Operations Management
Introduction
sberbank
proposition bank management
Operations management is concerned with managing the resources
that directly produce the organization’s service or product. The resources will
usually consist of people, materials, technology and information but may go
wider than this. These resources are brought together by a series of processes
so that they are utilized to deliver the primary service or product of the
organization.[1]
The term operations management refers to the direction and control
of the processes that transform inputs into products and services. Broadly
interpreted, operations management underlies all functional areas, because
processes are found in all business activities.[2]
According to Professor Jaume
Ribera Operations Management can be considering as the art and
science of getting things done, i.e., the way organizations produce goods and
deliver services. Everything a customer pays for is the outcome of the job of
operations managers who organize its production. [3] For example, a laptop purchased
through internet, a new book, a financial service, a trip in a bus – all have
been produced. People who are response for these different kinds of products
and services really manage operations.
Operations and operation management are really important for the
organizations.
For the operations manager, the range of products and services on
offer has to be managed in order to satisfy the mix of volume and variety for
customers. This is achieved by having appropriate process technology in place,
which can deal with customer requirements of volume and variety.[4]
Many organizations are involved in three fundamental activities:[5]
ü
Identifying potential customers, seeking to understand their needs,
and persuading them to use the product or service
ü
Providing the product or service efficiently and effectively
ü
Managing the organization’s finances to ensure continuing success.
We can refer to these activities as marketing and operations.
Both, in general, should be taken seriously, whatever they are called.
Classically, marketing looks to improve service and to offer a great number of
product choice to the customer; while operations seeks to improve efficiency by
longer runs of fewer products and by reducing inventories.
1.
Description of the company «The Savings Bank of the Russian Federation (Sberbank)».
The Savings Bank of the Russian Federation, or Sberbank, is the
largest bank in Russia. The Bank is
a joint stock commercial bank established in 1841 and operated in various forms
since then. Today Sberbank is an absolute leader in the Russian banking sector.
Sberbank is several times larger than its immediate competitors by its market
position, assets, capital, financial results and scale of infrastructure. The
scale and stability of the Bank are particularly visible during periods of
instability in financial markets The Savings
Bank is the biggest taker of
deposits in the country and the key lender to the national economy. According
to The Banker magazine, as of
July 1, 2009, Sberbank was ranked 38th in the world in terms of Tier 1 capital.
Sberbank has the largest countrywide branch network with 18 regional head offices and more than 19,050 retail outlets with about 265,100 employees.[6]
Among the Bank’s clients are private individuals from all over Russia,
companies and enterprises of various ownership structures and sectors of the
economy, and government agencies.
The mission and core values of Sberbank are to make people’s live better, helping them to fulfill dreams and aspirations. Current ratings assigned to Sberbank by international rating agencies[7]
|
01.01.2010 |
01.01.2009 |
Fitch |
Moody’s |
Fitch |
Moody’s |
Long-term currency rating:
|
|
|
|
|
Sberbank |
BBB |
Baa1 |
BBB+ |
Baa1 |
Russian Federation |
BBB |
Baa1 |
BBB+ |
Baa1 |
Rating of international obligations
|
|
|
|
|
Borrowings under MTN Program |
BBB |
A3 |
BBB+ |
A2 |
Russian Eurobonds |
BBB |
Baa1 |
BBB+ |
Baa1 |
Through the use of a balanced credit policy, the Bank helped many
customers to survive the challenges of a crisis time and contributed to
stabilization of Russia’s economy and financial markets. The Bank provided
around RUB 4,000bn worth of loans to domestic corporate customers and over RUB
400bn to individuals.
Sberbank is continuously and systematically introducing new
products and services to meet the needs of its commercial and retail customers.
To enhance its domestic operations, Sberbank continued to develop its branch
network throughout Russia. The bank has also continued to expand
internationally. Sberbank has built one of the world’s most respected financial
institutions based on its 165 years of rich history and deep-rooted tradition
combined with world-class experience and expertise. The bank has grown from a
network of cash savings offices to the largest full-service financial
institution in Central and Eastern Europe.
The goal is to deliver customer service with maximum efficiency,
and to streamline processes through greater standardization and skilful time
management. As part of the reform program, the Bank pays particular attention
to training highly professional and proactive staff.
The main customers for Sberbank we can divide for several groups:
Individuals
Small and medium business
Corporate clients
Credit institutions
The key elements of the Marketing Strategy include:
1.
Retail customers
·
An integrated offer, based
on cash & payment services
·
Intensive development of all
service channels
·
A new SPS-based operational
model for retail branches.
·
To improve customer service
·
Building systematic sales
skills within all of the Bank’s service channels and building ‘industrial’
skills to manage customer relationships and cross-sales as part of targeted
campaigns.
·
develop and strengthen its
brand to change customer perception
2.
Corporate Customers
·
Building the best
country-wide corporate customer sales service organization system.
