Comfort DelGro: A Global Taxi Service Provider In Singapore

Effect of App-based Cab Services on Public Transport System

Question:

Discuss about the Training and Development of Comfort DelGro Corporation Limited.

Comfort is a taxi company that is owned by Comfort Delgro Corporation Limited. The company is renowned owing to its global workforce and shareholders who have invested in the company. The Delgro group came into existence in the year 2003 after the merging of Comfort Group along with that of Delgro Corporation. The companies have managed to successfully merge that has helped in expanding the global outlook and have helped in increasing the fleet size (Gerpott & May 2016).  It is headquartered in Singapore and the name of the company has been listed in the Singapore stock exchange. Comfort Transport Limited acts as the subsidiary of Comfort DelGro and it has separate chain of CEO along with that of directors.

Rise in relation to the demand for app cab system has adversely affected the public cab based hiring system. UBER and GRAB have made use of the opportunity and introduced pick and drop facilities for the public. The private cab detours have developed a bad policy and they ferry passengers on the basis of their own whim. The drivers frequently refuse to go beyond certain limits and choose routes on the basis of their own whim. The customers as a result have veered towards alternatives like that of UBER and GRAB that can be booked online very conveniently (Liu, 2015).  The drivers of these companies should be trained so that they are able to use the latest technologies. Drivers of Comfort need specialized training so that they are equipped to take the advantage of the latest technologies. Training is thus of extreme importance so that they can sustain in the current market. The company should analyze on the proper methods of training so that they can develop their skills in relation to the latest technology.

The training methods is inclusive of the training in relation to that of the superiors within the organization. The managers should undergo thorough training so that they develop better power of observation and can effectively analyze the performance of employees. They can provide training in different areas that will be beneficial for the drivers (Rieger & Majchrzak, 2016).

Taxi business in Singapore is developing at a steady pace. Some foreign companies have entered the market of Singapore within the last few years. A survey was carried out that can help in determining the business environment in 2015 and 2016. A sample was selected that comprised of 150 participants among whom 75 were service users and the remaining were that of taxi operators and people who were in the management of the company. An in-depth interview helped in illuminating facts and it was conducted over a period of 5 months. Age of the participants was between that of 18 and 80. The survey clearly highlighted there has been an increase in the number of people availing the taxi service (Rahman & Anand, 2014).  Comfort Del Gro boasts of a high percentage of taxi brand in relation to the total number of taxis that are operating within Singapore. Survey revealed that the consumers are becoming dissatisfied with that of the local car operator as they prefer new mode of commuting services.

Importance of Driver Training and Latest Technology

Figure: Percentage of the Taxi Brands

Source: (Jenkins, Baker & Harvey, 2016).

Figure: Business Concern of the taxi

Source: (Hamid et al., 2016).

The Human Resource Department has the responsibility of assessing the training methods in the organization and that new training methods are adopted that can help the drivers. The drivers should be prepared with the modern technologies like that of online booking so that they can stay ahead of their competitors (Jenkins, Baker & Harvey, 2016).  Use and implementation in relation to the modern technologies will have a positive impact on the overall industry. Better services would in turn lead to customer satisfaction who will want to avail the services of the new cab facility.

The primary aim of Taxi company is to provide service of best quality within Singapore and thus help in maximising the profit of the consumers (Xu et al., 2016). Management of Comfort DelGro aims at innovating the products and bring in new services for the convenience of the consumers. The varied goals help in achieving the goals of the company.

Functional area has revealed that the drivers should be trained regarding the latest technology so that it can provide the consumers with satisfaction. The main responsibility of management in relation to the cab transport company is to ensure that the tasks are allotted on the basis of the expertise of the people and that a person skilled in a particular arena should be provided with work on the basis of his knowledge and expertise. The three areas that the company has concentrated on relates to that of safe driving, innovative technology along with that of customer service (Hamid et al., 2016).  Training session will attach more importance in the arena of imparting practical knowledge that is indispensable for the modern world. Operational excellence along with safe driving are the primary areas that will be the focus of training. Drivers will be provided with knowledge in relation to new technologies like that of online booking and portal updates. They will also be illuminated with knowledge in relevance to ethical behaviour (Shen et al., 2015).

The managers of the organisation should assess the performance of the drivers on a day to day basis in order to analyze whether the skills that were imparted to them during the stage of training are being implemented in the proper direction. The basis of the assessment will be the feedback from the customers. The findings from different reports help in understanding the training needs of drivers (Bashir, Yousaf & Verma, 2016).

Business Environment and Company's Goals

The key requirements in relation to the training method is in relation to the human resources in the organization. Human resource that is effective will be able to deliver proper training methods within a given time so that the employees can deal with advancements in technology along with other issues related to driving (Dobson, 2015).  Latest technology platform in relation to vehicle booking is one of the primary resource within the training module that can help the organization in training the drivers. Training vehicles along with training grounds is also important where practical knowledge can be imparted to the drivers.

Conclusion:

Drivers of Comfort should be provided with specialized training so that they can handle the latest technologies. Training is  of exceeding importance in the modern era where learning practical skills is more important as compared to that of the theoretical knowledge. The managers should go through rigorous training so that they can correctly gauge the performance of the employees and take effective steps along the right lines. Management of Comfort DelGro should aim at innovating the products so that it can lead to customer satisfaction. Better services would in turn lead to consumer satisfaction who will like to avail the facility of the cab. Safe driving, innovative technology and customer service are the areas that are focussed in relation to the training and development of the Comfort Delgro.

References:

Bashir, M., Yousaf, A., & Verma, R. (2016). Disruptive business model innovation: How a tech firm is changing the traditional taxi service industry. Indian Journal of Marketing, 46(4), 49-59.

Dobson, K. (2015). Human Factors and Ergonomics in transportation control systems. Procedia Manufacturing, 3, 2913-2920.

Gerpott, T. J., & May, S. (2016). Integration of Internet of Things components into a firm’s offering portfolio–A business development framework. info, 18(2), 53-63.

Hamid, M., Samuel, S., Borowsky, A., Horrey, W. J., & Fisher, D. L. (2016). Evaluation of Training Interventions to Mitigate Effects of Fatigue and Sleepiness on Driving Performance. Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, (2584), 30-38.

Jenkins, D. P., Baker, L. M., & Harvey, C. (2016). A practical approach to evaluating train cabs against task requirements. Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part F: Journal of Rail and Rapid Transit, 230(3), 662-671.

Liu, Z. Y. (2015). An Analysis of Technology Acceptance Model-Exploring user acceptance and intension of taxi-hailing app in Shanghai.

Rahman, T., & Anand, N. (2014). Organized sector taxi operators in India-Opportunities and Challenges. International Journal of Research in Management and Social Sciences, 23.

Rieger, C., & Majchrzak, T. A. (2016, September). Weighted Evaluation Framework for Cross-Platform App Development Approaches. In EuroSymposium on Systems Analysis and Design (pp. 18-39). Springer International Publishing.

Shen, J., Qiu, F., Li, W., & Feng, P. (2015). Exploring the Effect of the Telephone/Online Booking System on Taxi Service: Case Study of Suzhou City in China. In CICTP 2015(pp. 1201-1212).

Xu, T., Zhu, H., Zhao, X., Liu, Q., Zhong, H., Chen, E., & Xiong, H. (2016, August). Taxi driving behavior analysis in latent vehicle-to-vehicle networks: A social influence perspective. In Proceedings of the 22nd ACM SIGKDD International Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (pp. 1285-1294). ACM.