A Close Examination Of The Issues Of Brisbane Travel Company Essay.

Discuss About the A Close Examination of the Issues OF Brisbane?

The organizations are facing a number of issues in their business operations. Different companies are experiencing different unethical and untoward incidents that are affecting their sales, productivity and brand image as well as loyalty. The report takes into considerations some of the issues that Brisbane Travel Company has been experiencing and some of the solutions have been included. Some recommendations have been discussed which can give some opportunities to the company in resolving the issues and become competitive in the market. This report can help the companies to gain an insight into how to create a good culture and relationships among the employees and perform the corporate social responsibility activities.  Some ways to improve the business processes of the company have also been included in the report. The problems have been critically analyzed and in-depth solutions have been given.

Brisbane Travel Company has been a major brand in the travel marketing space. Still the company has faced a lot of problems in its business. Certain issues have hindered the operations of the company and it failed to get the competitive advantage in the market. The ethical health of a company depends largely on the ethical practices. The discussion has been focussed on the analysis of the issues that the company need to address on an immediate basis. The first issue that will be addressed is the lack of proper strategy on the part of the company.  The second one that needs to be addressed will be the problems in the business processes. The third will be the lack of proper communication and a good culture in the company. The final issue that has been addressed is the absence of corporate social responsibility by the company.

Brisbane Travel Company did not have a proper strategy to get the competitive advantage in the tour and travel industry. Strategy is a set of rules and guidelines that   help a company to reach the specified goal set by it. A company cannot bank on the opportunities if it does not have a coherent strategy and a constructive road map to follow. Lack of strategy in Brisbane Travel Company may be because of the leadership indifference, complacency of stakeholders, lack of unity, short-term thinking, confusion among the employees and entrenched traditional perspectives. Lack of a strategy badly affects the attitude of the members of a team.  They do not have any purpose to serve without any objective. Lack of any direction can have an adverse impact on the morale of the employees in any organization. Some researches have revealed that 90% of the organizations fail in effectively carrying out their strategic plans (Cummings & Worley, 2014). There can be failure of strategies because of not understanding the business environment properly or not focussing on the results. The planning teams of the company have failed to pay attention to the changes in the contemporary business scenario. The issue of strategy was may be because of the fact that the top management had a partial commitment on the strategic plans in improving the enterprise. The company might be having wrong people at the management. The result was a lack of proper strategy that resulted in the declination of total transaction value. Brisbane Travel Company was very slow at entering into the internet market that portrays the lack of strategic implementation by the company.

Issue

Brisbane Travel Company has also faced problems with their business processes. One of the reasons for the company to face this issue is due to the lack of effective enterprise collaboration programs on the part of the management. There can be four general problems regarding business process management, which have been discussed below.

Business process management does not solve any problems rather it is merely a tool in assisting to solve the problems. If there is a regular usage of the business processes by the employees, then they become accustomed with them and commit less error.

There can be situations where the new employees of the company may not feel the importance of the business process management. The management of the company may talk to the employees and try to find out ways to improve the processes.

When the employees are under stress, they tend to forget some of the steps in a business process. This happens when the employees are trying to meet any deadline set by the company or the client.

There is another problem of assigned responsibility when any task is assigned to any employees. The company needs to make a system such that the tasks are assigned to individual employee so that any error committed by them can be addressed immediately and rectified on an individual basis.    

There are other few issues that are generally found in the business processes. They can be complexities in the processes. When the process is having too many variables than the requirement, then the processes tend to have a poor quality (Krogstie, 2016). These complexities lead to the improper handling of the customers. Error rates become very high and morale of the employees becomes lower.

Culture plays an important role in the success of an organization. In the absence of a good work culture, employees tend to become more unethical that creates a bad reputation for the company (Sekerka, Comer & Godwin, 2014). This can have a neglecting attitude on the part of the employees and they try to take short cuts in completing their works. Poor organizational approach leads to careless behaviour by the employees. In these situations, customers are not looked after properly. There is a lack of professionalism in this culture.

Lack of a good culture in a company lowers the self-confidence of the staff members (Hewison & Holden, 2016). An ethical culture is committed to the professional values that encourage the employees in making them aware of the significance of the company. The employees have a very less chance of excel in their career in the midst of this type of culture.

Employees working in a poor organizational culture may have the chance to suffer because of the lack of motivation (Pinder, 2014). There comes stagnation in their professional career as there is less growth opportunity. New ideas are not generated when employees get de-motivated.  

