MBA503 Consultancy Webinar On Operations Management Homework 3 Answer

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Question :

Homework 3 Information

Subject Code:
MBA503
Subject Name:
Operations Management and Decision-Making Models
Assessment Title:
Consultancy Webinar
Assessment Type: Length:
Individual Video Recording 10 minutes (no more)
Weighting:
40%
Total Marks: Submission:
100
Online

Your task

For this assessment, students produce a video in which they speak as if they are presenting to a company board. During this presentation, students will provide advice and reflections about the decision-making processes followed during a recent organisational crisis experienced by this company.

Assessment Description

This assessment involves students choosing a real-life example of an organisational crisis. This will be used as a case study. An organisational crisis is defined as a significant, essentially unexpected event which threatens the company’s reputation, financial standing and/or ability to operate. Examples of organisational crises include; natural disasters, security breaches, fraud, product recalls and environmental spills. The crisis students choose needs to be approved by their workshop facilitator. This assessment will allow you to demonstrate an application of strategies integrating ethical, social and global considerations, which benefit organisational performance. The assessment will further help you to exhibit analytical and evaluation skills about the real-world situation using a wide variety of decision-making approaches and techniques.

Assessment Instructions

In the video, students are to present as if they are presenting to the company board of their chosen organisation. Students are to imagine they are a consultant who has expertise if effective decision- making. They have been called in to review the decision-making processes followed during the crisis they have picked as a case study. The video should include a short overview of the crisis and then answer the following three questions:

  1. What decision-making models or approaches were used by the company when managing this crisis? In answering this question refer at 1 (one) decision-making model which could have been followed.
  2. Identify on a minimum of 2 (two) decision-making biases or errors might have influenced the decisions made. What could have been the impact of these biases or errors?
  3. Make a minimum of 2 (two) recommendations regarding the strategies that could be put in place, in the future, to avoid your identified decision-making biases or errors.

A minimum of 5 academic references should be used to support the statements made and arguments presented in this video.

To ensure the success of your video presentation, you should take account of the following:

  • Ensure that you record in a well-lit location and quiet location so that the quality of your video is enhanced
  • Confirm that your voice is recording clearly and avoid reading notes, and look at the camera when you speak.
  • Practice numbers times beforehand so that you become polished and confident.
  • Be creative in how you present your information and reinforce the arguments or positions you are taking.

Please refer to the assessment marking guide to assist you in completing all the assessment criteria.

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Answer :

Introduction

  • Operations management refers to the process of transforming the inputs of an organization’s operational activities to achieve the desired output as per the aspirations of the final users (Cachon et al., 2020). 
  • Inputs define the raw materials used to make the final products. 
  • Decision-making involves the right choices, gathering relevant information, and assessing possible solutions to implement the decisions.

Operational management encourages decision-making approaches or models when the organization faces an inevitable crisis like fraud, breaches, or even product recalls. Decision-making models are incorporated into the organization to address the organizational issues (Lieder et al. 2018). For example, the rational decision-making model is implemented to address the issue with clear demarcations, and the people making the decisions are not biased while recognizing the problem. The selected organizational issue is product recall by General Motors in the year 2020.  

Synopsis of the organization

  • General Motors is identified as an American multinational company that is headquartered in Detroit.
  • The company's significant people are the CEO and the Chairperson as Marry T Barra and Mark Reuss as the President. 
  • The revenue earned by the company is US $137 billion (Annual Report, 2019). 
  • The company deals with the products of automobiles and commercial vehicles. The competitors of the company are recognized as Ford Motors, Daimler, and Honda Motors.

Background to the issue

  • The organizational issue faced by General Motors is the product recall of the brands like Chevrolet, Cadillac, Acadia, and Sierra, as the vehicles have recorded with faulty airbags and high voltage batteries leading to fires (McEachern, 2020).
  •  The global automaker has recalled 68,000 units of the Chevrolet Cruise with the model years of 2017-2019 (Bushey, 2020).
  • NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) has filed a complaint against General Motors as the vehicles of 2020 have a defect in the airbags manufactured by Takata Airbags that have disrupted the auto industry's reputation as well as the organization.  

