Benefits of Improving Business Plan Efficiency and Customer Satisfaction

Discuss about the Leading Quality Improvement for Action Learning Set.

Tesco, being a large supermarket retail chain in Australia has managed to keep its customers satisfied by delivering the best quality retail products and services for fulfilling their needs and preferences. The company has generated good amounts of revenue, but still lack improvements in certain areas and thus the sales have fallen. It is because of the presence of competitors and not focusing on improving the quality of customers’ services, which can influence consumer buying behaviors as well as ensure customer satisfaction. Thus, it is important for Tesco to develop an action learning plan for improving the business plan efficiency and enhance the level of satisfaction of the customers. The company needs to assess the market trends and conditions to focus on keeping them satisfied, furthermore gain a sustainable position in the market with ease and efficiency (Tesco.com 2018). To improve the quality of products and services, the Crosby’s quality improvement project has been focused on with the consultation of the senior management through the utilization of action learning set.

As the leader of the organization, it is my responsibility to make sure that the project is designed keeping in mind the consumers’ behaviors, furthermore align those with the brand. As a leader, I should promote coordination of work along with partnership working to achieve the desired outcomes with ease and effectiveness. At Tesco, it is important to adopt good leadership skills and improve the communication between employees as well as the improvement in interpersonal skills can ensure team coordination and partnership working. To improve the communication skills, the leaders must identify the areas of strengths and weaknesses of the employees and then provide them with training sessions. This would make them understand their roles and responsibilities properly, furthermore promote effective teamwork and coordination among the employees of the organization (Goetsch and Davis 2014). To manage the improvement plan relating to the quality improvement project, it is the responsibility of the manager and leader of the organization to use the action learning set and follow the various steps accurately. The objectives are demonstrated in the action plan template stated below along with the time to be taken and individuals responsible for managing the tasks at Tesco. To develop the improvement plan, it is important to focus on the identification of training and development needs for ensuring that the employees interact with each other and at the same time, facilitate their skills, knowledge and expertise. The employees’ feedbacks should also be collected along with the assessment of their needs and preferences to keep them motivated and encouraged to perform to their potential (Kronick et al. 2015).

Action Learning Plan for Improvement

 

Figure: Action learning set (Kronick et al. 2015)

The improvement plan is developed for assisting the staffs and higher authorities of the organization to ensure that the quality standards are maintained and the required criteria is met for fulfilling the needs and preferences of the customers largely. This could not only help in keeping the customer satisfied providing them with good quality products and services, but also should make the people working within Tesco aware of the quality improvement  techniques and changes that must be implemented (Mitra 2016). It is aimed at the successful implementation of the quality improvement project that can be of strategic importance and make it convenient for the organization to generate higher revenue and gain competitive advantage in business as well.

Objective	Tasks	By When	By Who
To adopt good leadership skills for enhancing the communication, interpersonal and motivation skills for ensuring coordination and partnership working.	The leaders must keep the staffs motivated to perform to their potential and at the same time, promote communication and teamwork for successful accomplishment of business goals and objectives (Nadeem et al. 2013)	June 1-June 10	Leaders, managers, supervisors
To use the action learning set for understanding the tasks to be completed and objectives to be achieved.	Management commitment, formation of quality improvement team, measurement of quality, cost of quality evaluation, quality awareness, corrective actions undertaken, training of leaders and supervisors, recognition and repeating the tasks again.	June 11- June 16	Manager
To consider the different ideas, views and opinions of the employees for making useful business decisions.	The employees are engaged during meetings and conferences for making sure that they share and exchange useful views and opinions, which are considered as vital for effective decision making.	June 17- June 20	Managers and line managers
Obtaining the feedbacks of customers regarding the products delivered to the individuals is also an important objective	The feedbacks from the customers are obtained through emails and also through telephonic conversations for identifying the areas of weaknesses and make necessary changes accordingly (Dale 2015).	June 21- June 30	HR manager and officials
Monitoring the employee performances properly and checking for any areas of weaknesses	The performances of the employees are checked and then trained to improve their skills, knowledge and expertise. The data sheet records the scores in terms of the employee performances.	July 1- July 10	Employers and HR department
To form a quality improvement team, managing quality measurement and evaluating the cost of quality evaluation	The leader must form a team who could manage the quality properly and at the same time, set goals and implement the effective programs for ensuring zero defects (Slack, Brandon-Jones and Johnston 2013).	July 10- July 15	Employees, team leader
To provide proper leadership training for making the managers and leaders enough knowledgeable of managing the staffs	By providing training to the supervisors and leaders, it would be easy for them to manage the staffs properly as well as make them consult with the line managers and inform the staffs about maintaining zero defect status while working on a project.	July 16- July 20	HR manager, training manager
Arranging quality councils to make individuals habituated with the ways of managing good quality of products, services and business operations.	Changes are made and employees are made aware of the total quality management techniques for maintaining consistency in quality of products, service and business functions (Kearney, Wood and Zuber-Skerritt 2013).	July 20-July 22	Quality conduct teams
Establishing an Ad Hoc committee for the Zero Defects program	Here the total quality management project is implemented for increasing awareness for quality within Tesco and focus on preventing occurrence of any defects.	July 23- 26	Management of zero defects program

