Measurement
OPEL automobile company has identified a few concerns from customers who call frequently on our official customer care line. Some more customers have occasionally complained on radios and other media. A few more have posted their issues online on our customer care email address. We have also undertaken a field research on the same and sampled several opinions from our customers and the potential market. Some customers have also visited our premises personally to lodge their complaints. (Venkitaraman & Jaworski 1993). They were majorly relying on these ways because they are the main avenues through which their grievances could reach us.
In total, the company has received approximately 991 customer concerns. These issues were revolving around two major concerns: efficiency of the engine and the durability of the spray paint.
Below is a table that gives a detailed summary of customer needs, the drivers to those needs, and the critical to quality (CTQ).
The above table provides benchmarks for satisfying customer needs. This process of quality adjustment and control is meant to serve the purpose of making us the market leaders and beater. If we make a lot of changes and improve our management, we will be in a position to favorably compete and be well placed in this competitive sector in the corporate world. Hence, it will end up taking us back to our company glory we used to enjoy.
Analysis
The current performance of OPEL has taken a huge toll on the company notably for the past one and half years. Car sales and assemblies have been on their record low, leading to reduced annual profit and customer confidence. Since we rely on the clients as the integral part of our success, their loss of confidence in our services has actually jeopardized our survival.
In this case, it was obviously inevitable to look for strategies through which we would cater for this. Therefore, it forced us to retrench and temporarily lay-off some of our employees.
Sustainability has been doubted because records show that if the trend continues, then it is likely that the OPEL Automobiles Company might close down operations in less than five years time. A very immediate action has to be taken to reverse the trend.
The most likely causes of the problem include:
- Unscrupulous suppliers who provide the company with substandard spare parts such as aluminum for lining the engines. This makes our technical team to assemble products of low standards that end up not satisfying the needs of the majority of our customers.
- The supplies office of the OPEL Automobiles Company has been sleeping on the job or most likely conspiring with suppliers to provide low cost below par accessories. This has been with intent to keep some of the money in the supplies budget. This means that the management has been so poor to the extent that some of the allocated funds end up being misappropriated (Bartikowski & Llosa 2003).
The problem is likely to be compounded in the eventuality that quality assessors catch up with the company. In this eventuality, the company is most likely to be ordered to stop its operations as the low quality is being subjected to investigation by a government agency of quality assessment. This is because of the necessary inspections that such companies are always subjected to. As we all understand, it is an essential role of the government to control the operation of such businesses, both directly and indirectly.
To avoid us getting into this kind of mess or continuing it fir that matter, we intend to send packing the employees who have over time contributed directly or indirectly to the problem. We are also thinking of breaking with the fraudster suppliers who in conspiracy with OPEL Company employees have habituated supply of substandard accessories. (Bartikowski & Llosa 2003).
The company seeks to spend a little more resources in sourcing for better quality materials that will go a long way in restoring customer confidence. Our estimation is that this might take us not more than one and half years. So, if these and stringent measures are taken, we will surely go a long way to achieving our goals and meeting the market demands.
References
Bartikowski, B & Llosa, S 2003, Identifying Satisfiers, Dissatisfiers, Criticals and Neutrals in Customer Satisfaction, Marseille.
Venkitaraman, R & Jaworski, C 1993, Restructuring customer satisfaction measurement for better resource allocation decisions: An integrated approach, Fourth, New York.