Description of the Business

Fast Track Couriers is a courier company which serves from last 15 years. The purpose of this business plan is to propose a new business strategy for the company that can help the company to enhance their profit by providing extended services across the current business region Sydney. The business plan will also includes the stakeholder communication strategy and Performance measurement plan.

History:

Fast Track Couriers is a courier company which serves from last 15 years. The reputation of this company in delivery market has increased from last 12 years. The sales profit has increased throughout the business history with the steady growth of the client based and consumer satisfaction level.

Business objectives:

The mission of this business is satisfying the clients with quality and time efficient service while increasing the Net revenue by increasing market share, extended business operation, accessibility and high profit margin.

• To commence deliveries to the several other regions including Sydney within next 12 months
• To Increase sales by 40% in next 3 years

Keys of success

• Satisfying the customers through the service excellence
• Facilitating and advancing the trucking operation to increase operational efficiency
• Increasing recognition through strategic promotion and marketing
• Increasing the Return On Investment my reducing the operational cost wile keeping the product and service price unchanged

The product and service of Fast Track Courier is related to the pickup and delivery system within the NSW, mainly in Sydney. Apart from that the company has also online booking and payment facilities for their customer. Apart from that, online and telephone based consumer helpline is also available during the working hours. The major products and services are listed below:

• Order booking for courier, delivery and logistics operation
• Picking the medium to large packages from the customer site
• Delivering the packages to the detestation within the time by truck
• Customer helpline

Structure of market

The courier service market of NSW mainly operates the individual clients with lightweight goods, dealers and distributers with medium to high weight goods. The price range of the service is based on the weight of the product and the fragility. Because of the geographical advantage, the courier service of this region is land based traffic.  

Competitors

The highly reputed courier service companies in New South Wales and corresponding areas are StarTrack, Australia Post, DHL, Fastway Couriers and Toll. All competitors are well experienced in this market and they are operating their business through New South Wales. Some of the competitors have very limited and start-up international courier service.

Market segment

The market is segmented through the order type. The order type is segmented into two types namely order within the Sydney and interregional orders. The orders within Sydney refers the orders that has both peak up and delivery destination within Sydney and the interregional order refers the order that deals with location out of the Sydney.

Trend

As per the report of the sales department it has been found that the recently increasing number of clients is requiring the service that would not be limited in the Sydney. Clients are trying to book the courier services for regional NSW towns, Newcastle, Wollongong and the Central West.

Market Analysis and Strategy

Price

Average price for Inter metro city service	$7/Kg
Average price for Interstate service	$10/Kg
Average price for International service	$20/Kg
Average price for Fragile Item courier  within Australia	$12/Kg
Average price for Fragile Item courier internationally	$27/Kg

Tools	Content or process
Leaflets or flyers	Company contacts, booking process, special offers
Posters	Company recognition, Special offers, Contact
Internet	Pay per click advertisement, Hyperlink to companies website
Social media	Social network pages, consumer forum, online booking offers

Productivity and performance target

Performance	Target measure	Target time
Increasing consumer retention	15%	Next 6 months
Fully functional regional delivery	100%	Next 12 months
Increase total sales	40%	Next 3 years
New fully functional trucks	10 trucks	Next 3 months
Automatic Gate in each truck	100% installation	Next 3 months

Resource	Cost
Loan repayment	$200,000 per annum
Payroll for 5 head office employees	$25000 per month
Payroll for 20 Drivers	$75,000
Purchasing 10 tuck	$600,000
New automatic gate	$200,000
PDA service installation	$50,000

Human resource requirement

• 2 employees for marketing and sales
• 1 sales manager for managing the sales team
• 1 financial manager to publish budget and lead accountings
• 1 Accounts Clark for regular accounting plan
• 1 Human Resource Officer for recruiting new employees and empowering existing workforce
• 2 Administration officer to managing the facilities, equipments and maintaining premise
• 1 Logistic manager for leading and managing the drivers and the direct logistic operations
• 20 truck driver for picking up, transporting and dropping the packages to destination

 Physical resource requirement

• 10 new trucks with existing 10 trucks
• Driver controlled automatic loading and unloading system for each truck installed at the gate
• PDA (Personal Digital assistance) system for each track driver and the logistic manager
• GPS system in each truck to systematic navigation and efficient logistic operation