The action plan template provides a view of the objectives to be achieved along with the tasks managed by individuals at a certain date. The first objective is to adopt the right leadership skills to facilitate communication and teamwork between employee, which will take nearly ten days and the individuals associated with such tasks are the leaders and managers of Tesco. The managers consult with the line managers, who informs the employees about the changes needed o be one for quality improvement (Oneata, Verbeek and Schmid 2013). Thus, the employees take part in meetings with the manager and leader to provide their useful opinions. This will create ease and convenience for making business decisions and even monitor their performances. The quality improvement team should be formed for making them adaptable to changes and make sure that no defects occur. The quality councils are managed to check whether the products and services delivered to the customers have met the quality standards or not. This should facilitate the development of an Ad Hoc committee for implementing the zero defects program effectively (Boshyk 2016).

The improvement plan is implemented with the quality improvement technique proposed by Crosby that enables following various stages. It is mainly used to commence the quality improvement project properly so that it can be of strategic importance for the organization. The various stages followed to implement the quality improvement plan effectively are as follows:

Management Commitment- The first and foremost thing to improve the quality of business functioning and products associated with it us the high level commitment of management. The commitment of management is transparent across Tesco, which has helped in producing zero defect products that have kept the customer satisfied. The management of commitment has also facilitated the motivation and encouragement level, thereby driving the employee performance (Pedler and Abbott  2013).

Objectives and Tasks

Quality Improvement Team- The leaders of Tesco hold enough skills and knowledge to form a quality improvement team that can assess and monitor the performances of workers and manage changes accordingly for making them remain committed to the project.

Quality Measurement- The measurement of quality is done for checking any areas that need changes or improvements, which can establish a clear plan to improve the quality of products and services.

Cost of Quality Evaluation- The costs associated with the business functioning and quality evaluation is important for ensuring that the costs of operations does not go beyond the budget (Garrison and Vaughan 2013).

Quality Awareness- The awareness of quality is spread among the customers and Tesco has focused on environment friendly and sustainable products at present, which has created positive mindsets among customers regarding the high quality products offered and business process efficiency.

Corrective Action- Identifying areas of weaknesses and undertaking corrective action is essential for improving the quality too (Williams 2013).

Supervisor Training- The supervisor training has improved the leadership skills and allowed to communicate effectively with the staffs, which enhanced the level of motivation and encouragement for driving their performances. 

Quality Councils- The quality councils are formed to conduct quality checks and checking whether the products have met the quality standards or not to ensure customer satisfaction (Day et al. 2014).

