Handling Contemporary Management Issues

The Industries within the country of Amberzan have been, in the past, operating in a regulated environment. Recently the government has liberalized the economy. The National Poste, Amberzan's governmental postal service is losing share in the country's delivery service market. Other couriers are beginning to take over market share within Amberzan. The National Poste's competitors have more flexibility to respond to market changes. The global competitive landscape for postal service is changing irreversibly. Foreign competition offers a wide variety of services. The National Poste needs to act quickly in order to survive this changing competitive situation. They need to identify the problems and respond quickly with changes.

In the first part of the simulation I was given a budget of 90,000 to purchase relevant information that would help us analyze the situation and define the problem. The right information will provide a clear idea of the competitive and market situation. The optimal choices were to buy business information, as it provides data on competition, supplier power, and buyer power within the industry. In order to analyze a scenario accurately we need data that helps identify the problems and indicate possible solutions. The purchase of Industry information provides data on competition, supplier power, and buyer power within the industry. It also provides information on the constraints within which the organization has to plan, and the industry variables that will affect the organization. Industry information is a comprehensive source of information that can help shape the organization's business plans. Primary research on customer preferences provides customized information about customers and competition which makes it a valuable source of information. This data provides specific information about the business from direct sources such as customers and competitors. This information would help the organization to gauge the existing customer preferences and competitors strategies which is important to have while launching a new product or service. Secondary research on postal expenditure is a comprehensive source of information that provides valuable indirect information from libraries, databases, specialized direct mail magazines and surveys, and other public information. Although it provides non-specific, generic information such as how much a customer is paid for a product last year, or how supplier trends have changed over the last year, it is a valuable source of information while extending business into new markets, or while adding new services or product lines which is why buying secondary research data on postal spends is important.

For the second part of the simulation we were asked to identify the problem areas within the Business plan of the National Poste. The first problem area identified is product development. The National Poste has not focused on developing new and improved products and providing value added services to their customers. The second problem area identified is their logistics and operations. This area is a cause for concern. The benchmarking report reveals that the National Poste is far behind competition when it comes to the number of orders processed each day and the time taken to deliver mail. The last problem area identified is customer service. They do not seem to be focused on value added services and customer care. It takes more time to redress customers' grievances than competitors. This gives competitors an edge and loses a lot of customers for the National Poste.

The last section of the simulation addressed the reasons behind the problems within the areas of logistics and operations, product development, and customer focus. The problems I have identified are lack of research and development, inadequate customer support, and weak technical infrastructure.

The forces of change that I have identified within the simulation are foreign competition, liberalization of postal systems in neighboring countries, new technology, changing business needs and changing customer practices. The companies Post Net and Zen are moving in to the major cities within the country. This illustrates competition that needs to be seriously taken into consideration. The fact that technology is constantly being updated and improved means that there will constantly be change.

Some methods and resources that are helpful for anticipating change are training, team building, management development, survey feedback, open communication, and to reward those who contribute to change. If companies are about to go through some kind of change, they need to prepare for it by opening the lines of communication between employees and management. The employees need to know what is happening and what they should expect. There should also be training classes set up to introduce all employees to the change, whether it be new computer software, a new business procedure or new tasks that need to be completed. Surveys are great