Structure

The organisational structure follows a hierarchy based structure where the management team and owners are at the top most position and the Truck drivers and accounts Clark are at ground level. In the following figure the organisation structure is presented:

Roles and responsibilities

Roles	Responsibilities
Management Team and owners	Making decisions in business operation, investing
Managing Director	Manage and control the entire business operation
Logistics Manager	Manage and control truck drivers and logistics service
Administration Officer	Taking care of the technical and non technical facilities
Finance Manager	Making budget plan, managing the accounts operation
Human Resource Officer	Recruiting employees, training and development, employee empowerment
Sales Manager	Managing marketing and promotions and sales
Truck Drivers	Operating pick up, transporting and Drop function with time efficiency
Accounts Clark	Making day to day financial update, payroll development

In the following operational workflow round shapes represents the operating departments and responsible personnel for specific function. The rectangle shapes of this flow represent the various operations and their value exchange with other function. The thing arrow represents the flow of the procedure and the thin arrow refers the direction of output from different operational units.

The following proposals have been made for improving the total quality of the Fast Track courier services.

• Purchasing 10 new Trucks
• Installing new automatic gate in 10 existing truck an 10 new tracks
• One Driver will be allocated for each Truck, which implies 20 drivers from 20 truck
• Cost for truck will be procured from bank loan

Performance	Target measure	Target time
Increasing consumer retention	2.5%	In each month
Progressing regional delivery process	9.2%	In each month
Increase total sales	13%	In each year
Automatic Gate installation	33% progression	In each month
Minimum success rate of delivery	95/100	Every 100 order
Increasing brand recognition and consumer booking	10%	In each month

Current Sales	$17 million	Estimated Sales	$22 Million
Current Profit	$1.9million	Estimated Net Profit	$3.2Million
Net Asset	2.3 million
Loan Repayment	+$200,000 per annum
Operating cost	+$2.2 million
Administrative cost	+100,000 per annum
Workforce Cost	&1200000 per annum

Risk	Likelihood	Impact	Mitigation plan
Mechanical failure of trucks	Medium	Medium	Regular maintenance of upgrading equipments can prevent sudden system failure
Lack of funds	Low	High	Maintaining profit and assets, taking loans from banks, minimising errors in expenses
Employee Resistance	Low	Medium	Regular communication, Employee encouragement and empowerment will help to reduce the employee turnover
Supplier unavailability	Medium	High	In depth market research, effective negotiation, strengthening vendor relation and improve the price quality equilibrium
Consumer dissatisfaction	High	Low	Effective communication, improving service quality, enhancing delivery speed will satisfy the customer needs and expectation

The following licences and legislative registrations are required to continue the business operation of Fast Track with new changes in physical accessibility and business operation.

• Driving licences for drivers
• Inter region transportation business licence
• Fair Trading Registry
• Class 3 vehicle access permit
• Registration of Australian Business Number
• Registration for Australian Goods and Service Tax
• Licence for Fuel Tax Credit
• Licence for Occupational Health and Safety ensured Workforce

Who	Why	When	How
Management team	Operating and managing the operation and planning	Initial and secondary phase of the project	Face to face communication, meeting, Telephone, E-mail
Office Employees	Executing back office operations	From the secondary phase to ending	meeting, Telephone, E-mail
Truck drivers	Having the training of new Automatic Gate system	After installation of the new equipments	Face to face communication, meeting
HRM	Proving training of new equipments and recruiting employees	After the final presentation of the operational plan	Face to face communication, meeting, E-mail
Suppliers	Delivering goods and negotiating	Before and after purchasing trucks, before and after installation of automatic equipment	Face to face communication, Telephone, meeting

Assessment 3- Research Project

Q1.

Corrective performance improvement will be required to improve the average order processing time. In orders to implement the Corrective performance improvement management, the step by step operational plan has to be mapped with the required timeline. After complete documentation the essential requirement have to be identified. As per the findings each and individual operational unit have to be facilitated.

Decreasing average cost per process will require interim performance improvement there the step by step operational plan and required resources have to be mapped with the required cost. After complete documentation the essential adjustment, budget planning and required changes in inbound goods have to be identified (Van Der Aalst 2013). As per the findings each and individual operational cost the new cost planning have to be implemented.

