Introduction
In the modern society, the business climate in every sector is constantly evolving putting the management on its toes. The hospitality industry has been no exception from these changes. In the business environment, transition from a commercial climate to a consumer centered market produces the largest effect.
In other words, price, quality and performance of goods and services within a company were determined by the expenses incurred in production without considering the consumer needs.
This happened because of monopoly; for example, when a firm is the sole provider of electricity within a country, it charges the service without considering consumers’ expectations. While this continues to be the case for monopolistic market, the business world has drastically changed.
The changes in the business environment are placing enormous pressure on the management. In fact, there is a different criteria being used to evaluate the effectiveness of a manager. In a struggle to survive, managers have to constantly deal with competition and the global environment.
While at one hand the factors in the global environment may have increased the number of customers, on the other hand, resources and budgets are being reduced.
This is imposing tension forcing management to adopt new operation management approaches i.e. reducing the input while extracting resources (Boaz 2008).
For example, in the hospitality industries, due to globalization and an increase in demand for accommodation, hotels are being forced to increase their accommodation rooms output with the same resources but with an improved performance accompanied by more quality services.
Operation management is not dependant on improved technology or the employment of more skilled workers. It depends on the adoption of strategies that are applicable in a certain business environment.
For instance Safaris five star hotel success does not depend on improved technology; it depends on evaluation of the current consumer needs and the business environment in order to come up with an effective strategy for success (Boaz 2008). The hotel hospitality industry has been drastically transformed in the recent years leading to a massive shift in the operation management.
Adoption of a global perspective
Safari five star hotel Company has shifted its operation management to adopt a global perspective. This has entailed considering a decision in view of the whole picture rather than making a decision from one point of view.
Viewing operation management from a global perspective has entailed the expansion of the system scope and the expansion of the time frame. The change to a global perspective can be explained through the following instances.
In one case, the company was implementing reforms in its restaurant subset. New Chinese dishes were to be incorporated to improve and reflect the customer demand.
Upon agreeing and implementing the recipes, the company realized that the purchase of the ingredients was too expensive and was only leading to a massive loss for the entire hotel despite the satisfaction it was bringing to its customers. The management learnt a lesson on adopting a global perspective. If they had incorporated the whole picture while creating the business idea, the massive loss would have been avoided.
On the other hand, it was implementing new recipes in an effort to cut its cost. After the implementation phase, the business realized that some of the ingredients could only keep fresh for a few hours and could not be preserved. The company was experiencing a drastic loss because of looking at operation management from one point of view.
Adopting a global perspective has entailed the use of key elements in business managements. Making a decision on facts, maintainability, and testability and evaluating the failure possibility. If it’s rewarding employees, the five star hotel must look at all aspects. Rewarding the cateress in terms of the number of client served can as well lead to the delivery of inefficient services.
Organization Policy and Operation management
In operation management, it is inevitable that policy statements will affect the achievement of the organization goal. In dealing with policy statement for employees, customers, suppliers or distributors, adoption of an inappropriate policy can lead to an automatic failure of the organization through an indirect link with the performance (Boaz 2008).
Negative policies have an enormous impact in pushing the organization in the wrong direction and leading to an organization failure.
In safari five star limited, policies have had a big impact both positively and negatively on the success of the operation management process.
While conducting a case study of the impact of policy statement on the operation management success of the company, I realized in some cases, policies that are applied in the past may not necessarily apply in the present. Policies need to be earthen and modeled to fit the present situation as change demands. Also, viewing policies locally can lead the whole organization towards sub optimization.
For instance, in one case, in an effort to contain the time , all hotel attendants were limited in the amount of time they would spend serving a customer (both bottlenecks and none bottle necks). This policy though motivated by good intentions, led to a massive loss of customers due to decline in the quality of services. The policy had worked against Safaris five star hotel organization goals.
In another case, in applying Pareto rule, Safari five star hotel restricted purchases of food to morning hours only. This negatively impacted the organization because the food became inadequate in late hours of the day.
Focusing
In the current business environment, managers are being faced by a constant shortage in time to attend to the business needs. As time becomes limited, operation management calls for a strategy to deal with the issue at hand in order to guarantee competitive advantage while at the same time minimizing the time spent. For the managers at Safari’s five star hotel, specific strategies have been implemented in order to deal with time.
In applying the principle at hand, delegation has been an essential element of the operation management in Safari five star hotel. In the modern business world, delegation has become a common practice and it has helped solve the problem in time constraints drastically (Boaz 2008). Though a necessarily condition, delegation can have both positive and negative impacts as evaluated in the case studies of the five star hotel.
For instance, in one case the manager had to attend an overseas meeting and being absent, delegation helped solve the problem. People who came for interviews were sufficiently attended and procedures in the Company were conducted smoothly.