·
Differentiating the
operations model and value proposition for the three key segments: large,
medium and small.
·
The product range will be
developed to ensure offering a comprehensive product line matching segment
specific requirements
·
Internal processes will be
streamlined through simplification, standardisation and IT development.
The analysis of implementation of the marketing strategy:
Retail Business
·
launched a new product (multi-functional
current account) introduced in Moscow and St. Petersburg
·
Credit insurance product
introduced.
·
Full functionality of Mobile
and Internet bank implemented in Moscow, preferential pricing implemented for
remote channel services. First stage of the country-wide contact-center
launched.
·
Setting-up a federal call
center for contacts
·
Launching a line of
innovative products (e.g. ‘Grant life’)
·
Launching a new Internet
bank and website. Currently actively developing ATM and payment terminal
network
·
VIP customer service pilot
Corporate Business
·
First version of Customer
Relationship Management and major
corporate customer model
·
Product development program
for corporate customers
·
Model for working with small
businesses
·
Specialized products for
small business segment
Other Work Streams
·
New organizational structure
introduced, IT and operational function consolidated
·
Upgraded credit monitoring
and work out functions
·
SPS implemented in several
thousand branches
·
First wave of headcount optimization
Sberbank has made the right choice and correctly identified areas
for improvement. Most of the strategic goals are being met in line with the
scheduled completion timing. The network of ATMs and payment terminals was
greatly expanded, and the «Sberbank Online» service is rapidly gaining ground.
Sberbank has changed its style and methods of work. Implementing new philosophy
of meeting customers’ needs the bank are changing all aspects of the Bank.
Sberbank are driven by the desire to help their customers realize their
aspirations and dreams.
3.
Description of the company «Computacenter Plc»
Computacenter plc is the
parent company of a group of European companies which provide computer services
to public and private sector customers. Despite the spelling of the word «center»,
it is a UK company based in Hatfield, Hertfordshire.[8]
The company is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a
constituent of the FTSE 250 Index.
Set up by British Harvard graduates Philip Hulme and Peter Ogden
in 1981, who are both still involved in the group's management.
Computacenter today has over 10,000 employees across Europe and
Group revenues of over £2.5 billion.[9]
The mission of the company
«To deliver IT services and solutions that enables our customers
to achieve their goals».[10]
The strategy of the company
«Our strategy is to achieve long-term earnings growth. To help
measure our success, we have five key strategic initiatives against which to
benchmark our performance».[11]
The main activity falls into the broad categories:
v Outsourcing:
-
Infrastructure management
-
Application management
-
Service desk
-
IT Security
-
Managed Hosting
-
Dusaster recovery
-
Asset management
v Support and Maintenance:
-
IMAC
-
Resources on Demand
-
Datacenter maintenance
v Datacentre Technology Optimisation:
-
Datacentre Current State
Assessment
-
Infrastructure Discovery and
Analysis
-
Data Classification and
Tiering
-
Server and Storage
Virtualisation
-
Server and Storage
Consolidation
-
Software Optimisation
v Commercial Solutions:
-
Supplier Management and
Rationalisation
-
Web shop and e-Commerce
Integration
-
Advanced Order Management
-
Leasing and Technology
Finance
-
Capacity on Demand and
Utility Infrastructure
Computacenter is ISO 9001:2000 certified by the British Standards
Institution. The ISO standard provides the framework that underpins the
'Service Excellence' commitment and ethos of the organization.[12]
Computacenter has subsidiaries in several countries: United
Kingdom, France, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg and Netherlands, and its partner network extending its coverage to over 120 countries
worldwide.
Key metrics 2009:
Group revenue £2.50 billion (2008: £2.56 billion)
Profit before tax £54.2 million (2008: £43.1 million)
Earnings per share 27.7 pence (2008: 21.0 pence)
Group annual services contract base grew to £503.6 million,
at constant currency
There were two successful acquisitions during the year: Thesaurus
Computer Services in UK and become in Germany.
The main customers
The main customers include:
•
Financial organizations – Aegon
Asset Management, BGC Partners, Threadneedle, Deutsche Bank.
•
Public companies – Charity
Commission, Liverpool Direct, Hinchingbrooke Health Care NHS Trust.
•
Telecommunication companies –
British Telecom, Virgin Media.
•
Retail companies – Harvey
Nichols, Speedy, Marks &
Spencer.
•
Industry – Severn Trent,
Gist, Crest Nicholson, BMW Group
•
Services – Carestream
Health, Eversheds, Michael Page International.
Current marketing strategy
The Comptacenter's success is the direct result of a strategy of
sustained high investment in the development of the services capability. The
state-of-the-art facility is intended to be the source of significant
competitive advantage.
Computacenter commercial success depends on the quality of the
service and that, in turn, depends on the quality, training, and motivation of
the staff.
