2000 and is accredited as one of the best organisations that offer HR solutions in the region. It works closely with the Dubai Ports Authority, which greatly assists it in executing its businesses. JAMS FZE has about 2,500 employees, who admit receiving an unsurpassed treatment from the company’s management. The company is known for offering HR services that are reliable, punctual, flexible, quality and above all, cost friendly. JAMS FZE offers a stiff competition to Dulsco given the lower prices it offers for its services (Nikookar, Safavi, Hakim, & Homayoun, 2010).
Innovative HR Solutions (IHS) is the second company that offers competition to Dulsco within the region. IHS assists its client companies to improve their overall performance by evaluating and developing a talented workforce for them. IHS helps the clients to develop effective organisational structures based on efficient HR strategies. The company also assists these clients to implement efficient HR frameworks within their management systems. Although IHS’s prices are almost similar to Dulsco’s, it tends to offer more effective services, which creates heavy competition for the latter (Nikookar, Safavi, Hakim, & Homayoun, 2010).
Gulf HR is the third company that also creates a competitive environment for this sector in the UAE; this in turn influences the operations of Dulsco in the region. Gulf HR services are exclusively web-based and are flexible, localised and comprehensive. The main services offered by this company are HR solutions and Payroll Software services. The services are customisable and have technical back-ups that support their workability. The Gulf HR’s HRIS software is user-friendly and does not require advance technological know-how to operate. The Gulf HR tends to beat Dulsco in competition especially in cases where the clients prefer online services. Dulsco offers most of its services off-line, which at times, makes it difficult for it to reach a large number of clients (Behery, 2011).
Apart from the HR companies, there are other companies that offer waste management services within the UAE. The firms that offer waste management services in the region provide heavy price-related competition to Dulsco. Trashco LLC is one of the companies that offer waste management services in the region at relatively lower prices. Trashco was established in 1977 and was the first private company in the region to offer waste management services. This company is a constituent of the SUEZ Environment Company, which is position 3 worldwide in waste management. This gives Trashco a good name and makes it renown on the region. As a result, Dulsco has to work harder to capture a bigger potion of the market for waste management (Nikookar, Safavi, Hakim, & Homayoun, 2010).
The last source of competition for Dulsco is the UEM Environment Company, a subsidiary of Abu Dhabi Kualiti Alam Environment Services (ADKA Enviro) LLC. ADKA Enviro has operated in UAE for more than two decades now. The prosperity of this company depends on the expertise of its management team. The team consists of individuals with diverse background in management and maintenance of property. It is this team and the connection that this company has with ADKA Enviro that sometimes give it a competitive advantage over Dulsco. UEM Environment, at times, offers very low prices for its services than Dulsco can afford. As a result, UEM Environment attracts more customers in the region (Kristianto, Ajmal, & Sandhu, 2012).
Dulsco’s Overall Quality Approach
Dulsco’s overall quality approach assists the company’s management to assess continuous improvements made in the company as a long-term process as opposed to short-term objectives and goals. The management uses the approach to transform the company by improving employees’ attitudes, capabilities and practices. Dulsco’s total quality management (TQM) combines all the aspects of production such as distribution, communication, marketing, training, and planning in appropriate proportion to enable the management to achieve the goals and objectives that the firm is intended to fulfil (Wu & Liu, 2010).
Dulsco’s management tends to value the employees more than any other thing within the company. As a result, the management focuses most of its efforts and the company’s resources on training, developing and motivating the employees. There are several schemes that the company develops that are supposed to be used to train the employees according to the specifications of the operations that the company engages in. These strategies include Dulsco’s E-learning Academy, E-ducate, video shows and tutorial books. All these are intended to be used in enhancing the knowledge and skills of the employees (Wu & Liu, 2010).
The management also relies on employee motivation to improve the quality of services rendered by the company. For instance, the company highly rewards the employees who exemplify good performance in their work. The management uses customers’ feedback to determine the employees who excel in their work. Some of the rewards that are used in the motivational process include cash awards and non-monetary awards such as certificates on sales recognition, best employee, and customer service. In addition to cash and non-monetary presents, the company also issues the best-performing employees with client appreciation awards and sport awards (Wu & Liu, 2010).