On the other hand, some customers felt they were not properly attended because they were already used to the manager way of conducting things. From this point of view delegation and worked against the organization.
From the two cases, it is clear that delegation as a tool for operation management is a double edged sword. If the manager carefully takes time to nurture growing talents, the positive effects will be felt e.g. incase of a transfer, the manager is able to leave the organization in capable operation.
On the other hand, some managers lack trust in their subordinates and hardly model them to acquire the skills of delegation. In such cases, when the times come for the manager to leave the organization, the organization becomes weak in terms of its operation. In other words the organization fails to utilize its current resources towards better output.
Focusing does not entail delegation alone, as an element of focusing, the manager needs to concentrate on important issues first then attend to less important things as a matter of priority. For the manager of Safari five star hotel, making differentiation of the task to be done is a key to achieving success.
In prioritizing, the manger has to know what is important and attend to it, then attend to the less important things. This differentiates the successful manger from the unsuccessful manager as it is not the time that is spent on a task that matters but rather the success.
The company manager focuses on issues in terms of what is to be received. For instance, when dealing with customer complains, the manager first listens to customers who are already loyal to the company and whose loss can lead to a drastic loss for the company (Christopher 2009).
Focusing does not entail ignoring other parts or section of the organization. It just entails knowing where the foundation of an organization really lies. Even employees have to be paid in terms of their contribution to the organization.
Model Constraints in Safari Five Star Hotel
Dummy constraints are constraints that arise when there is a restrain in a cheap resource in the organization as compared to other resources. This may arise when the company fails to pay attention to some small detail leading to the inefficiency of the system as a whole. In evaluating the operation systems of the company, I noticed drastic errors that had affected the system as a whole.
In one case, while in the hotel, I witnessed a case of six customers who wanted to book two master rooms instead of individually booking six individual rooms.
For the first day, the customers had met a hotel attendant who did not have a problem with their request but in the second day, they were being evicted because of the argument that their was room congestion in the hotel. After talking closely to the hotel attendants I realized that this problem had recurred for many clients leading to massive losses to the hotel.
From a critical perspective, the hotel was witnessing various difficulties. Simply purchasing new beds for some of the master bedroom could completely eliminate the problem and at the same time solve a problem that was threatening the whole system.
Powerful Innovation as the key to the commercial model
In the modern business world, it is no secret that with change a company has to constantly keep up with new business ideas that keep the business community on its toe. Evaluating on why some business companies have succeeded in the call of change ,while others are dying, have seen that innovation is the secret ingredient differentiating the unsuccessful and the successful.
For instance, one mobile phone company in Africa, Kenya by the name ‘Safaricom’ has thrived in the midst of change because central to its operation management has been creativity and innovation.
For the company, its innovation on a mobile phone money transfer service in its operation has held it to stand upright in the midst of change and massive competition. While many other companies have tried to come in and compete in the market, the company has been able to maintain its customers due to the customer loyalty to its money transfer service (Christopher 2009).
As for safari five star hotels, its boutique hotel service alongside ordinary hotel service has been a significant step towards achievement of an effective operation management. Additionally, innovation has been a valuable factor in the achievement of success for the organization. More so, it is inevitable to commend the company’s creativity in uploading creative models of operation.
As established from the case, the truth of the matter is that innovation within an organization is nurturing the business leaders. Hence, the statement is true despite the fact that several people perceive creativity in business as an element of product activity. Managers who fail to challenge the existing systems by ignoring innovation in their business operations will have minimal success stories.
Perfection in Operations
According to several sources, the number of production lines or services within a company does not define the level of success that will be achieved. However, the success of such an organization will be measured by how well the firm perfects on a particular operation. Organizations that offer disproportionate value are familiar with this principle; hence, they strive to perfect on identified activities.
As such, the organizations are capable of maintaining a considerable competitive edge against its competitor. Several organizations are determined to become leaders in production, hence, rely on marketing, while other firms are concerned with cost leadership.
Similarly, the latter organizations will normally rely in providing the lowest cost for the same range of products. Lastly, other organizations are concerned with creating consumer intimacy.
For the case of Safari five star hotel it’s all about concentrating on consumer attraction through massive print and electronic advertisement to create a niche market. Whichever choice that any company basis its operation, the decision should be motivated by a proper involvement of the operation management.
Training and retraining of workers
Safari five star believes in delivery and therefore values the workforce. The personnel is sometimes sponsored by the company to take a refresher course in management, public relations, security, driving and so on.All this are key to efficiency in customer delivery services and within the company ‘s operations.