A poor corporate culture also leads to poor discipline in the work place. The company needs to address this problem otherwise this will have an adverse effect on the ethical employees. Brisbane Travel Company has also suffered from this problem. This culture may be responsible for the high employee turnover in the company. A good and ethical culture in an enterprise motivates the employees about whistle blowing (Bogdanovic & Tyll, 2016). Providing protection to them and encouraging them to report about any unethical processes may be hindered due to unethical and poor culture.

Lack of proper communication in the work place can also affect the processes in an organization (Ashkanasy & Dorris, 2017). All the employees are not informed about certain things that creates confusions. The companies share information using certain media which are not used by many employees like email, not used by the front line workers.  Communication problems lead to the fact that the employees do not receive consistent messages from the top management as different supervisors send different messages at different points of time. Employees also face the issues of not getting the messages on time. Plans for the future are not known properly due to lack of information. Employees are unable to interact with each other properly and work in a team. The various departments in the company fail to connect and collaborate with each other. The entire system in the company gets disturbed. Employees are unable to discuss anything freely with each other. Lack of proper leadership style can affect the communication if the employees with the top management (Coombs, 2014).

Corporate Social Responsibility is another issue that the company faced in its growth. Corporate social responsibility has an impact on the brand loyalty and brand image of a company that has a direct impact on the sales (He & Lai, 2014). CSR is also regarded as a tool for measuring the impact of an organization on the society and evaluation of their responsibilities (Fernandez-Feijoo, Romero & Ruiz, 2014). The sales of Brisbane Travel Company have fallen due to the perception of the customers that the company is not at all philanthropic.

The company should formulate a new and innovative strategy so that it can gain competitive advantage. The company should continuously provide enjoyable excursions or trips within budget and on time for the customers. It should try to develop enthusiastically satisfied customers for all time. The company needs to establish a presence in the market that can assure a short-term as well as long term profitability for the growth and success. The company can introduce innovations in the services to the customers by offering free rides in the holidays for a particular period of time. They can offer gifts to those who will be their loyal customers after a certain time. They can also reduce the price of the tickets so that more customers can avail their services.

Brisbane Travel Company has the options of making the business processes effective to remain competitive in the market. The company can resort to business process maps that may provide the foundation as to how the work needs to be done and gain insights into how that can be improved. The business processes can be very effective if the management distribute the responsibilities and accountabilities among the employees (Jeston & Nelis, 2014). Strong business processes become very easy to manage any kinds of stressful situations in the work place. The travel company can increase the efficiency of the processes to the maximum potential. Increased efficiency comes from the delivery of greater output. The company also has the option of reducing the costs in various operations. It should put focus on four basic aspects such as inputs, people, conversion and supporting overhead. The organization also has the option of making an effective business process by reducing the response time. It can do so by clear understanding of the processes and deliver the products and services on time to the customers. The company needs to reduce the cycle time that can be a competitive factor and helps in understanding the response time (Christopher, 2016). A company that delivers their service consistently and on time is surely to get the competitive advantage in the market.

A good organizational culture can be maintained by Brisbane Travel Company by various ways. The company can maintain transparency in its culture which will have good impact not only on the employees but on the company itself.  Trust becomes the foundation of any good company (Balliet & Van Lange, 2013). It also has the option to recognize and reward the valuable contributions of the employees. It helps to create a good culture in the company, as the employees get motivated to achieve the organizational goals. It reduces the employee turnover rates dramatically.

Cultivating good relationships among the workers can create a good culture in the company. Good relationships among the employees increase employee engagement that helps to create a good culture (Anitha, 2014). The company must also take into account the fact that it takes time to create good relations among the employees. The top management of BTO must also promote and inspire employee autonomy.  The leaders should have trust and faith on the subordinates so that they can take their responsibilities on their own. The employees can be given more flexibility that reduces employee turnover and improves their morale. A good culture can be created by promoting a team atmosphere. The company should think of the employees as an integral part of the organization.  BTO can collect regular feedback from the employees that can help the company to keep a look at the progress. The employees can be forced to comply with the rules and regulations of the company and stay true to the core values of the organization.

Communication can be improved in the company by creating job descriptions. It eliminates any sort of ambiguity in the company by clearly mentioning the roles and responsibilities of every employee.  The company needs to have multiple channels for the employees to communicate. This increases the communication of the employees as different employees use different media to communicate with each other like email, phone calls or text messages. The employees should communicate on a regular basis may be its monthly, weekly or daily.

Corporate social responsibility can be improved by a company by practising transparency (Epstein & Buhovac, 2014). Sustainability is another important aspect by which BTO can improve the corporate social responsibility. Improving the corporate social responsibility requires the companies to have a dual mindset. One is the decision making that will be having a global impact and the other one is the focus on the immediate surroundings. The company can look for new opportunities to participate in the different community events. Another option to improve corporate social responsibility is avoiding discriminations among the employees. People can made more ethical by making strict rules in the organization and force them to comply with the rules. There need to have whistle blowing opportunities so that any unethical practices can be brought in front of everyone (Miceli, Near & Dworkin, 2013). Corporate Social Responsibility creates a value for the customers in their mind.

