Describe about the Strategic Approach to the Implementation of Quality Distance Learning.
UMUC haircuts were established in 1995, it was started by Myra Morningstar near the college campus of strip mall. The case study mainly consists of the journey of UMUC haircuts form the one chair shop to the expanded version of it by providing individual parlor facilities to men and women. It provides the scheduling technique of the customer and employee, betterment of the management system for the sake of the organization. Now to improve the marketing strategies the knowledge about the customer needs are very crucial.Evaluation of different IT requirements is explained in the case study with best IT strategy for the business purpose (Fleisher and Bensoussan, 2015).
To develop a good developmental analysis of business the strategy of Porter’s five forces model gives the five forces which give competition to the business and the relevant strategies to overcome them (E. Dobbs, 2014).
Source: (2016)
The bargaining capabilities of the customers is quite high in case of UMUC. This creates a pressure to the marketing strategies of the organization. Implementation of the programs according loyalty can reduce the buyer capabilities. According to UMUC haircuts the organization should plan some resolving program for the buyer capabilities such as the best technician must be hired at high cost, which create positive impact on the organization. The competitive strategies of Myra is also not disturbed by this approach (Dana, 2012).
The inputs of the UMUC market sometimes vary with the bargaining capabilities of the supplier. If it becomes very strong then it quite harmful to the organization.For this business purpose the raw elements like scissors, cotton and other beauty products are supplied by a single person then there may not be any alternative way for collection of raw materials, when there are few substitute in the firm. So the firm should be connected with different suppliers (Habib et al., 2015). The more supplier choices one company have, the supplier becomes more powerful.
According to the business perspective, organization should concerned about the facilities available in other parlors. It will benefit to improve the UMUC. Threats may arise if other parlors give more facility than UMUC. So the matter of concern should be concentrated in the improvement strategies of other competitors. To encounter this kind of problem UMUC should invent new ways of attracting customers by adding new technologies to entertain and attract the customers.
New entries in the market of UMUC can also be the cause of threat to it. As this kind of entrants may sharply affect the profitability index of the UMUC.So UMUC should design the infrastructure work in such a way that other new comers can’t compete with them and in other words they are completely blocked. The key technology of the company must be strong enough to restrict the entries of the new companies.
Rivalry of the competitors measures the competitive nature of the different rival companies. The important part is the efficiency and numbers of the competitors. Few factors influences the rivalry- innovative sustainable advantages, expenses regarding advertisement, and strategy empowering the organizational improvement (Coad andTeruel, 2013).
|
FORCE |
EXPLANATION
|
IMPACT |
AFFECT STRATEGY? |
|
BUYER POWER |
The power of the buyer is quite high according to the poster’s five forces. Implementation of loyalty programs this can be reduced. |
Negative |
Yes |
|
SUPPLIER POWER |
The power of the supplier is high in case of UMUC. |
Negative |
Yes |
|
THREAT OF SUBSTITUTE PRODUCTS OR SERVICES |
When there is no substitute for the raw elements of the UMUC, there must be some back up of alternative suppliers. Which will help the company for high profitability index. |
Positive |
Yes |
|
THREAT OF NEW ENTRANTS |
The new entries in the market will affect the position of the UMUC. So to make this position sustainable some improvements in the facilities should be there in the organization. |
Negative |
Yes |
|
RIVALRYAMONG EXISTING COMPETITORS |
Rivalry among the competitors affect the growth of UMUC. To restrict this loss of productivity for rivalry its better to gain knowledge about the facilities of the rival companies. |
Negative |
Yes |
According to the Porter’s five forces, UMUC has chosen leadership strategy for cost effectiveness. It means the UMUC want to provide various type of facilities to their customers atlower cost than other competitors are providing. By this kind of a approaches UMUC can develop a good platform for the cost effectiveness for the organization by attracting more and more customers by improving the facilities.
Now if the strategy chosen for the development of the company judged according to the Porter’s fiver forces then we can understand the impact of this strategy on the organization. Lower cost of providences the customer power will go down and also it will affect the supplier power as well. If the company get strength properly, then the rivalry and entrants can’t change their positions in the market (West et al., 2015).
