Operations Management at Superior Maintenance Services Case Study

Operations Management at Superior Maintenance Services - Case Study Example Through the help of the government agency for technical education and skills development it has developed a manpower training programmeand is considered industry partner for skills development in this sector. With its widespread popularity and good reputation, it has recently diversified its offerings to include marketing and distribution of other organisation's products through joint venture agreements, such as those for restroom odourcounteractant dispensers, floor mats, electronic air cleaners, waterfree urinals, air fresheners, liquid soap dispensers, and rent-a plant services. Business operations at SMS include massive recruitment of potential workers, manpower training, client sourcing, client servicing, manpower deployment and deployed manpower monitoring and supervision, and customer accounting. A full time staff of 30 employees handle administrative services such as accounting and finance, personnel administration, recruitment, marketing and sales, and accounts management through regular coordination by account officers with clients as well as deployed personnel at client premises. According to Slack et al (2004), there are five operations performance objectives: speed, quality, flexibility, dependability or reliability, and efficiency, which includes cost-effectiveness. Speed is the length of time to serve customer orders for products or services, from the moment a customer order is placed up to the time a product or service is delivered. The performance objective of speed is to lessen this length of time. At SMS, speed is a very important objective because normally, a client requests for janitorial or manpower services because of a present and usually urgent need. The ability to serve such requests speedily is critical, otherwise the client may opt to place the order with a competing service provider. To help assure a ready supply of manpower for deployment purposes, continuous recruitment and training is conducted by SMS. Qualified recruits are immediately asked to undergo training to prepare them for immediate deployment as soon as assignments are confirme d with the client. Trainees pay a minimal fee for to cover the cost of materials used during training, consisting of reading materials. At times, some qualified personnel have already joined another organisation. But sine, the manpower pool is large, service delivery times are maintained. The cost of recruitment and training are borne by the company as part of its operating expenses. Quality is the degree to which products and services meet the specifications promised by the organisation to its customers. And to achieve a high and consistent quality, a set of standard procedures must be stringently followed to ensure quality service as well as high-quality products manufactured. In terms of quality service delivery, SMS ensures that the workers it deploys are sufficiently skilled and qualified to perform the services they have to deliver by making them undergo the standard training which is a combination of lectures, demonstrations and hands-on drills and exercises. Moreover, since SMS manufactures its own cleaning solutions, equipment and materials, it has

Oracles Larry Ellison - A Profile of Power, Influence, and Dominance Case Study

Oracles Larry Ellison - A Profile of Power, Influence, and Dominance - Case Study Example There are several qualities that Ellison thought the world. He tried to prove that college degree is not important in achieving excellence him being a college dropout. Despite him not having a degree, he was the first to be the most successful billionaire before Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. He dropped out of college more than once (Ellison & Symonds, 2014). He stayed in school enough and through this, he was able to learn about computer design. The knowledge he got was from reading an article that was written by an IBM scientist. Larry thought that one should not retire. With him turning seventy years, he remains the longest founder CEO in the tech industry. He has been holding the Oracle since 1977. According to IBM, there should be the retirement of one after reaching the age of 60 but Larry has not thought of retiring and speaks nothing about retirement to the public. Larry believes that a competitive spirit is the greatest motivator in anything one carries out. He still goes to work and claim that the encouragement that he has is that he is addicted to winning (Southwick, 2003). According to him, what drives him is the constant testing of limits that one has. He always thinks of making a difference and changes lives. Being greedy is a theory that is used by Ellison to achieve all his goals. According to a research that was done, he is ranked the fifth richest man in the world with an estimated worth of 49.5b billion. He claims to get there through the standards that he set for high executive pay. He was the highest paid in the 2000s. The salary being highest did not make him miss work. This is what he described to as being greedy in ensuring that one becomes successful in life. Being generous is a virtue that Ellison brought out to be much needed for one to make effort and get success in activities that one does. Despite him being a philanthropist, he does not talk much about his efforts unlike other philanthropic billionaires like Bill Gates. He is mainly focused on medical research and green energy but does not talk much about the efforts that he has made to improve the sector (Symonds & Ellison, 2003). According to him, he was ready to give much of his wealth to charity.