Process Management Ikea free essay sample

Furnishing In order to compete in today’s challenging environment, the organization needs well-designed and well-executed work processes and understand of the importance of continuously improving as well as the customer needs and expectations. Economic growth has increased that led to the improvement in the lives of people so that it requires the products and services are given out with the better quality to meet the customer requirements. However, the service quality of the organization does not come from just the quality criteria that it comes up with. It is dependent on the level of satisfying the expectations of the customer and smarter designs and more effective process that lower cost and ultimately raise profits. Thus, like three other departments, furnishing department is also designed with its own characteristics and layout strategies aiming to satisfy the customer needs and strive for excellence in performance. In order to do that, the process management of furnishing department focuses on conformance to customers’ expectations. We will write a custom essay sample on Process Management Ikea or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page In fact, customers today are the judge of quality because they are very intelligent to recognize the quality issues of a business. Therefore, understanding and fulfilling the needs and expectations of customers is the key to success for the business. It means that the business needs to identify what the customer expects relating to its products and services. From the understanding of the customer expectations, the business converts them into the requirements. Based on these requirements, the business comes up with the right improvements on its product and services through the right process management that is depicted as follows: Resources Process Customer Product expectations Service Quality = Conformance o expectations Customer expectations According to Evans J. R (2008), most managers agree that the main reason to pursue quality is to satisfy customers. To do that, the organization needs to understand customers. From that, it can anticipate and monitor their needs and expectations and respond sensitively and appropriately to those ever-changing needs and expectations. For customers, a product or a service is c onsidered to have good quality as that product or service meets their requirements and expectations. That is absolutely true in almost all service industry. However, in today’s highly competitive market, satisfying customers’ expectations is not enough to achieve success. To beat the competition, the organization must exceed customer expectations. Understanding the importance of customer-driven quality, furnishing department has determined the customer expectations for its products and services. Based on its target market including middle-income earners of the age 25 – 40, the customers expect furniture that can meet criteria as follows: * well-designed * functional * convenient * especially affordable Well-designed: the first impression of the customer about the product is designed. The eye-catching product is often easy to attract the customer’s attention, especially the customers who are in the age of 25 – 40. For the home-furnishing products, well-designed factor plays the crucial role in their decision-making because furniture in the house is used to evaluate the host’s aesthetic sense and personality. Functional: In modern living, the customer always considers carefully the functional factor of the home-furnishing products that they intend to buy. Convenient: The customers often expect home-furnishing products to have the high convenience. With such high convenience, they can utilize all functions of the products thoroughly. Hence, the products must be designed to foldable, easily movable and suitable for all spaces. Affordable: the furnishing department mainly focuses on the middle-income earners and wishes to create a better everyday life for many people. Therefore, the furnishing department always strives for giving out the high quality home-furnishing products at a low cost Process management Processes that drive the creation of products and services are critical to customer satisfaction and have a large impact on the strategic goals of an organization (Evans J. R. , 2008). Applying the principles of Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award in the process management of furnishing department Satisfaction and dissatisfaction information are important because understanding them leads to the right improvements that can create satisfied customers who reward the company with loyalty, repeat business, and positive referrals. Understanding customer needs, both current and future, and keeping pace with changing markets requires effective strategies for listening to and learning from customers, measuring their satisfaction relative to competitors, and building relationships. Customer needs – particularly differences among key customer groups – must be linked closely to an organization’s strategic planning, product design, process improvement, and workforce training activities. Satisfaction and dissatisfaction information are important because understanding them leads to the right improvements that can create satisfied customers who reward the company with loyalty, repeat business, and positive referrals. Creating satisfied customers includes prompt and effective response and solution to their needs and desires as well as building and maintaining good relationships. Customer opinion surveys and focus groups can help companies understand customer requirements and values IKEA have a user-friendly website from which you can view products and prices from shelving to candle sticks. Its customer service section offering a store locator, tips and ideas for organizing and decorating and even a virtual style guide You can also order a color photographic catalogue depicting all the products from the website to flip through at your leisure So you choose your items from the website or catalogue and go and pick them up from the warehouse, in some ountries they even deliver. The warehouse are laid out in a simple functional style with a bit of appropriate quirkiness, like a big clear plastic tank filled with bold solid colored balls for kids to play in Function is subservient to experience and style to the individual Quality is part of our heritage, one of our core values A process is how work creates value for customers Improvements in the work processes may lead to major reductions in scrap and defects and hence to lower costs. This is why an understanding of quality is still vital to every employee in every organization The results achieved by companies that have embraced quality and performance excellence as basis business principles Firms implementing effective quality and performance excellence approaches improve their business results on measures of income, sales growth, cost control, and growth in employment and total assets Customer-driven quality is fundamental to high-performing organizations. Quality excellence derives from well-designed and well-executed work processes and administrative systems that stress prevention. Customer-driven firms measure the factors that drive customer satisfaction. A company close to its customer knows what the customer wants how the customer uses its products and anticipates needs that the customer may not even be able to express.