Facility setting
While facility location is termed as a matter of common sense in business, its effect has far reaching consequences. In operation management, facility location or its setting refers to the proper placement of the organization and its outlets by keeping in mind the customers and supplier reach.
It is a decision that has to be made carefully and strategically because it utilizes resources that cannot be changed or replaced in the long term (David 2007).
Some of the issue critical in a facility setting and operation involve end user convenience, the government incentives, initial capital for land and the necessary facilities and the cost of the various transport operations.
In evaluating the case of Safari five star hotel, it was clear a strategic decision had been made in regards to the facility location and operation management. The hotel was strategically located in tourist attraction sites and in consideration of suppliers and the transport costs.
In addition to the facility location, a strategic decision in regards to the location was the location of various departments in order to utilize time and manpower. The arrangement of the work space had been made so that the information, product and people could flow and move effectively and efficiently in the organization system.
Management of the organization system in the operation system
In operation management, management of the system itself is a key consideration. Management of the system involves a strategic move of the manager to carefully work with people and motivate them to achieve the organization goals.
Management of the system involves a participative approach where the manager decides to get involved in the organization and in working with people. It requires the manager to be physically become present in the organization and be present in solving problems (Robert 2003; Wesley 2007).
As a key ingredient to operation management, the manager of Safari five star hotel strives to be present in the organization and to work with the employees while motivating them to contribute to the organization.
The manager gets involved in listening to employees and as part of the organization ritual, the manager makes personal routine visit to listen to customers and employees. The organization has gone further to incorporate team building, open door policy and bottom up communication channels as a component of participative management.
Material management
It is no doubt that in most companies, the rate incurred in making purchases covers more than a half of the cost incurred in the production. Material management is another component of operation management that has a direct effect on the way input resources translate to output for the organization.
In this regard, material management of Safari five star hotels involves making a proper planned decision in regards to the control, procurement, treatment, storage and allotment of all purchases in the organization.
Higher technological knowledge
While technology cannot be directly linked to organization effectiveness, in modern business climates, companies with higher technological knowledge tend to achieve a higher level of operational flexibility. This has been no exception to Safari’s five star hotel. The advancement of its technology has made it possible for the provision of better services and products.
For instance, online room booking has greatly improved the operation of the service in the hotel. From the case of Safari five star hotel, there has been no doubt that technology has the power to fundamentally reform a product or service, improve its performance and quality and make it valued by the consumers
Product design
There is no doubt that production forms a core area of operation management. In this regard the design of a product becomes the first step in coming up with an effective organization. Production design does not only happen in the initial stage of forming a company.
It happens continuously as the contextual environment dictates. Needs of the customers are continuously changing and as discussed earlier old products must be phased out while new ones are introduced depending with the environment.
Product design is a process of weighing ideas and transforming them to services and products. In incorporating operation management while designing a product, the manager must ensure that everybody is involved.
The manufacturer must be consulted on the cost; the consumer must be consulted on the usability and functionality while the board has to be consulted in regards to the capital. The product has to cover everyone as well as incorporate the long term goals of the organization.
Internet in operation management
The main advantage that most companies’ operation management system is gaining from globalization is the fact that the internet is creating new channels and avenues through which the firm is able to interact with customers.
Through the use of emails, video conferencing and teleconferencing as well as the use of social networks, Safari five star hotel has been able to monitor orders as a first move for the process of improved services through the information shared.
As a process in operation management, this has created a forum to get lead of negative customer oriented functions within the organization. Frustrations that were previously experienced of employees being placed in call centers for hours are slowly being phased out of the organization. Resource utilization is being achieved by making the unspoken costs of lost clientele as well as the cost of employment function (Jae 1999).
Outsourcing
In order to coordinate parts in the organization that are separate but supportive, organization are resulting to outsourcing of services that were initially produced internally. Services such as public relation and marketing are being outsourced by modern business. The main advantage of outsourcing is that an organization is able to acquire services of an expert.
Consultancy firms which provide outsourced services have the advantages of dealing with a wide range of firms including competitors. Safari five star hotel company has been able to achieve operation management through outsourcing public relation services. In addition to the expertise associated with outsourcing the company has the advantage of outsourcing the service only when it is necessary rather than on a permanent basis.
Staffing
Key in the major issues to be addressed by managers in operation management involves the staffing element. Staffing must be carefully done in order to utilize services of personnel who bring a competitive advantage to the organization. While conducting the recruitment exercise, the company carefully analyses the job to be advertised.
By analyzing a job, the manager gets a clear picture of the desirable qualities that the person to be recruited should possess. While working with the human resource department, the organization manager must ensure that advertisements are made in all key avenues such as in universities, through the print media and in the electronic media as well as in job recruitment bureaus.
