Transitioning a business from small scale to a large-scale business requires a lot of skill and tact. This will mean more employees, more input, infrastructure and advanced technologies. Following the case of Smith’s company, it is evident that the company has grown and thus the structure used to manage a small business may no longer be effective for bigger operations. Smith needs to have new methods operations and additional services that will scale his business to the next level.
To begin with, Smith needs to address the major issues and then proceed to the minor ones. It is good that he has identified the main issue and can categorize them basing on the urgency and cost. Since Smith has his office space and technical work in check, he needs to pay attention to the needs of the customers. His existing customers have started complaining about the quality of service, lack of communication, rising costs and slow response times. He needs to pay attention to these areas so that he can maintain a good reputation while at the same time open room for more customers.
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Smith wants to outsource some of the services to professionals. He wants to outsource an organization in India that will help in running the service center. This will be a brilliant move, especially if he is thinking of expanding globally. However, I think he should reconsider the move especially when it comes to localizing his business. It is a bit difficult for a company to have a service center help desk in a different region rather than where it is located. In as much as it may be a cheaper option, it will be wiser to try to negotiate fairer rates in the current country other than jump into new waters where he is not well established. Smith really needs to pay attention to his customer service and focus on the issues current clients are complaining about now. Smith should address the issue of response time. The support staff should be trained to take shorter time in handling updates and changes; more personnel can be added in this department if need be. The quality of service needs to be maintained. Nevertheless, Smith should enhance the communication in his organization. The needs of the customers need to be objectified since the services are geared towards them and they have to be comfortable with what the company is offering. If the needs of the customers are ignored, they will have reason to seek for other services that may promise better quality.
Secondly, Smith needs to pay attention to the competition and fix his business basing on the current competition. This will mean he has to seek cheaper service providers or rather offer more competitive packages that will attract new customers while at the same time lure new clients. Smith however needs to consider his profit margins to ensure that he does not run the risk of paying attention to competition and lose the essence of his business. He needs to have a research team that looks into what the competition is doing and identify the missing gaps in his organization. Competition cannot be avoided, it is part of business and it makes the market space more exciting and interesting.
Thirdly, the issue of sales and marketing needs to be addressed. Smith is involved with all the marketing and selling. He is also the one who looks for more business opportunities and seals new contract. With his international vision, he needs to have a new strategy when handling this issue. Smith needs to have a marketing and sales team that will pay attention to the day-to-day running of the business and ensure that the business is more competitive. He need to have a strong marketing team that will come up with new marketing structures to attract new clients and maintain the existing ones. Marketing is a fundamental aspect of any business and this need to be addressed carefully and thoughtfully. He needs to get members of the team who are passionate about the company and are creative enough to keep the business competitive. Additionally, Smith needs to train a few marketers on how to secure new deals and seal contracts. It may be tricky for him to handle all the contracts in the event the company grows and too much work needs to be done.
When it comes to the rising costs, Smith needs to find a way to minimize the costs through finding fairer deals from contractors and people he has been in business with for a long time. If the costs are always applied on the consumer, then this will scare away some of the customers especially since the bills are directly applied to them regardless of the changing costs. A system such as a minimum service charge should be applied to the customers on a monthly basis to ease the pressure to keep having different bills.
The other thing that Smith needs to pay attention to is his organization structure. It is imperative for such a big organization to have a flat structure. Most of the issues addressed in the scenario can be avoided when some order is implemented in the service delivery. Additionally, Smith needs to have more office space and more employees to manage the 400 servers. The staff feels a bit understaffed considering the amount of work they need to handle. In addition, Smith needs to have a customer care desk and a marketing department to handle the operations of the company. In order to do this, Smith needs to add structure to his current flat structure and create various departments in the organization. Below is Smith’s current organization structure and the proposed organization structure for his new business.
Figure 1. Current Organization structure at Smith’s Company
CEO
HELP DESK
PROJECT MANAGER
PART-TIME STAFF
TECHNICAL STAFF
SUPPORT STAFF
Proposed Organization structure
Figure 2: Proposed Organization Structure
CEO
MANAGING DIRECTOR
PROJECT MANAGER
HELP DESK MANAGER
TECHNICAL MANAGER
MAKETING MANAGER
HELP DESK
RESEARCH DEPARTMENT
MARKETING DEPARTMENT
TECHNICAL STAFF
SUPPORT STAFF
Following the discussion above, it can be seen that most of the issues revolving around Smith’s company are related to customer service. This shows how important customer service is in any organization. The needs of the customer need to be considered at all times. This can be seen in the case of Ritz-Carlton Hotels, this hotel has been hailed for exemplary customer service and as it is, the company has many customers based on this positive review. In as much as the company may want to upgrade its operations, it has to major on customer satisfaction since this plays a huge role in maintaining and getting new customers. The group of hotels focuses its energy on good customer service as much as it does on marketing and branding. The Ritz-Carlton hotel also focused on updating its customer service style (Solomon, 2015). This was done mainly to maintain the good customer service to both people who are considered important and those who are informal. Smith’s situation is not in any way different. He needs to pay attention to customer service and have a team that will handle this aspect of the business.
Reference;
Solomon, M. (2015). Your Customer Service Is Your Branding: The Ritz-Carlton Case Study . Retrieved July 28, 2018 from, https://www.forbes.com/sites/micahsolomon/2015/09/24/your-customer-service-style-is-your-brand-the-ritz-carlton-case-study/#2cf059f955ef