4.1 Recommendation 1

Brisbane Travel Company can be recommended to formulate some strategies to innovate their services so that they can stand in the competition. Innovative products and services can differentiate the company from its competitors (Porter & Heppelmann, 2014).

4.2 Recommendation 2

The company needs to make their business processes very effective so that there can be a harmony and coordination among the different departments of the company and also between the employees.

4.3 Recommendation 3

The travel company can be recommended to make their work culture even better so that the employees get motivated and work towards the accomplishment of goals. Good work culture can reduce the employee turnover ratio in the company (Cohen, Blake & Goodman, 2016).

4.4 Recommendation 4

Brisbane Travel Company can also give focus on the corporate social responsibility activities so that their brand image can be enhanced among the customers through philanthropic activities. The company should avoid making any discrimination among the employees.

4.5 Recommendation 5

The company must maintain a good communication between the different levels of the organization. Communication reduces different confusions among the employees and they can freely interact with each other (Strandberg & Vigsø, 2016).

Conclusion

The literature clearly identifies the issues that Brisbane Travel Company has been suffering from, that lead to the declining of the sales over a certain period of time. The issues identified are poor culture and communication, corporate social responsibility, business processes and strategy to make new innovations in the company. The proper implementation of ethical programs, roles of the leaders in creating a good culture in the organization and making the business processes effective have been recommended so that the company can get the benefits. Brisbane Travel Company needs to frame some strategies to make their service innovative that can attract the customers. The recommendations can give the companies including Brisbane Travel Company an insight into how to face the challenges while experiencing the issues and take necessary actions to take the companies to a respectable position and maintain a brand image

References

Anitha, J. (2014). Determinants of employee engagement and their impact on employee performance. International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management.

Ashkanasy, N., & Dorris, A. (2017). Emotions in the Workplace. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 4(1).

Balliet, D., & Van Lange, P. A. (2013). Trust, conflict, and cooperation: A meta-analysis.

Bogdanovic, M., & Tyll, L. (2016). Attitude of Management Students towards Whistleblowing: Evidence from Croatia. Central European Business Review, 5(1), 45.

Christopher, M. (2016). Logistics & supply chain management. Pearson UK.

Clow, C. L. (2015). Living the Experience of Whistleblowing: An Analysis of Organizational Whistleblowing through Creative Nonfiction.

Cohen, G., Blake, R. S., & Goodman, D. (2016). Does turnover intention matter? Evaluating the usefulness of turnover intention rate as a predictor of actual turnover rate. Review of Public Personnel Administration, 36(3), 240-263.

Coombs, W. T. (2014). Ongoing crisis communication: Planning, managing, and responding. Sage Publications.

Cummings, T. G., & Worley, C. G. (2014). Organization development and change. Cengage learning.

Epstein, M. J., & Buhovac, A. R. (2014). Making sustainability work: Best practices in managing and measuring corporate social, environmental, and economic impacts. Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

Fernandez-Feijoo, B., Romero, S., & Ruiz, S. (2014). Commitment to corporate social responsibility measured through global reporting initiative reporting: Factors affecting the behavior of companies. Journal of Cleaner Production, 81, 244-254.

He, Y., & Lai, K. K. (2014). The effect of corporate social responsibility on brand loyalty: the mediating role of brand image. Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, 25(3-4), 249-263.

Hewison, R., & Holden, J. (2016). The cultural leadership handbook: how to run a creative organization. CRC Press.

Jeston, J., & Nelis, J. (2014). Business process management. Routledge.

Krogstie, J. (2016). Quality of business process models. In Quality in Business Process Modeling (pp. 53-102). Springer International Publishing.

Miceli, M. P., Near, J. P., & Dworkin, T. M. (2013). Whistle-blowing in organizations. Psychology Press.

Pinder, C. C. (2014). Work motivation in organizational behavior. Psychology Press.

Porter, M. E., & Heppelmann, J. E. (2014). How smart, connected products are transforming competition. Harvard Business Review, 92(11), 64-88.

Sekerka, L. E., Comer, D. R., & Godwin, L. N. (2014). Positive organizational ethics: Cultivating and sustaining moral performance. Journal of Business Ethics, 119(4), 435-444.

Strandberg, J. M., & Vigsø, O. (2016). Internal crisis communication: An employee perspective on narrative, culture, and sensemaking. Corporate Communications: An International Journal, 21(1), 89-102.