Computacenter continue to invest across all of its businesses,
consolidating its position as the leading supplier of distributed IT and
related services to the European corporate and public sector marketplace. Computacenter
wins a number of different contracts with major players if IT industry in
Europe.
I want to point out that
there were a big number of different
acquisitions due to Computacenter become the most significant provider of IT
infrastructure products and services in the United Kingdom and in Europe. The
focus clearly is and remains on investing for growth in Computacenter existing
businesses. Much of Computacenter’s growth is due to expanding relationships
with existing long-term corporate customers. The quality of service that they
deliver to both new and existing customers is the overriding factor in the
success of the business.
Computacenter’s ability to deliver value through its entire range
of services, combined with e-commerce capability, constitutes a significant
competitive advantage.
4.
The framework of managing
operations
The first aspect to point out is that «The Savings Bank of the Russian Federation (Sberbank)» and «Computacenter
Plc» completely different company and from different industries. However, some
of the approaches to managing operations for both of these companies are the
same – Total quality management, Process management and Projects Processes.
Total quality management is about continuous performance improvement of
individuals, of groups and organizations. (Gopal K. Kanji. 1995 Total quality management: proceedings of the first world
congress.p. 3) There are three principals that companies follow: customer
satisfaction, employee involvement and continues improvement in quality. If we consider Sberbank’s we can see Poor service quality in terms of decision-making time, process and procedure complexity,
communication and bank-to-client interaction levels, as well as general
convenience and functionality of the branches. There is a low level of
automation and too much manual labour. Operations and support functions are
decentralised. As a result, many bank systems and processes are poorly scalable
and growing business volumes do not lead to efficiency growth. According to Herman Gref CEO and Chairman of the Management Board, in 2009,
Sberbank accelerated its efforts to resolve one of its main issues – the transformation
of operations. 2009 was the first year of the new Sberbank Development
Strategy’s implementation. The strategy was designed to make Sberbank a leading
world financial institution, not only in terms of transaction volumes, but more
importantly in terms of service levels. The mission of the bank is ambitious: «We want to be one of the best
financial services companies in the world.» At the present time the bank chooses a «modernization» scenario in order to improve process
management. Process management is the selection of the inputs, operations, work
flows, and methods that transform inputs into outputs. KRAJEWSKI, LEE J. RITZMAN LARRY, P. 2002.). According to «First year review strategy» (document avalaible at
#"#_ftn13" name="_ftnref13" title="">[13]
Computacenter is ISO 9001:2000 certified by the British Standards Institution.
ISO 9001 is a standard that focuses on 20 aspects of quality program for
companies that design, produce, install, and serve products. These aspects
include management responsibility, quality system documentation, purchasing,
product design, inspection, training, and corrective action.[14] In fact it is one of the most
exhaustive and hard standard to achieve.
5.
The mix of managing
operations concepts
In previous chapters we consider two different companies: One from
bank industry and another one from IT – industry. Despite the fact that they
are absolutely different they have the same mix of managing operations
concepts: Total Quality Management and Process Management, mainly because both
of them are introduce service operations. It is fact that every organization
has processes that must be designed and managed effectively and more over have
high quality of performance. Quality is an attitude or the meaning of
excellence. Sberbank places prime
importance on achieving a maximum customer focus and becoming a
service-orientated company. As was mention in chapter 3 Total quality management is a system for a customer focused
company that involves all employee in continual improvement of all aspects of
the organization. Computacenter concerns about satisfaction of the each
customer. Senior Management monitors training requirements that required
standards are maintained. Computacenter remains committed to involving all
employees in significant business issues.
Bibliography
1.
#"#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" title="">[1] ROWBOTHAM, F. AZHASHEMI, M. GALLOWAY, L. 2007. Operations management in context. 2nd
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[2] KRAJEWSKI, LEE
J. RITZMAN LARRY, P. 2002. Operations management: strategy and analysis.
6th edn. Prentice Hall.
[3]
RIBERA, J. 2010. Understanding Operations Management. [WWW]. #"#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4" title="">[4]
BROWN S. 2005. Strategic operations management. 2nd
edn. Oxford: Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann Linacre House
[5] BICHENO, J. ELLIOT, B.
2002. Operations management: an active learning approach. Oxford:
Blackwell Publishers Ltd. p.17
[6]
#"#_ftnref7" name="_ftn7" title="">[7]
Annual report of Sberbank. 2009. p. 11
[8] #"#_ftnref9" name="_ftn9" title="">[9] #"#_ftnref10" name="_ftn10" title="">[10]
Annual Report Computacenter.2009. p. 2
[11]
Annual Report Computacenter.2009. p. 2
[12]
#"#_ftnref13" name="_ftn13" title="">[13] #"#_ftnref14" name="_ftn14" title="">[14] KRAJEWSKI,
LEE J. RITZMAN LARRY, P. 2002. Operations management: strategy and analysis.
6th edn. Prentice Hall. p.267
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