The Takata Airbags installed in the GM branded cars have led to people's injury and death in the US. The airbags are potentially explosive since they are made of ammonium nitrate, which tends to deteriorate with humidity, heat, and time. They tend to explode, and shrapnel is shot when the cars are under the crash's impact. 

Decision-Making Model 

  • The decision-making approach used by General Motors after identifying the defect with the cars was to recall the products by notifying the customers through the dealers worldwide.
  • General Motors have a strong network of their dealership, which is adequate to respond to the company's product recall process without charging the customers.
  • The customers can verify their car's recall through their vehicle identification number and by visiting the company site. 

The company undertakes the Practical Approach for decision-making. The practical decision-making approach combines the rational approach and the behavioral approach in creating more realistic decisions for the organizations (Alhawamdeh & Alsmairat, 2019).c The managers have identified the airbags' problems and the high voltage batteries installed in the cars. The company conducts voluntary safety check campaigns and informs the customers through email, messages, and personally calling them from the dealership agents. The practical approach in the decision-making process follows the framework of problems, interventions and concentrates on the areas that need an immediate solution.  

Identifying decision-making errors influencing the decisions

  • The first decision-making error identified in the General Motors organization's case leads to failure in isolating the root cause of the problem.
  • The car owners also complained that safety had taken a back seat against earning profit by the company where the leading cause is neglected for years.

The car manufacturer could not identify failure in isolation of the root cause of the faulty airbags installed in various cars' models. NHTSA has ordered a probe where the company rejected the argument in defending its stance of providing functional airbags (Acciarini et al. 2020). The public comments on the company's website have expressed anguish over the passengers' safety if the cars crashed under any circumstances. There have been incidents where the airbags have inflated and killed more than a dozen people with exploding shrapnel. 

Decision-making bias 

  • The second decision-making error was identified as selective perception bias.
  • The managers rely on their perception of the available information while deciding for the company.

In General Motors' case, some information covered by news media on accidents did not have any influence on the management regarding the product recall. The company also neglected the cases filed against the installation of faulty airbags and fought the recall for the last four years. Here, the selective perception is on the other functional features of the cars manufactured by GM Motors, where they did not think it wise to recall the cars as they relied on the company's scientific and factual records (Zahera & Bansal, 2018). However, the data generated by NHTSA was finally accepted by the company, and they have started the process of recalling the cars. 

Impact of the decision-making errors 

  • The wrong decisions taken by reputed corporate companies have a substantial impact on their brand image.
  • The company has to incur $1.2 billion in replacing the airbag inflators (Bombach, 2020).
  • The customer satisfaction level is falling for the company.

The impact of wrong decisions taken by the company has a severe effect on the company's worldwide image. The passengers' safety is compromised with the faulty airbags where the customers lose their trust in the companies. The customers also feel that their hard-earned money is lost when they are not satisfied with the cars' essential features like protective airbags. The innovation and grievance addressing are also slow for the company, which tends to lose its business and overall revenue in this process. 

Recommendation on the strategies with effectiveness in future

  • General Motors' recommendation to identify the organizational issue may comprise the analytical decision-making process and expertise decision-making process.
  • The analytical decision making process while addressing product recall involves methodical steps and a well-structured sequence to arrive at a decision.
  • The available information on the decision has to be considered, and the information has to be observed.

An analytical decision-making process is ideal to be adopted by the company when they have explicit goals to improve their image and concern for the customers' safety (Wayland, 2020). The decision-making process through an analytical approach is one of the versatile methods requiring experience to implement the organization's decisions. 

Recommendation on the strategy 

  • The second recommendation is the expertise decision-making within the organization.
  • The technical experts are available in the organization who can comprehend the pros and cons of the cars' issues, to be specific in this case.
  • The experienced team of professionals will implement the best decisions for car manufacturing, where the vague decisions of defunct materials will not be incorporated to compromise the customers' safety (Intezari & Gressel, 2017).
  • The company must ensure that while manufacturing the cars, the best materials are taken while considering the scale of the company's economy.