Sample Essay On Strategic Resources Management Memo

This is a case of a business named Prime Cell, currently being headed by Sally Gates. In this paper, the author assumes the role of Bill Welch, the manager that has recently been put in charge of solving the company’s latest customer service woes. The main issue in this case is that Prime Cell, under the watch of the previous customer service manager has been faring poorly in terms of customer service. Although the company’s sales and financial volume and profitability performance have been mediocre at best in the past audits, it has been discovered that the company is not doing so good in the customer service aspect of things. This can be evidenced by the fact that the number of customer complaints against Prime Cell’s operations is rising. The objective of this memo then, addressed to Ms. Sally Gates, the company’s Customer Operations Division’s (COD) head, is to outline the main problems that have been identified in the Case of the Dysfunctional Team and the primary recommendations and solutions to address those problems.
The first step in solving Prime Cell’s COD’s customer service management-related problem is to identify its root cause. Bulk of the work involved in this first step involves differentiating the secondary complications of the problem from its root causes. This is because there is a stark difference between the two. Secondary complications (or secondary problems) only arise as a result of the existence of the root cause of the problem; however, in the eyes of an individual who sees things without the use of critical thinking, those secondary complications may appear as the root cause of the problem. During the problem solving process, it is also important to address the secondary problems; however, it is important to remember that these problems would only continue to rear their head and resurface for as long as the root cause of the problem is there. Hence, one fatal mistake that Prime Cell’s COD could do is to focus on solving the secondary problems instead of the real ones.
The good thing about the current situation is that this first step has already been finished. This sets up a good starting point for the entire department because they can finally start focusing their attention and expending their resources to getting to the planning and legwork-related stages of solving the problem.
Now that the root causes of the problem have already been identified, it is time to assess the situation and how its existence is impacting the company and will do so in the future. This way, the entire department would be able to rationalize their actions and be more motivated to solve whatever problems that they may identify as they go through the problem solving process. Oftentimes, managers expect all members of their department to just blindly follow their orders and coordinate with whatever initiative they are planning to spearhead. While that may work in a theoretical business case, people following orders without enough motivation and rationalization is far from reality. This is where the importance of this second phase of the problem solving process should come in. What needs to be done (by Bill Welch) in this case is to plan how he is going to present the current scenario and plan to his team. The best way to approach this phase is to educate the members of his team about the importance of establishing and maintaining an overall positive relationship with the company’s stakeholders, the most importance of which in this case would be the customers.
This can be accomplished by explaining the role that the customers play in the company’s business model; that the customers are the ones buying the company’s products and or subscribing to its services and without them lining their pockets, the employees of the company (including them) would have lost their opportunity for employment. This can be followed up by explaining to them the implications of having low customer service ratings and outcomes like possible loss of sales, declining profitability—things which could obviously affect their future with the company. By making the members of the customer service management team realize that they too have their skin exposed in the situation and that they also have something to lose if the situation gets left unaddressed, they would be more compelled to cooperate and cooperate with the management in eliminating the causes of the problem.
The lengthiest part of the problem solving process for this case would be the third phase. This would involve having all the members of the team sit down in one table to talk things out. The focus of the meeting should be to evaluate their current situation. During the evaluation, it would be important to get a hold of their baseline metrics so that they can have values to compare with in the future after they finally became able to implement their chosen course of action to turn the situation around.
During the evaluation process, it should be made clear to the members of the team that their cooperation would be needed in order to solve the problem because after all, their actions and behaviors have been identified as one of the root causes of the main problem. The team should also be able to lay out mini courses of action for each of the three root causes that have been diagnosed earlier. That way, they can ensure that there would be no gaps left and that the main problem would not recur in the future.

The team being a collection of individuals, indifferences, and lack of cohesion

Teamwork is an important element in managing an organization. Unfortunately, it is also one of the most often overlooked . The fact that it is something that is intangible may be one of the main reasons why so. In a traditional setting, a team is headed by a leader. The purpose of the leader is to guide the actions of all members so that they would be able to accomplish a common goal or meet a certain expectation. Unfortunately, there is more to the grand task of managing a team than just that.
This is because a team, technically, is a collection of individual people, each of which has his or her own set of preferences, expectations, habits, work ethics, and attitude towards work, among other possible variables that may set each member apart from each other. This is why a solid understanding of social dynamics is also an important aspect of managing a team. Its importance should be realized during stages where the team leader has to keep the members motivated to work and solve problems despite the repetitive nature of most jobs. In this case, it would certainly appear that the reason behind the existence of this root cause is the fact that the team leader (or at least the previous team leader) was not competent enough to create chemistry within the team. Without chemistry, a team would be nothing more than a collection of individuals who come to work because of the monetary benefits involved and not to perform.
Creating chemistry is one of the unwritten parts of the job description of being a leader. The previous customer service management department’s head, it appears, did not have the skill to create the chemistry needed for the team to work together. Now that Bill Welch has been made aware of the problems and the course of action for Prime Cell, hopefully he would be able to do a better job than his predecessor.

The Mindset of Mediocrity

In most, if not all business setting, customers have expectations. These expectations do not exist for nothing. They have to be met and the reality is that failing to meet customer expectations is one of the worst things that a business manager could let happen. This is where excellence should be factored in. Excellence is something that starts from the mind . An individual who has the mindset of excellence and is putting in the necessary effort to excel would almost always succeed in delivering (excellence).
On the other hand, an individual who has been soaked up in mediocrity (one who has the mindset of mediocrity) would perform poorly—this is inevitable and will always be a certainty. Unfortunately, the latter case is the more applicable one for Prime Cell’s COD. The previous manager, Bill Welch’s predecessor, failed to instill the right kind of mindset to his employees and so they developed the thought that they would already do well with their mediocre performance when in fact it is not. The challenge for the current manager at this point then would be to remove that kind of mindset and replace it with one that is imbued with confidence, excellence, and proactivity. These things may be intangible but customers have good skills when it comes to detecting them. And the truth is that between two companies, one that is imbued with the mindset of mediocrity and one with that of excellence, customers would always choose to side with the latter. What can be done in this case is to immerse the team members in newly developed training programs that are aimed at equipping them with the right skills and tools to handle customer concerns and complaints. This way, they would be able to handle the main problem more effectively and transform their attitude towards the job; and in the long run, the customers’ perception about the company’s service.

Lack of an Excellent Product or Service

There can be cases wherein the cause why the company is receiving a lot of bad reviews and customer complaints is not the employees or their attitude towards their job, but the product or service that they are selling . This is not an unlikely possibility for Prime Cell. What Bill Welch must ensure in this case is the quality of the products and services that they are selling because no matter how much training the company’s customer support representatives get or be exposed to, that would yield no effect if the quality of the products and services that they are offering is crappy.
The company would still receive complaints and bad reviews regardless. Fortunately, this is something that can be easily diagnosed; one possible way to do so would be to ask the members of the team questions as to why they think the company is facing its present problems and work on a deduction plan from then on, eliminating the least possible or likely items along the process.
In conclusion, the problem that Prime Cell is facing is a multidimensional one. In this memo, the author was able to diagnose three root causes and provide a specific course of action for each of them. Now that the key points concerning the issue have already been identified, the responsibility now rests on the team leader and members’ hands.

References

Goetsch, D., & Davis, S. (2014). Quality management for organizational excellence. Pearson.
Jahanshani, A., Hajizadeh, G., Mirdhamadi, S., Nawaser, K., & Khaksar, S. (2014). Study the effects of customer service and product quality on customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Jane, M. (2015). The importance of teamwork in an organizational setting. Chron.