Business Operations and System: 897064

Business Model and its components

            The Value proposition model has been considered here for evaluation in report. The case study of the NTUC Fair price organization has been evaluated using the model. The details of the analysis has been included in this report. The model is very important as creating and delivery of value proposition is very important for any type of organization involved in any type of business. The main area of focus has been customers in this report. The customers and the customer satisfaction is the most important factor which is related to the overall business efficiency of the organization. There is high level of competition for place in the market at the current moment of time and hence rapid changes takes place within organizations. Hence the value proposition model is a necessary tool that the designers and the developers in the organization should be considering while they are making developments to the systems within the organization.

            Value proposition is generally used for reference to the business of an organization or the marketing statement of that organization which can be used for the summarization of the solution to the need for customer to purchase the product or use a service provided by the organization. The company uses the statement for the customers who would be receiving the benefits from the products and the services used by the customers. This provides the scope to company for maintaining the economic moat.

            The report focuses mainly on the customer value proposition and four main components of the customer value proposition model are:

Recaps Need: The recap needs ensures that business of the organization is on a right track and primary needs of the customer are not neglected. The process starts by recapping the needs of the customer.

Solution: The process involves meeting the highlighted solution and the establishment is done on the basis of the customer needs for the organization. The solution might not include every single feature and every single reason for implementation hence the most important criteria that serves the needs of the customers are implemented in the system.

Differentiate: The competitive threat is also a major factor for the organizations to cope with and the challenges in the market. The solution should be different from the solutions of the competitors of the organizations in the market. Hence, the organization should work on improving the customer needs, rather than focusing on the other aspects of their business.

Proof: Finally, the documentation for the system and the test cases for the system are to be designed so that there is ample proof for the implemented solution and there is a scope for betterment of the system. Hence, all the steps are very necessary for the development of a strong Value proposition.

Soft System methodology and evaluation

            The soft system methodology has been used here in this report for the evaluation of the NTUC system. The methodology has been used for fostering the learning process of the NTUC organization and mitigation of the problem situations that arise in the organization. The methodology is used in between a group of stakeholders of the system to solve a situation that arises rather than solving a problem, which is predefined by the organization. The complexity in the organizations deviates the from the course of defining a certain problem and the soft system methodology would help them in establishing a framework that would help the organization so that the situation can be tackled easily.

NTUC issues

            The NTUC organization is a Singapore based organization who is currently operating in country having an established E-commerce business. In addition to this, there are various type of other activities and products, which are distributed by the NTUC organization such having an online grocery shop that would be able to deliver groceries to the customers to the desired addresses. However, there has been a number of issues in the system that have come up lately in the organization.

Aging Population: There is huge challenge for the organization as it is located in Singapore and there has been a huge growth in the number of aged people in the country. The youngsters in the country are very informed about the newest technologies, are very tech-savvy, and are in fine tune with the global consumer habits of the world. The older demographic is the core of the customers in the NTUC Fair Price organization and make regular deals with the organizations. The main motive of the organization is to keep the things simple. However keeping the things simple for the organization involve various type of complex procedures to be integrated to the system and this poses a huge challenge for the organization. Currently the organization has an internal analytics team that would be able to go through the data that have been generated from around half a million customers. Hence, this high level of data requires analysis within a very short time that would be very difficult for the organization and hence this is a major challenge for the organization.

Barriers to adding new technology: The organization also faces challenges in the integration of newer technology with the older system present already in the business of the organization. the challenges are faced by the organization both from the perspective of  the customers and the internal staffs of the organization. The customers are generally hesitant to use services that are introduced by the companies on the first place and hence, performing any activity that is associated with the organization and newly introduced are generally challenging for the organization. The customers of the organization did not accept the introduction of the self-check out counters by the NTUC organization very heartily and hence failure of this type of project would be challenging for any type of organization and this raises issue with the development of the new systems within the organization. In addition to this, there are internal resistance within the organization that a company has to face during implementation of a new system and this is an issue for the organization that would be hampering the development of any new system. The internal employees within the organization are not accustomed to the new system and they are not able to cope up with the system that newly implemented with the organization and this poses challenge for them.

