Operations Management

This report discusses the implementation of operations performance objectives at Citibank Thailand Ltd, including how they contribute to the company's competitiveness, how to create performance objectives through competitive factors, and how to measure operations performance. The report also includes a brief introduction to operations management and Citibank Thailand Ltd.

Running Head: Operations Management
Operations Management
Institution
Name
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Operations Management
Introduction of Operations Management
Operations Management is defined as the administration of business practices with an
aim of creating the highest attainable level of efficiency possible within an organization
(Cooke, 2012). The regime is mainly concerned with converting labor and materials
into goods and services as efficiently as possible in order to maximize the profit of a
given organization (Jones & Robinson, 2012). The operations management has been
regarded as a key input to the thriving of organization in their respective industries (Reid
& Sanders, 2015) . Therefore, in the recent past, many businesses have been designing
their own operations management frameworks in a comprehensive manner with an
objective of improving performance and competitiveness in their respective markets.
Introduction of Citibank Thailand Ltd.
Citibank Thailand Ltd is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Citigroup which is one of the
largest financial services organizations in the world. Citibank Thailand provides some of
the world’s leading range of financial as well as online banking services. The services
include; deposit accounts, personal banking, credit card, business banking, loan
services, ready credit, wealth management, insurance and more.
Scope of the Report.
This report seeks to discuss how Citibank Thailand Ltd would implement operations
performance objectives in terms of competitiveness, qualifying, order winning and less
important factors of its performance objectives and lastly discuss how the operations
performance of the company can be measured.
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Operations Management
Contribution of Operations’ Performance Objectives to the Company’s
Competitiveness
It is important to ensure that the organization’s resources are allocated appropriately in
operations through recording, maintaining and reviewing key aspects of operations
performance (Weinmann, 2016). Therefore, a major task in this process is identifying
the appropriate measures of performance that relate to the external and internal factors.
The performance objectives include quality, flexibility, speed, cost and dependability
(Berger, 2011).
Quality- from the perspective of a customer, quality characteristics include performance
and reliability. However, from an operations viewpoint, quality is related to how closely
customers’ specifications are met (Brown, et al., 2013). For instance, Citibank consumer
banking services focus on maximizing consumer benefits. The banking company offers
a variety of credit cards which provide a wide range of rewards and benefits that suit
customers’ lifestyle. This virtue has significantly contributed to the delivery of enhanced
and consistent client-centric banking experience. Customers of Citibank are able to
enjoy the best shopping, travel and dining deals anywhere around the world with Citi
World Privileges. The enhanced quality of their banking services has increased the
reliability desired by the customers and operations performance hence streamlining its
competitiveness in the industry.
Speed- the objective measures how fast an organization can deliver its services and
products (Slack, et al., 2015). It addresses issues of time such as the time a company
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Operations Management
takes to manufacture and process products or time taken to research and develop a
new product or service. For instance, Citibank has a great selection of services and
products which cater for customer needs regardless of their lifestyles. These include
best-in-class and mileage, real-time online global funds transfer and timely and flexible
credit plans. All these services are provided based on swift and real time framework that
has helped to enhance the company’s competitiveness.
Dependability- the objective measures how dependable an organization is in regards
to timely service delivery to its customers in line with planned costs and prices. For
instance, Citibank designs a Revolving Card that enable its customers to withdraw cash
at any bank’s ATMs around the globe whenever or wherever they need the cash
through a Ready Credit Scheme.
Flexibility- this performance objective measures how well the company is able to
configure the service and product lines to adjust them quickly to new requirements.
Citibank has been able to provide different quality services and adapting its operations
with the interest of suiting different deliver schedules and market conditions. For
instance, Citibank is able to uphold value and convenience for its customers.
Cost- the objective looks at the extent of variation in the unit cost of a company’s
product or service measured by changes in various factors like volume of service or
product. Citibank has designed its products and services in such a way that volumes
are increased through controlled variety with an aim of lowering unit cost.
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Operations Management
External and Internal Benefits
Quality- the external benefits would be high specifications of banking services and
error-free service delivery. In regards to internal benefits, the error-free processes will
enhance internal reliability hence lower cost which would translate into a higher margin
of profit.
Speed- externally, customers would queue less and their requests responded swiftly
hence increasing customer satisfaction owing to excellence in speed. Internal benefits
would be alleviation of bottlenecks and queues and shortened time for service delivery.
Dependability- externally, it would give the company opportunity to compete on an
extremely reliable delivery time. Internal benefits would be higher confidence in the
company and reduced production costs and more internal stability.
Flexibility- internal benefits would be enhanced responses of the company to
unpredicted events. It would be able to accommodate a wide variety of consumer
requests. The external benefits would be provision of new services and products.
Cost- internal benefits would be higher profit margins owing to the low costs. Externally,
the company will be able to offer its services and products to consumers at lower prices.
Creating the Company’s Performance Objectives through Competitive Factors.
A competitive factor is defined as a benefit or feature considered key or essential in
promoting a product or service its intended in the market (Brown & Bessant, 2013). It is
a constituent, an ingredient, characteristic or an element of the service/ product that is
highly sought by the customers (Vlachvei, et al., 2017).
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Operations Management
Order winners-these are things which significantly and directly contribute to winning
business (Baum, 2013). Therefore, raising performance in the aspect of order winning
will either improve the chances of gaining more business or lead to more business. The
order winning factors include price, accessibility, ease of transaction, customization,
quality of service and reliability in the banking industry.