After selecting the proper strategy for UMUC, for further improvements the customer and employee scheduling is applicable in UMUC. This concept of customer employee scheduling helps to increase the interests among the customers about the company, as the company is providing facilities at low cost other than the competitive companies. Which will results into the profitability of the organization.
For improvement of the different sectors of the organization, the customers need should be granted, as each customer wants a specific person to do his or her works, the persons are provided freedom to choose their slot of time to serve that customers. But this is very much difficult to allocate them, so there an IT analyst is required to do the scheduling of the customers to their required persons (Rosemann and vomBrocke, 2015).
Introduction:
Generic strategy for competitive advantages: Cost leadership strategy
Business process to be improved: improvement of service
According to the Walmartstrategy,the total process is explained here-
At first when the customer enters the UMUC haircuts customer name is verified with the details present in the UMUC databases. If the customer name is not a new to the database, then the customer is verified with its comfortable person. Then the checking of that person is done, whether he or she is available on that time or not. If he or she is available then that customer is allocated to that person. If that person is not available on that time, then the customer is transferred according to the choice with a second person.
But if the customer is new to the UMUC haircuts, then he or she is allocated to the person who may be free at that time (StankeviÄÂiÅ«tÄ— et al., 2012).
The competitive advantage of the Walmart’s strategy is that providence of the product at low cost comparative to the other companies.If the porter’s five forces theorem is considered, then it can be viewed that, power of the buyer is very much high as the customers have too many various choices. The customers are demanding lowest prices for the products that are why they are looking at the Walmart’s theorem.
The suppliers of the Walmart’shave a little bit of the power as they have the smallest size. This walmart’s supplier can provide a huge amount of potential efficiency. The fact about Walmart is that, the suppliers have to follow Walmart’s decision about the process related to business and requirements of the technicians. The suppliers feel the pressure for the lower price of the product, which results to lower priced labor markets.
The another aspect of the Porter’s five forces, the threat of the alternative items when there is not substitute for the alternative items, can provide the customers different type of choices for their need. Online applications also provide threats to the suppliers as they are capturing the market entirely by low overhead prices. As the web stores have low overhead prices they can provide the product in low price.
The third important aspect of the five forces theorem is that the entrants in the market running online is very high. As low prices are concerned in this scenario, it creates threats to the organizations having same agenda. In the market related to internet, the product cost is low, so there may be threat of cost effectiveness in an organization.
Rivalry between two companies affects the productivity of any market. When there is some difference in the profits of two companies, then the size of the walmart controls the threat. According to a company level data analysis, the walmart’s sale is much higher than the other companies are.
The generic strategy for the advantages related to competition:
According to the figure, we can state that, generic strategy related to Walmartis in the left side of the upper quadrant and the market is very broad and giving low cost.
The broad market mainly providea large number of customer to the organization, which normalize the buyer power effect on the organization. The lower the cost is the Walmart’s cost is affected that much. Walmart mainly use the size of it to make a decrement to the power of the supplier. The two main aspects of the Walmart theorem are-
The management technique of the supplier and the activities related to customers (Thompson et al., 2013).
To make good amount of profit the Walmart’s theorem suggests developing the business process. Here the low cost strategy is used to improve the business process. The individual process needs to be improved should contain its own team. The function of Walmart is to assemble this different team to fulfill their main agendas. The next procedure is to investigate about the process involved in the documentation of team As-Is process. Now this can be done with the help of the low chart or processing diagram. This involves the how this process is going on (Borrego, 2013).
Internal factors affect the success of the business. In addition, the external factors are the combination of issues that are happening outside the company. The external factors can not be controlled by the organization sometimes. This problem can be solved by controlling the internal factor in the organization; as if the internal functionality is weak then the business organization can’t resist itself from the disruptions outside. The example of internal factor is company leadership. Company leadership shows the work culture of the organization and set goals for its betterment. These are the improvement approaches provided by the internal factors to the business organization. Now among the external factors the most important one is the competition or rivalry between the companies. Not only this improve the market value of the products manufactured, but also set interesting goals to the organization aspect.