Introduction to hybrid facilities

            The arrival of the hybrid facilities within the NTUC organizations has taken place, as there has been a requirement of combining the inputs, states, outputs and the other system dynamics of the organization. Hence, the organization has adopted the strategy to develop hybrid facilities for themselves. There has been use of finite-state logic so that the continuous physical procedure can be governed by the organization. The topological constraints, which includes the network constraints, can also interact with the continuous. The organization aims at building the hybrid systems from scratch and complete the work at discrete side. The computer scientist and control theorists should be able to access the systems.

Business operations model

            The current business of the NTUC organization is operational in the Singapore. In the current system, the customers make an order online and the requirements specified by the customers are delivered to the addresses specified by them. The customers make the payment online to the company and the company delivers the products to the addresses specified. The process is generally a 2-5 days business. The shipping department dispatches the required products to the distribution centres located all across the country and those the then dispatched to the customers according to the locations indicated by them. However the shipping team at first confirms the shipping from the sales and finance team on whether the sale is authenticated or not and the payments have been cleared by the customers. On receiving a clearance note, the shipping department forwards the parcels.

E-Commerce Business models comparisons and contrast

            The NTUC Fair Price organization works mainly in the e-commerce sector and have a number of competitor in the market. Among these, cold storage is one of the most important competitor for the organization in the business. Hence, the contrast and comparison of the organizations mentioned in this report are described below:

Comparison

  • Firstly, both Cold storage and NTUC Fairprice are supermarkets.
  • Secondly, both the companies are marketing giants in the Singapore market.

Contrasts

  • Cold storage caters to the higher income group of people while the Cold Storage caters to the weaker local groups of people.
  • Cold storage caters to the Foreigners while the Cold Storage caters to the local groups of people.
  • The introduction of Cold storage has been done much earlier than NTUC in the market.
  • The Food of the NTUC Company has a greater rating in the market than that of the Cold Storage.
  • The Cold Storage customer ratings are higher than that of the NTUC.

Response to the parcel conundrum

            The parcel conundrum makes the easy and efficient process of online ordering meet the realities in the real order delivery process. The case portrays the dark side of the online business conducted by various type of organization in this world and NTUC is one of them. In the described case, Richard Wilding is a victim of this parcel conundrum (“The parcel conundrum”, 2019). In the scenario, the customer was expecting a parcel from the company for a week and did not receive it. However, the box was later discovered from a hedge near their house. In addition to this, the customers have been quoted saying that they do not have any hedge around their house, and hence the delivery of the order was done half a mile away from the house. In addition to this, various companies have missed the delivery card and have made claims that their delivery was successful while they have missed their delivery.

            There has been huge consequences for this problem, as a result, there has been 12% of delivery problems faced just in UK, and the cost of the faults made have been around 1 billion pounds to the nature (“The parcel conundrum”, 2019). There has been occasions where the delivery has made the delivery without even knocking the door so that they would be able to save the time for making the next delivery.

            The NTUC fair price organization has developed some business strategies so that they would be able to make some changes in the delivery process and make their customers happy with the process their business procedure. The organization has decided to implement a number of pick up centres for their customers that would enable them to select a particular delivery centre during the checkout and pick up their order from that respective centre they have received the notification about their order being delivered. After the delivery notification, the customer is requested to pick up their order within 2 weeks failing to do so the order goes back to the warehouse from where it came. The customer then has to re-order the item and the order for the customer is cancelled.

Part 2

Root Definition

            The root definition provides information about what the system does, how it does and the why it is being done.

The iDine system aims at providing the customer immediate satisfaction by providing them with an automated touch screen system.  

CATWOE

The full form of CATWOE is Customers, Actors, Transition, Weltanschauung, Owners, and Environment.