To reduce quality error rate the preventive performance improvement will be required. In orders to implement the preventive performance improvement management, the step by step operational plan has to be mapped with potential error assessment. After complete documentation of the error the loopholes in the system can be identified (Saunders and Lewis 2012). As per the findings the management has to ensure that in next phase the process will prevent all the potential corrupted operations.  

Adoptive performance improvement will be required to improve the average order processing time. In orders to implement the Adoptive performance improvement management, the workforce have to be assessed though identifying their skills and weakness. As per this report the adaptation plan including train and development will be required for the existing workforce.

Marketing and Promotional Plan

Q2

1. The rate of absenteeism is higher than expected, which had a huge impact on overall productivity and quality

The absent rate is very high from the expectation ratio in the initial business plan

The percentage of absence is not stable, within June to August the employee presence is extremely low

The productivity or number of process order decreased within the timeline of April to July because of the lack of employees and proficiency

1. Lack of employee satisfaction could cause a huge absence count and the performance issue

Lack of employee expertise reduces the total workforce affiance and delayed process

Inappropriate leadership and supervising plan reduced the operational integrity within the workforce Poor communication and information integration within the coordinating management and execution teams Lack of employee training and development caused poor performance improvement within the workforce Lack of performance recognition and encouragement system reduce the employee retention and increased employee turnover.

Along with the graphical analysis of the total number of processed order the keeping record of the quality issues of the orders are essential (Rosemann and vom Brocke 2015). Apart from that, the operational errors have to be also documented in the performance measurement system. It will allow the management to measure the controllable and uncontrollable faults associated with the workforce.  

Q3

1. Training and development of existing employees are required to improve their skill and performance level Regular maintenance of electrical and mechanical equipments are required to improve the execution speed and efficiency Monitoring and problem identification system are required to eliminate the faults and loopholes in system.

1. Along with focusing on the productivity and rate of processed order the quality assurance is also essential. For this the management can incorporate new parameters in performance measurement system which is the time quality ratio. Through this the management can identify how much quality is compromised due to strict and critical time limit.
2. Developing a scorecard which comprises all the necessary attributes of performance measurement is essential (Kerzner and Kerzner 2017). This scorecard template has to be distributed among the team leaders. The team leaders will report the management with the scorecards of the team members in a particular frequency.

As per the score card and the attributed scoring system the management can identify the performance deficiency of each of the employees. As per the performance issue the management can make different groups of employees. In every group the employees would have similar deficiencies in performance

After initiating the training and development plan the employees will be interviewed regularly in order to keep the progress report updated (Jeston 2014). As per the preference and ambiguities of the employees the management has to request the Human Resource Officer to make necessary changes in the training and development program.  

The well performing employees will be reworded with incentives, compensations and special bonus. It will allow the workforce to keep themselves motivated under a healthy competitive environment

Q4:

1. This scorecard template has to be distributed among the team leaders. The team leaders will report the management with the scorecards of the team members regular basis (Hammer 2015). The trainee employees will be interviewed regularly in order to keep the progress report updated. As per the preference and ambiguities of the employees the management has to request the Human Resource Officer to make necessary changes in the training and development program.  
2. The score card based KPI implementation plan will help the management to identify the strength, weakness and training needs of each employee. Training and development will increase the performance level and expertise level of workforce. The performance recognition and rewording system will allow the workforce to keep themselves motivated under a healthy competitive environment (Weske 2012). Maintaining the electronic and mechanical equipments with regular services and calibration system will reduce the operational obstacles.

References:

Hammer, M., 2015. What is business process management?. In Handbook on business process management 1 (pp. 3-16). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

Jeston, J., 2014. Business process management. Routledge.

Kerzner, H. and Kerzner, H.R., 2017. Project management: a systems approach to planning, scheduling, and controlling. John Wiley & Sons.

Rosemann, M. and vom Brocke, J., 2015. The six core elements of business process management. In Handbook on business process management 1 (pp. 105-122). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

Saunders, M.N. and Lewis, P., 2012. Doing research in business & management: An essential guide to planning your project. Pearson.

Van Der Aalst, W.M., 2013. Business process management: a comprehensive survey. ISRN Software Engineering, 2013.

Weske, M., 2012. Business process management architectures. In Business Process Management (pp. 333-371). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.