Exam 17: Evidence-Based Decision Making

Improving Service Standards at AirCargo (Scenario) AirCargo is a regional airline that ships freight between communities in the four western provinces and the northern territories. Company president Mick Ward has asked his team of managers to investigate several complaints he has received about the company's services. Mick is particularly concerned about complaints that the company is not achieving its service commitment to customers. AirCargo promises delivery within 24 to 48 hours between larger centres, and 48 to 96 hours between smaller communities. Unfortunately, Mick has learned that the company is not achieving this standard, particularly in some northern communities, where shipments are often delayed by more than a week. Mick has made it clear to his managers that the status quo is not an option; either delivery times must be improved or their service promise must be adjusted. Ultimately, Mick would like to see AirCargo achieve the same standard as industry leader FastFreight, who promise 48-hour delivery service between any two communities anywhere across Canada! -Mick's desire to achieve the same standard as FastFreight is an example of ________.

In the control process,which step follows "measuring actual performance"?

________ is the search for the best practices among competitors or noncompetitors that lead to their superior performance.

Employee Theft (Scenario) Barbara is the product manager of an energy company which operates in the Americas. She is concerned about the increased employee theft observed in the factory. A study has shown that $30,000 worth of merchandise was attributed to employee theft in the year 2010. -Which of the following can be categorized as theft by an employee?

Canadian Credit Corp.advises telephone customers that their calls may be monitored to help improve the quality of customer service This is a form of ________ control.

Improving Service Standards at AirCargo (Scenario) AirCargo is a regional airline that ships freight between communities in the four western provinces and the northern territories. Company president Mick Ward has asked his team of managers to investigate several complaints he has received about the company's services. Mick is particularly concerned about complaints that the company is not achieving its service commitment to customers. AirCargo promises delivery within 24 to 48 hours between larger centres, and 48 to 96 hours between smaller communities. Unfortunately, Mick has learned that the company is not achieving this standard, particularly in some northern communities, where shipments are often delayed by more than a week. Mick has made it clear to his managers that the status quo is not an option; either delivery times must be improved or their service promise must be adjusted. Ultimately, Mick would like to see AirCargo achieve the same standard as industry leader FastFreight, who promise 48-hour delivery service between any two communities anywhere across Canada! -Which of the following represents the upper limit in the acceptable range of variation for AirCargo deliveries to smaller communities?

In a short essay,explain what benchmarking is.What do you think are the benefits of benchmarking? Provide examples of benchmarking practices.

Constantly "putting out fires" refers to which type of corrective action?

The control process is a two-step process that compares actual performance against a standard and then taking managerial action to correct deviations or inadequate standards.

________ ratios assess how efficiently the firm is using its assets to generate profits.

The first step in the control process is ________.

Improving Service Standards at AirCargo (Scenario) AirCargo is a regional airline that ships freight between communities in the four western provinces and the northern territories. Company president Mick Ward has asked his team of managers to investigate several complaints he has received about the company's services. Mick is particularly concerned about complaints that the company is not achieving its service commitment to customers. AirCargo promises delivery within 24 to 48 hours between larger centres, and 48 to 96 hours between smaller communities. Unfortunately, Mick has learned that the company is not achieving this standard, particularly in some northern communities, where shipments are often delayed by more than a week. Mick has made it clear to his managers that the status quo is not an option; either delivery times must be improved or their service promise must be adjusted. Ultimately, Mick would like to see AirCargo achieve the same standard as industry leader FastFreight, who promise 48-hour delivery service between any two communities anywhere across Canada! -AirCargo's district manager in Yellowknife advises Mick that some deliveries are delayed because of missed connecting flights.She has examined the situation and believes that the problem can be fixed by adjusting the departure times by one hour.Mick tells her to reschedule the flight times to fix the problem once and for all.This is an example of ________.

Improving Service Standards at AirCargo (Scenario) AirCargo is a regional airline that ships freight between communities in the four western provinces and the northern territories. Company president Mick Ward has asked his team of managers to investigate several complaints he has received about the company's services. Mick is particularly concerned about complaints that the company is not achieving its service commitment to customers. AirCargo promises delivery within 24 to 48 hours between larger centres, and 48 to 96 hours between smaller communities. Unfortunately, Mick has learned that the company is not achieving this standard, particularly in some northern communities, where shipments are often delayed by more than a week. Mick has made it clear to his managers that the status quo is not an option; either delivery times must be improved or their service promise must be adjusted. Ultimately, Mick would like to see AirCargo achieve the same standard as industry leader FastFreight, who promise 48-hour delivery service between any two communities anywhere across Canada! -Despite the best efforts of the management team,service problems continue at AirCargo.As a result,Mick decides it is time to examine the entire ________ chain,the service sequence from employees to customers to profit.

Some control criteria,such as employee satisfaction and retention,are applicable to any management situation.

Organizational ________ is a measure of how appropriate organizational goals are and how well an organization is achieving those goals.

Types of Control (Scenario) Sam has not been receiving the information that he needs from his current control system. By the time Sam receives his reports, the activity has been completed and mistakes have already been made. Direct supervision is used extensively on the production floor now, so some activities are corrected before they become costly mistakes. But Sam would like to do better. Ideally, he would like to fix mistakes before they happen and anticipate more of the problems before they occur. -Direct supervision is the best-known form of ________ control.

Designing a Control System (Scenario) Gina realizes her department needs to make some changes in its control system. The department is one of five in her division, and she is not sure which approach will work best for the organization. She could base her department's performance on their distinct product, making it a profit centre and evaluating it against overall company results. She could also make better use of the policies, regulations, and procedures that are already in place. To date, Gina has not strictly enforced many of the regulations established by the head office because her department is self-regulating. The work groups set their goals and insure those goals are achieved. Everyone is well aware of the expected standards and work behaviours, and there is little tolerance for workers who do not meet the group norms. -Gina also recognizes that it is not enough to just set up the control system.As an effective manager,she also needs to ________.

Statistical reports provide only limited information and may ignore important subjective factors.

Managers should not consider standards when measuring the actual performance of employees.

Organizational governance ________.