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2.1 Basic parts and dimensionsr /
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Five basic parts of a service related business are top management, technical support, middle management, administrative support and the technical support. They operate on different levels, but their actions are dependant on each other. This becomes obvious when looking at the structures of departments of service related organisations.
-The Top Management function is represented by the General Manager and his Personal Assistant.
-The Technical Support function in this case is the Sales and Marketing department.
-The Middle Management is represented by the Operations Manager.
-Administrative Support is given by the Accounts and Finance department.
-The Human Resources function fills the role of the Technical Support.
2.2 Departments of a Service Related Business and their Functions
General Manager:
-Leading, organising, planning for and controlling the subordinate departments
Operations:
-Creating and delivering the service product
-Obtaining necessary resources
-Maintaining operating equipment and facilities
-Managing capacity
-Transform inputs into services
-Increasingly important role in managing the firms IT infrastructure
Sales & Marketing:
-Yield Management
-Select the market segment
-Research customer needs in each segment
-Design the product to meet the needs of the chosen market segment
-Develop communication strategies to transmit messages to potential customer
-Awareness and evaluation of competitive offers and their quality
Human Resources:
-Is ensuring that the right number of people and mix of competencies are available.
-Recruitment and training of employees
-Introduction of new models such as Flexi- time, job sharing and others.
-Designing of new programs to increase loyalty and to reward employees
. Accounts & Finance:
-Determining the financial status of a company
-Recording of data based on the observable reality, then analyse and diagnose information
2.3 Case study: \"Technology solves a skills shortage\"
\"In the early 1990s, Singapore Airlines (SIA) was having trouble recruiting and retaining check-in agents for its home base at Changi Airport. It was getting harder to recruit people with the necessary skills at the wages SIA was willing to offer. And once they were on the job, many agents found it rather unchallenging. The predictable outcome: relatively high turnover and constant repetition of the expensive recruitment and training process. As part of a major program to update its departure control systems, SIA computer specialists created new software for check-in procedures, featuring screen formats with pull-down windows, menu-driven commands and other innovations on the video terminal displays- all designed to speed and simplify usage. The net result is that SIA has been able to lower the educational criteria for the check-in position. The job is now open to people who would not previously have qualified and who view the work and the wages as being fairly attractive. Employee satisfaction has increased, and turnover is down. Because the new system is so much easier to use, only one week\'s training is needed- resulting in significant savings for SIA. Finally, agents are able to process passengers faster, which has increased both productivity and customer satisfaction.\"
In my opinion, this case study shows not only the benefits of new technologies for the service sector but also an example of a good interaction of different departments.
Most possibly, the Human Resources function which saw the most obvious indicators of the problem- the high turnover and the low employee satisfaction- introduced the problem, maybe in an interdepartmental meeting. Then the other sectors such as Technical support, here represented by SIA\'s computer specialists, and maybe their Marketing department worked on solving this task.
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