Price- Citibank can make the prices of their services and products more affordable by
conducting a market analysis that aims at achieving a consumer friendly charges. This
would be attained by reducing unit cost of operations and service delivery.
Quality of service- customers tend to seek for those banking companies which offer
high quality services across the industry. Therefore, Citibank should capitalize on this
particular aspect by raising the standards of their services and products for their
customers with an aim of building on the performance objective of quality.
Ease of transaction- at the present time, customers of Citibank are able to transact
normally in regards to financial services. However, the company can further enhance
the ease of transaction by capitalizing on the evolvement of information technology in
order to develop the performance objective of speed in the banking industry.
Customization- it focuses on researching and developing service or product that meets
the varying needs of individual customers. Citibank should consider designing a
framework that incorporates the unique banking needs of its customers. This aspect
would contribute significantly to the performance objective of dependability hence
earning the company a competitive advantage. Customization of services and products
helps in building customer loyalty with a potential to attract more customers in to
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Operations Management
purchasing the company’s services and goods in the long run. The efforts of the
company in pursuing dependability will be boosted extensively.
Accessibility- this captures the aspect of how well the service and products are
accessible or available readily in the market. Customers will always purchase services
and products whose accessibility is guaranteed and convenient, wherever or whenever
they need the company’s products and services. Therefore, if Citibank would be able to
improve the accessibility of its banking services for the customers. The performance
objectives of speed and dependability would also develop and achieved.
Qualifiers- they are those aspects of competitiveness where the operations
performance is required to be above a given level just to be considered by the
customers (Peters, 2013). Therefore, performance that is below this ‘qualifying’ level of
performance is likely to disqualify the organization from being considered my majority of
the customers.
Quality- the Citibank Company can harness the presenting benefits of enhanced quality
as a way of positively impacting the existing and potential customers into subscribing to
its banking services and products. The quality characteristics which include
performance and reliability should be refined in order to develop performance objectives
in a reliable manner that assures significant returns for the company.
Ease of transaction- this particular qualifier aspect helps to create a real time
impression for the customers. It is evident that many customers will always purchase
products and services which showcase more ease in transacting. Therefore, it would be
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Operations Management
important for Citibank to utilize the qualifier aspect in creating its performance objectives
especially the speed.
Less Important- these are neither qualifiers nor order winning hence may not influence
clients in any significant way.
Accessibility- it captures the availability aspect.
Measuring Operations’ Performance
The balanced score card approach give top managers a fast but detailed view of the
organization’s performance, process and results measures inclusive (Niven, 2010). It
allows them to view the business from four critical perspectives (Bischoff, 2011);
Customer perspective- how do customers see the company?
Internal perspective- what must the company excel at?
Innovation and learning perspective- can the company continue to improve and
create value?
Financial perspective- how do the company look at stakeholders?
The balanced scorecard helps to minimize overload of information by limiting the
number of measures adopted by the company (Keyes, 2016). Citibank’s adoption of the
balanced scorecard would enable the company to meet several management needs in
an effort to measure operational performance. It would use the balanced scorecard to
bring together many of the critical elements that form Citibank’s competitive agenda, in
a single management report. Such agendas include shortening response time,
becoming customer oriented, and emphasizing teamwork, improving quality of services,
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Operations Management
minimizing launch times for new services and products and managing for the long term.
To track the company’s specific goal of providing banking products and services, the
management should measure the percent of sales from new services and products as
one of its innovation and improvement measures. Therefore, the information could be
obtained internally by looking at the company’s sales data within a defined period of
time.
Citibank’s Balanced Business Scorecard
Financial perspective Customer perspective
Goals Measures
Survive flow of cash
Succeed quarterly sales
growth
Prosper enhanced market
share
Goal Measure
New service/ product sales
percentage
Responsive provision on-time delivery
Internal business perspective Innovation and learning perspective
Goal Measures
Provision excellence yield, unit cost
Goal Measure
Marketing time competition vs. new
product introduction
Customer evaluation is also necessary in order to define some of the company’s
performance objectives such as speed and flexibility (Applegate, 2013). It would help
Citibank to view its performance through the customers’ eyes. The customer surveys
contribute to a report that is customer driven. Citibank could also adopt benchmarking
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Operations Management
procedures to compare its performance against the best price of their competitor’s in the
banking industry. Citibank’s major financial objectives would be growth, profitability and
value of stakeholder. Therefore, stating the company’s financial goal in a precise
statement such as; to survive, to succeed and to excel (Novak, 2012). In this case, the
aspect of survival would be measured by cash flow, success by operating income in
terms of division and quarterly sales growth. Prosperity would be measured by segment
and equity returns through increase in market share in the banking industry. Citibank’s
ability to improve, innovate and learn is directly tied to the company’s value in terms of
creating more value for customers, launching new services and products and improving
operations’ efficiencies on a continuous basis. The objective would be to penetrate new
markets and raise the margin of revenues hence enhance shareholder value.
Conclusion
The discussion on operations’ management presents a wide scope in business which
vary according to the needs and nature of an organization. The importance of
increasing competitiveness through the adoption of viable operations’ performance
objectives should not be under estimated. This is because an organization stands the
best chance to thrive in their respective industries by designing operations’ performance
objectives which suit them.
Recommendations
 Citibank should harmonize their performance objectives to ensure balanced
performance in its core operations’ areas.
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Operations Management
 A technical team should be formed to engage in mainly tracking the operations
objectives and achievements, quarterly every year.
References
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