Quick Trip’s operations strategy and explain how the organization seeks to gain a competitive advantage in terms of sustainability.
Quick Trip attaches great value on its employees. It is founded on the concept that when employees are happy, output is improved. In this regard, the company invest its employees personal and professional well-being. This approach has not gone unnoticed and unsurprisingly, the company has consistently featured in Fortune’s “100 best companies to work for” from as back as 2003 (Ton 4). Indeed, this has enabled it to attract the best talents. Other than creating a comfortable work environment, the company offers its employees competitive wages. Additionally, in feeling vacancies, priority is given to existing employees through internal promotions. This offers opportunity for career growth.
In return, the employees ensure QuikTrip’ customer get great experience. As a matter of fact, in order to serve customers better, QuikTrip subjects its employees through a rigorous training routine (Ton 3). It is also noteworthy that employees constantly receive benefits to ensure their efforts towards prosperity of QuikTrip. Additionally, QuikTrip has opened many stores as a way of getting near to its clients. Through this, customer loyalty is maintained and most importantly, sustainable growth is attained. It is also the company’s policy to ensure that at least 50% its store’s employees are locals. This approach ensures that the store’s practices are aligned with the local’s expectations, in addition to creating a point of relation with the locals (Ton 5).
It is noteworthy that the stores operations strategy takes multiple approaches, including offering quality products, exercising high levels of reliability, offering affordable pricing, increased accessibility, and great customer experience. One typical thing about QuikTrip is its store’s simplicity. Its store layout is the same across all its stores. This is meant to give customers easy and simple shopping experience and also encourage high staff productivity. Evidently, by ensuring products are standard across all its stores and the in-store layout is simple, employee productivity is maximized and so is consumer experience.
The store also focuses on its staffing needs to ensure shortages are not experienced. It achieves this by employing full-time and part-time staff as appropriate. When some staff are unavailable, rather than burden the ones available, the store engages part-time staff to cushion against overworking the existing staff or experiencing shortage of customer attendants (Ton, 2011).
How operation management activities affect the customer experience.
Customer experience largely depends on an organization’s operation management. In this regard, QuikTrip has not fallen short. The company subjects its employees to rigorous training programs to ensure they are adequately prepared to offer great experience to clients. Additionally, it is the company’s policy to ensure that at all times, there are adequate attendants to serve clients. This is ensured by engagement of part-time staff whenever necessary. Store layout and arrangement is also kept simple and easy to understand to avoid confusing clients. It is the store’s policy to ensure that customers receive quality service at affordable prices. Staff scheduling is also designed to ensure that customer attendants are always, fresh, happy and motivated to serve clients. Welfare of employees is given utmost importance. Staff are paid relief benefits to motivate them to be committed to their work and ensure clients are served within the shortest time possible (Ton 4). It is also important to note that the company operates for 24 hours a day, making it a convenient shopping store for its clients irrespective of time of the day.
Quick Trip’s value chain and evaluate its effectiveness to operations
QuikTrip has a value chain that largely takes into consideration customer and employee input. The raw materials are source from reliable sources with proven ethical standards. The kitchens maintain high standard of hygiene. Additionally, it is the organization’s policy to ensure that its fresh foods are actually fresh, well-packaged and well labelled. Similarly, all products in the store are well-packaged and labelled. By ensuring products are well labeled, the organization ensures that clients can easily choose what they want. It is also noteworthy that the company ensures customers have stand-by employees to assist them if need be. In essence, Quick trip has a value chain that is designed to ensure that the final product is highly visible, clearly labelled, high quality and most importantly, affordable.
Different types of performance measurements that can be used to measure Quick Trip service-delivery system design
QuikTrip has multiple performance metrics to evaluate its service delivery system. These include balanced score cards in which customer experience perspective is taken into consideration. As a matter of fact, this approach is customer-centric and largely focuses on how the client views the store’s service delivery system. Other than this, internal processes can be subjected to measurement to evaluate its effectiveness. Such may include the duration taken to find a customer what he/she needs, duration a customer spends before his order/payment is processed, the duration client’s spend in line during peak hours and availability of employees to assist clients, more especially during peak hours. Financial metrics are also important tools. Daily revenue collection can be a pointer to system effectiveness or deficiency when compared against customers visiting the store. In essence, service system metrics should focus on duration of service delivery, safety considerations, service time and quality, and working condition of employees. The system is evaluated with regard to its effectiveness in service the client without creating untenable working conditions for the employees.
Different types of technologies applied to Quick Trip service operations
Technology is core to operations of any m0dern organization. In this regard, QuikTrip has also investment in multiple technological solutions. Firstly, the store chain operates a digital app available for smartphones. The app, QT Mobile App, allows customer access to the store’s products and operations at their convenience. Features such as updated prices, store location, special offers, and kitchen menus are easily accessible from the app. The app is easily downloadable. Additionally, the store enjoys massive presence in various social media platforms. Such include Twitter (Quick Trip (@QuickTrip), Facebook (Quick Trip), and Instagram (Quick Trip (@QuickTrip) (Ton, 2011). Through this social media pages, customer can not only view special announcements and offers but also actively interact with the store management and seek solutions to problems related to the store that they may have. The company also has an active website through which it maintains information relating to its operations and the industry at large in essence, the company has largely invested in adopting recent technological trends as a way of keeping in touch with clients while also keeping pace with the rapidly changing, technologically-advanced word.
Works Cited
Ton, Zeynep, “QuikTrip”, Harvard Business School, June 23 2011, http://supplychainresearch.com/images/quik_trip.pdf