After recruitment proper interviews are conducted to thoroughly grill the candidates against the organization panel. Through interviews conducted by a panel, the organization eliminates cases of bias that would arise if the interview was done by an individual.
The interview process also incorporates aspects of assessment test to evaluate the personality and the IQ of the candidates. The selection decision is not an individual’s decision but rather a decision agreed upon after careful deliberations.
On admission to the organization, the chosen candidates are properly trained. A process of enculturation enables them to understand and incorporate the culture of the organization. The employees are assigned to a mentor who normally is their immediately supervisor for guidance and consultation. At the end, the organization is able to achieve a critical element organization management; employment of the right staff.
Job design
As noted above, the process of structuring and restructuring a certain job in the organization is very essential in ensuring that employees are not overworked or underworked. In so doing, the manager is able to maximize on human labour through the delivery of maximum services.
In designing the various jobs in Safari five star hotel, the management have concentrated on the concepts of flexibility, posture, work breaks as well as leaves for employees. For instance, when considering posture, the organization incorporates flexibility so that the employee does not spend too much time standing or on the other hand too much time moving around.
Job rotation has been incorporated to eliminate bored while constant review of jobs is annually done to simplify hard jobs while there is expansion and enlargement of jobs that the employees perceive to be too simple.
Prediction of Demand
The manager in an organization needs to look far beyond the present. The importance in predicting demand is that it helps make all relevant plans in regards to the future. The organization manager needs to make their prediction about the future as accurate as possible as this will impact not only the human resource department but also the finance department in regards to the utility of the working capital.
In making predictions in regards to demand, the manager of Safari five star hotel utilizes both quantitative and qualitative means. The hospitality sector has its peak and off-peak season and demand in these seasons are effectively predicted in order to manage the operations (Michael 2003).
Total quality management
This a function in Safari five star hotel that entail every single person in-charge or in a management function to act as a team in directing their energy to improve the company’s consumer expectation by persistently being concerned in operation management of the various aspects of the organization.
Supply chain management
It is a connection in activities that are involved in providing services to the end users (Donald 2007). Basically, supply chain networks logistics, procurement and operation to provide services with an edge.
In safari five star hotel this activity is performed by proper communication and consultation between the various departments in order to ensure the end product is to the satisfaction of every department. This enables provision of services to end users on time while utilizing the present resources in the organization.
Maintenance/ preservation management
In Safari five star hotel, this function is geared towards improving the life of organization facilities and equipments. As a key goal of the organization, the function is directed at ensuring that the facilities and equipment work at their optimum as well as keep safety and increase their life.
As a policy of the organization, every employee undergoes safety training and signs a contract to maintain the organization safety rules. Incase of a safety threat, the employees are obliged to report immediately (Zoe 2000). The employees also undergo fire emergency and first aid training in order to deal with any accidents in the organization appropriately.
Monitoring and evaluation
In the business world, monitoring and evaluation have become a core function of operation management. Managers need to be on the look out of the on going projects in order to ensure that they are in line with the initial intentions.
Monitoring also enables the manager to keep the organization in line with its objectives and mission. As a guiding principle, the mission statement of the organization becomes the benchmark through which to evaluate all activities of the organization.
In addition constant evaluation is necessary in order to ensure that the expected goal and objective of the organization is achieved. For Safari five star hotel, evaluation of employee performance is done through performance contract.
Jobs are constantly evaluated and consumer surveys are constantly done to ensure that the organization is meeting its customer expectation. Managers maintain an Open door policy, use of suggestion boxes as well all holding constant interdepartmental meetings help the hotel in its monitoring and evaluation (Robert 2009).
Conclusion
As established from the report, it is clear that in the modern business environment, increased organization output is not necessarily linked to the level of input. As such, organizations can achieve increased output in the midst of change through the utilization of an effective strategy.
Several problems will be inevitable while creating an effective operation management system. From the case study, however, it is evident that experiencing problems leads the company towards a wise future due to practical lessons attained while developing solutions.
Reference List
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Christopher, K 2009, Customer Driven Operation Maagement: Aligning Business Processes and Quality tools, McGraw Hills, New York.
David, B 2007, Essential guide to Operation Management: Concepts and Cases, Routledge, London.
Donald, C 2007, Supply Chain Risk Management:Vulnerability and Resilience in Logistics, MPG Books Ltd, Cornwall.
Jae, K 1999, Operation Management, Barrons Educational Series, New York.
Michael, L 2003, Operation management: Critical perspective on Business Management, Routledge, London.
Robert, G 2009, Service Operation Management, McGraw Hill, New York.
Robert, J 2003, Cases in Operation Management, Borrons Educational Series, New York:
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Zoe, F 2000, Management: Function and Strategy, Barrons Publishers, New Jersey.