The implementation of a new scheduling of web-based application is needed for procuring customer friendliness in current century. The web-based programs will simply require internet service and a computer to access the online application from inside the store. From the store computer, the calling procedure of customers can be manually entered into the online scheduling application. Customers can also book their appointment from their home computer. The emergence of smart phones has also helped to develop the business for UMUC. The technology system was specifically chosen for UMUC haircuts because the cost of implementation and maintenance is relatively lower for them. It requires minimal resources aside from a computer and a local internet connection. Customers can directly open the booking process by clicking on the schedule that has been given by UMUC. There will a calendar in the web system so that, the customers can view the date. They can also see whether the time they have chosen has another booking or not. The customers can also choose their desired hair style from the list (Hodgkinson-Williams & Paskevicius, 2013).
Another option will be there that the customers can take the choice of their preferred hair stylist from the list of hair stylist from the web portal of UMUC. The usability and the received services can be ranked to make them more reviewed and acceptable for the customers. Customers can also tell about their experience in the Salon and they can give comments and suggestions to make the business process better for UMUC. The scheduling of web application is a third party hosted application. Therefore, all the maintenance and coding is preferred by third party. N/A will give a no rating. Myra does not have to bother about giving rating every time (Kasser, 2013).
|
Requirement |
High/Medium/Low importance or Not Applicable N/A |
Explanation for Ranking |
|
Usability |
High |
The customers will use a system to make their payments and booking from the system. If the system is complicated for using it would not help them customers. Therefore, the system should be intuitive and easy to navigate (Chan Nowicki Man & Mansouri, 2012). |
Strategy for Competitive Advantage
Process Improvement
UMUC should identify competitive advantages and they need to improve the whole process. Familiar current process and a team of individuals from different areas are involved in the process. They should not change the current process if that is easy to use for the customers. A change in set up might not help them in positive way. Step by step description of process should be written in the website o that a new user can follow the guideline and book his appointment (Gill, 2013).
Strategy for Competitive Advantage: Customer Orientation
Process to be improved: Item Return Process
|
IT Requirement |
Importance/Relevance |
Explanation for Ranking |
|
Usability |
High |
The customers will use a system to make their payments and booking from the system. If the system is complicated for using it would not help them customers. Therefore, the system should be intuitive and easy to navigate. |
|
Maintainability |
Low |
Server related problems, server down sometimes create havoc problems for UMUC |
|
Scalability |
Medium |
The system must be able to handle an increase in the number of users for returns during peak years. |
|
Reliability/ availability |
NA |
NA |
|
Extensibility |
NA |
NA |
|
Portability |
NA |
NA |
|
Security |
NA |
NA |
|
Data Accuracy |
Medium |
The data accuracy is at medium level in UMUC. The data of customers are stored in a very sophisticated manner |
|
Data Completeness |
NA |
NA |
|
Authentication |
High |
The log in information will require the greeter to provide specified login information. High level of authentification program has helped UMUC from fraudulently recorded return items |
|
ERP, CRM, SCM |
NA |
NA |
|
Networks |
NA |
NA |
|
Database |
NA |
NA |
|
Data warehouse |
NA |
NA |
|
Data Mining |
NA |
NA |
|
Business Intelligence |
medium |
Business acumen has been at medium level for this company. They have utilized IT service to broader the advantages of business. IT support has some advantages as well as some disadvantages (Tsado & Ajayi, 2013). |
|
Decision support system |
High |
UMUC will use a detection system to evaluate returned items. Data from all haircut outlets can be used to further improve the process. |
|
Business to Business e-Commerce |
NA |
NA |
|
Business to Customer e-Commerce |
NA |
NA |
In this particular case, only a few of the IT considerations can be evaluated. The whole process is unique for the customer return process. This is because of the large transaction processing system (POS) and inventory system. Inventory system is already in use for UMUC. The solution is merely expanding in capability by making the return process portable and increasing the number of returns. The return can be processed at one time with no increase in number of staffs. It is also important to note that some of the areas considered include not just IT system. It included an overall involvement of business process or the physical environment (Alsoliman, 2015).