Customer General public of Singapore
Actors The staffs of the organization and the delivery executives.
Transformations Process The delivery process of the organization is to be transformed so that the issues with the delivery of products for the organization are solved.
Worldwide The organization would be gaining worldwide benefit, as they would be able to gain a respectable position in the market and make the customer satisfaction as the top priority.
Owner The NTUC organization, CEO of the company
Environmental Constraints Safety delivery features, New delivery system

Rich Picture

Problems and Solution

            The main problems that are faced by the organization is after the customer places an order, makes the payments and provides the delivery address. The organization does the shipping from there end. However, the problem arises after the shipping is done and the delivery is lost in the middle after the orders are dispatched the delivery of the order remains undelivered and the customers of the organization are unsatisfied with the services of the organization.

            As a solution to the problem, the organization has planned to implement different centres in different locations where the customers would be able to pick up their order from their desired centre where the products for the customers are dispatched. It is made sure that the organization keeps the products secure in their own centres and the customers can then pick up the product from desired locations. Thus, the customers of the organization are made happy.

Business Process plan

As-Is

             In the As-Is 5the customer access the system online from any type of devices that he has access to. After this, the customer surf through the website of the organization and looks for the items of his need. After getting a suitable product, the customer then adds the product to the cart. After the product has been added to, the cart he checks out of the system and order is sent to the sales department in the organization. The sales department then checks the database available to him to see if the requested product is available in the stock or not and hence makes a decision accordingly. If the product is not available, the request for the customer is cancelled. In case the product is available, the sales department forwards the order to the shipping department. The shipping department fetches the item from the warehouse and forwards the order to the delivery department with all the necessary information made available to them. The delivery department then contacts the delivery companies and the forwards the parcel. The main task of the delivery department is to check the products and pack it accordingly so that it is presentable to the customers and the customers would be able to get the delivery from the package service companies. This is where the error takes place for the NTUC organization. The courier company cannot be trusted at all times and hence, sometimes error in management of the parcels take place that would create discomfort at both end that is the customers and the organization. Hence, the organization needs a solution for this process.

To-Be

            The to-be process of the NTUC organization has been implemented for the improvement of the current procedures followed in the organization. The organization, has improved their delivery process with the implementation of the new system in their business model. In the new model, the customer comes online to view the products provided by the organization. The customers then surfs through the products to select a product and make a choice. After the product has been selected by the customer, the customer then adds it to the cart. During this process, the salesperson in the organization is notified by the system and sales person thus receives the order. The order is then checked by the salesperson to see if the product is available. In case the product is unavailable the sales persons reject the order and the information about the product being out of stock is displayed to the customer. The customer then no longer is able to add the product in the cart and he surfs for other products.

            In scenario where the product is available in the salesperson approaches the shipping department who receives the product from the warehouse packs it according to the requirement of the customers. The parcel is then dispatched to the delivery department for dispatching of the parcel. However problems have been faced in this department and hence the business process of this department has been changed. In the To-Be process the organization has replaced the inclusion of the external courier services with their own services. They have set up their own distribution centres for the customers where the customers are notified once their parcels arrive. In this system, after the product is ready the customers are notified that their product has arrived at the delivery centre near them and the customers are instructed to collect their parcel within 14 days of arrival. If the customer does not collect their product within 24 days then the product is returned to the warehouse and their order is cancelled.

Part 3

Description of the New System of NTUC

            The new system would be integrated with the old system however only the delivery procedure of the system would be changed and hence, all the previous functionality in the old system would be maintained along with the implementation of the system which would have a modified delivery system.

Resources required

            The resources required for the development of the system is a number of warehouse, which can be used as the distribution centre for the customers. The customers would be able to visit the delivery centres and pick up their parcels.

In addition to this, the organization would also require a number of human resources who are to be allocated in the distribution centres.

Cost of implementation

            The cost incurred for the development of the system involve the cost of the acquirement the warehouse and the procurement of the employees who are required to be allocated to the system. In addition to this, the cost for the improvement of the system is also very important and hence there would be cost considerations regarding the development of the new systems.

Performance model

            The performance model is used for the evaluation of the performance of the new system implemented for the NTUC organization. The performance model which is to be considered for the evaluation of the system should include the customer satisfaction, sales growth and the customer feedback as the measure for the evaluation of the system for the NTUC company. The metrics obtained here would be used as a benchmark and the organization would like to attain that benchmark for the development of the system.

Balance Scorecard

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