The management of Dulsco has also adopted another TQM policy that assists it to provide the most appropriate training to its employees. The policy is known as Quality, Health, Safety and Environment (QHSE) and is carried out on a weekly basis. The employees of the company, through this policy, are trained on all the aspects outlined in the QHSE. This strategy helps the company to update its employees on the emerging issues in the market and to furnish them with any changes that may crop up within their line of production (Wu & Liu, 2010).
Lastly, the management and the employees closely observe Dulsco’s corporate social responsibility (CSR), which was established to ensure that the company gives back to the community where its operations are located. The company promotes the culture of CSR by raising funds for needy students and other people who are affected by natural calamities. The company’s management believes that by relating will with the communities, a peaceful environment is created that helps to enhance the performance of the employees (Qasim & Ramaswamy, 2011).
Dulsco’s Key Resources, Capabilities and Competitive Advantages
Human resources outsourcing is the main resource for Dulsco LLC. Dulsco’s operations and prosperity depend on the companies that solicit its assistance in finding talented and performance-oriented employees. Dulsco handles almost all the HR issues for its client companies, which reward it for these services. The company, because of its name and the good work it does in the UAE, charges high prices for the HR services it offers its corporate clients. Another key resource of Dulsco is waste management services; since there are few companies in the UAE that offer waste management services, Dulsco enjoys the less flooded market and can charge prices that reflect the quality of its services without worrying about competition (Kristianto, Ajmal, & Sandhu, 2012).
The company’s capabilities revolve around the HR solutions, which are based on a long-term sustainability approach and supported by its team of dedicated and talented managers and employees. The company, through its management, has the capability of identifying and filling any gaps in the HR market. The company also has the capability of managing wastes from hospitals and other industries. Dulsco has also been accredited for offering the best accommodation services for people in the United Arabs Emirates (Behery, 2011).
Dulsco’s management is constituted by a team of talented individuals who know how to develop and maintain competitive advantage over other companies. Firstly, the team evaluates and sets competitive prices that put the company ahead of its competitors. This strategy has worked for the company for a long time. The team has been able to sustain this strategy by ensuring that its expenses are optimised to avoid imposing any negative effects onto the pricing process. Secondly, the management and the employees of Dulsco work together to ensure that its services are of the highest quality compared to those of its competitors. Dulsco has been able to attract and retain a number of companies as a result of this strategy (Behery, 2011).
Issues Affecting Dulsco
The management of Dulsco has been apt at identifying and correcting most of the internal problems before they adversely affect the operations of the company. However, it has been difficult for the management to take care of the problems caused by changes in the external environment. This is because most of these changes are difficult to predict and control before they take place. The main issues the company currently faces are the challenges brought by technological advancements and changes in prices of in-puts (Haverila, 2010).
The current changes being witnessed in information technology have great effects on the operations of Dulsco. The company has constantly relied on less advanced technology to dispense its HR services. This implies that most of the company’s employees do not have adequate knowledge in IT; this is a serious problem that has resulted in loss of clients, especially those who embrace technological advancements (Haverila, 2010).
Another problem is the changes in prices of in-puts such as fuel and other facilities that the company uses to carry out most of the services related to waste management. Sometimes, the prices of fuel and other chemicals used in waste management go up; since the company cannot adjust its prices overnight, it is forced to suffer the losses. These losses greatly affect its profits, which in turn affects employee performance (Haverila, 2010).
Recommendations: Solutions to the Issues
There are strategies that the management of Dulsco can adopt to help the company deal with the current issues it faces. For the changes in IT, the management should ensure that all the employees are trained according to the new technological requirements. The management needs to employ IT specialists to train their employees on the current IT practices to enable them to offer services that conform to the modern practices. It is cheaper for Dulsco to employ its own IT experts than taking its employees to be trained in other institutions (Behery, 2011).
Secondly, the management should employ experts who can identify and evaluate risks before they occur. There are many business experts specialising in risk evaluation and who can foresee risks that are caused by natural calamities. These experts together with the management can work together to set prices that take into consideration all the eventualities that come afterwards. This can assist the company to avoid the losses that come with poor methods of price determination (Behery, 2011).
Conclusion
Performance measurement is one of the managerial tools that companies use to evaluate and improve the output of their employees and their overall performance. The performance measurement philosophy asserts that a company can only reward good performance if it is able to recognise success and failure. Dulsco LLC has been used in this paper to illustrate how performance measurement is used by companies to engage the output of their employees. Dulsco deals in HR and waste management services, and is one of the best companies in the UAE, which offer the best solutions to HR matters.
References
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