The solution that will help the salon to manage the customer should have to be very simple. Therefore it is important to not to implement that is complicated, thus the implementation of the cloud-based system should be there in the salon. The cloud computing system that is mainly being operated by the vendors; thus vendor agreement plays an important role here. The cloud-based system will help in carrying out the payment easily and it is not very complicated as well. Thus, both the customers and the front desk employees could use it easily without much problem or hassle. The new system will be operated in Myra’s salon and for carrying out the operation the salon need the Wifi connection. There are certain programming changes required in this particular project, for the implementation of the cloud-based system (Rabuske, da Costa, da Rosa Righi, Rostirolla, Alberti, Busse & Heiss, 2015, January). The cost that is required for programming changes is minimal; this is so because it could be carried out with the existing programming staff as well.
Vendor Agreement: New vendor agreement has to be made because a vendor operates the cloud computing system Cloud offerings like those that of Synaptic Hosting will help in carrying out things like “pay-as-you-go”, which simplify the payment option (Erl, Puttini & Mahmood, 2013).
Hardware and Telecommunication: The cloud computing system should be there for those who handle the front desk and the customers. The Wifi connection is essential for the system (Pourghomi & Ghinea, 2012).
Configuration: There should be programming changes for implanting this cloud-based system (Fernando, Loke & Rahayu, 2013). Programming is required for carrying out the operations and at the same time, the algorithm is required to carry out any kinds of credits or payment. The programming staffs, therefore, should be there in the IT department. The presence of sufficient programming staff in the IT department will ensure that the programming changes are being carried out properly.
Testing: After there is a completion of the whole system implementation the It department of the salon will test it. After the IT department of the salon has tested it, the front desk employees should test it. It is important that the front desk employee should test it because they are going to carry on the operation daily. The managers of the organization should also test it since the front desk employee will seek the help of these managers when they face any problem.
Employee Preparation: The employees of the organization should be made aware of the particular system. The employees should not only be made aware of it but they should be given required training as well. The training that they will receive will help them to carry on operations at a regular basis. Proper training will help them to operate the system easily and thus they would not have to continuously, take the help of the higher-level authority (Beloglazov, Abawajy & Buyya, 2012). Thus, it will save time for carrying out the business operations in the salon, which will help in increasing the profit in the business. It will also ensure great deal of customer satisfaction as well. Along with the front desk employees, the mangers should also be provided with proper training as well. The managers of the organization should have a sound knowledge about the whole IT system.
Data Migration: The personal data of the customers should be there in the system, to keep the record of the payment history. The payment history is required because it is useful for both the organization and the customers. Both the parties at times need the payment history, and the record will ensure that they are receiving it without any problem.
System Use: The front desk employees to carry on the payment transaction at the salon will use the cloud-based system, which is a cloud-based system. The front desk employees should therefore have a sound knowledge about the system. If the employees face any problem in implementing it then they could ask their managers. If the managers fail to provide any answer to the solution then they can seek the help of the It department that is there in the company. The IT department should always have enough skilled staff to provide any answer to the problem faced by the employees, while handling the new system.
Maintenance: The maintenance of the new programming system is very essential for smooth working of the organization. Therefore, there should be enough programming staff in the organization. The programming staff will make sure that there is a full maintenance of the cloud-based system at a regular basis. Therefore, there should be a special IT department in the organization. The IT department will ensure that there is enough programming staff in the organization.
Conclusion
The implementation of the cloud-based system in the UMUC Haircuts will ensure that the customers are handled properly. The organization or the salon needs the system so that the payment or the transactions of payments are carried out smoothly. A complicated technology would made have made the process complicated and it would have increase the customer dissatisfaction. The implementation of this cloud-based system has solved this problem. The system is an intuitive system, and thus both the customers and the employees working in the organization could use it very easily. The simplicity that is there in the organization will increase the customer satisfaction. The result of the increase in customer satisfaction is that there will be an increase in the profit margin as well, since the customer will prefer the salon for its simplicity. The problem that Myra is facing now will be solved easily without much problem. Thus, there will be a growth in her salon or rather in her business.
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