I have performed quite effectively as part of the set, because my leadership skills have not only created positive mindsets among the staffs to adapt to changes, but also made them aware of the Total quality management and quality improvement procedures. The others including the supervisors, line managers and HR department also contributed properly to the action plan and focused on the quality improvement at Tesco. By engaging in the action learning process, my leadership skills and competencies improved and I became engaged in meaningful action through proper inquiries and reflection styles.  There have been scopes and opportunities created for integration of existing as well as new knowledge, which can assist me to understand how to apply the learning in the future too. I have obtained various skills and knowledge through action learning, which has not only made me deal with critical situations where there are higher level of complexities (Fairhurst and Connaughton 2014). My proficiency in communicating with the staffs has increased, which has increased the probability of motivating the staffs to integrate and practice new skills before every sessions. Not only my leadership skills have developed, but also my knowledge has enhanced to set up new goals and objectives, furthermore conduct team meetings on a periodic and spaced schedule every two to three weeks. The external feedbacks are reduced largely, which made me believe that a proper culture is maintained within the workplace and the staffs follow me as their role model. I even managed to encourage the team members and prepared them mentally to deal with different situations and perform to their potential with ease and effectiveness. I understood the effectiveness of time management along with budgetary considerations made so that the quality improvement project could be completed within the allocated time and budget (Ward 2016).

Few of the key areas that are improved through management of action learning are cognitive skills, execution skills, relationship skills and self management skills, which facilitated the strategic thinking, creativity, focus on customers and even motivating the staffs to work collaboratively and develop relationships. My self-management skills achieved through action learning further helped me to establish a sense of trust and loyalty among the customers and increased my level of interest to learn new things too. This could not only allow me to advance in my professional career as a leader, but would also make me enough competent to manage business functioning properly (Goetsch and Davis 2014).

References

Boshyk, Y. ed., 2016. Business driven action learning: Global best practices. Springer.

Dale, B., 2015. Total quality management. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Day, D.V., Fleenor, J.W., Atwater, L.E., Sturm, R.E. and McKee, R.A., 2014. Advances in leader and leadership development: A review of 25 years of research and theory. The Leadership Quarterly, 25(1), pp.63-82.

Fairhurst, G.T. and Connaughton, S.L., 2014. Leadership: A communicative perspective. Leadership, 10(1), pp.7-35.

Garrison, D.R. and Vaughan, N.D., 2013. Institutional change and leadership associated with blended learning innovation: Two case studies. The internet and higher education, 18, pp.24-28.

Goetsch, D.L. and Davis, S.B., 2014. Quality management for organizational excellence. Upper Saddle River, NJ: pearson.

Kearney, J., Wood, L. and Zuber-Skerritt, O., 2013. Community–university partnerships: Using participatory action learning and action research (PALAR). Gateways: International Journal of Community Research and Engagement, 6(1), pp.113-30.

Kronick, S.L., Kurz, M.C., Lin, S., Edelson, D.P., Berg, R.A., Billi, J.E., Cabanas, J.G., Cone, D.C., Diercks, D.B., Foster, J.J. and Meeks, R.A., 2015. Part 4: systems of care and continuous quality improvement. Circulation, 132(18 suppl 2), pp.S397-S413.

Mitra, A., 2016. Fundamentals of quality control and improvement. John Wiley & Sons.

Nadeem, E., Olin, S.S., Hill, L.C., Hoagwood, K.E. and Horwitz, S.M., 2013. Understanding the components of quality improvement collaboratives: a systematic literature review. The Milbank Quarterly, 91(2), pp.354-394.

Oneata, D., Verbeek, J. and Schmid, C., 2013, December. Action and event recognition with fisher vectors on a compact feature set. In Computer Vision (ICCV), 2013 IEEE International Conference on (pp. 1817-1824). IEEE.

Pedler, M. and Abbott, C., 2013. Facilitating action learning: a practitioner’s guide. McGraw-Hill Education (UK).

Slack, N., Brandon-Jones, A. and Johnston, R., 2013. Operations management. Pearson.

Tesco.com. (2018). Tesco – Online Groceries, Homeware, Electricals & Clothing. [online] Available at: https://www.tesco.com/ [Accessed 19 Jun. 2018].

Ward, J., 2016. Keeping the family business healthy: How to plan for continuing growth, profitability, and family leadership. Springer.  

Williams, C., 2013. Principles of management. South-Western Cengage Learning.