SERVICES

THE GENERIC CHARACTERISTICS OF SERVICES 

The characteristics of services are itemized based on their generic functions. Based on this generic key character service is said to have the following characteristics:

Inseparability: Inseparability is a fundamental characteristic of service. The service consumer is inseparable from service delivery because he is involved in it from the time of placing a request up to consuming the rendered benefits.  A typical example is evidenced in this scenario between the hair dresser’s shop and chair or the plane and seat.  The service consumer must sit in the hair dresser's shop & chair or in the plane & seat; correspondingly, the hair dresser or the pilot must be in the same shop or plane, respectively, for delivering the service.

The service provider is indispensable for service delivery because he must promptly generate and render the service to the requesting service consumer. In many cases the service delivery is executed automatically but the service provider must first assign resources and systems and actively keep up appropriate service delivery readiness and capabilities. In addition, the service consumer is inseparable from service delivery because he is involved in it from requesting it up to consuming the rendered benefits. Examples: The service consumer must sit in the hair dresser's shop & chair or in the plane & seat; correspondingly, the hair dresser or the pilot must be in the same shop or plane, respectively, for delivering the service.

Intangibility: Intangibility is another characteristic of service. Services are intangible and insubstantial. This means that service cannot be touched, smelt, handled, tasted, heard, gripped, or looked at. As a result there is neither potential nor need for transport, storage or stocking of services. In addition, it is important to note that  a service cannot be (re)sold or owned by somebody, neither can it be turned over from the service provider to the service consumer nor returned from the service consumer to the service provider. Solely, the service delivery can be commissioned to a service provider who must generate and render the service at the distinct request of an authorized service consumer.

Simultaneity: Services are rendered and consumed during the same period of time. As soon as the service consumer has requested the service, the particular service must be generated from scratch without any delay and friction and the service consumer instantaneously consumes the rendered benefits for executing his upcoming task or activity.

Perish ability: Services are perishable in two regards:

• The relevant resources, processes and systems of services are assigned for service delivery during a definite period in time. If the designated service consumer does not request and consume the service during this period, the service cannot be performed for him. This is known as lost business opportunity looking at it from the perspective of the service provider. Once a service is delivered, the service provider cannot charge any service delivery. Potentially, he can assign the resources, processes and systems to another service consumer who requests a service.  For example, the hair dresser serves another client when the scheduled starting time or time slot is over. An empty seat on a plane never can be utilized and charged after departure.
• When the service has been completely rendered to the requesting service consumer, this particular service irreversible. For example, the passenger has been transported to the destination and cannot be transported again to this location at this point in time.

Variability: Each service is unique. It is one-time generated, rendered and consumed and can never be exactly repeated as the point in time, location, circumstances, conditions, current configurations and/or assigned resources are different for the next delivery, even if the same service consumer requests the same service. Many services are regarded as heterogeneous or lacking homogeneity and are typically modified for each service consumer each new situation. For instance, the taxi service which transports the service consumer from his home to the opera is different from the taxi service which transports the same service consumer from the opera to his home - another point in time, the other direction, may be another route, probably another taxi driver and cab.

Each of these characteristics of services is retractable in particular and their inevitable coincidence complicates the consistent service conception and makes service delivery a challenge in each and every case. Therefore proper service marketing requires creative visualization to effectively evoke a concrete image in the mind of the service consumer. From the point of view of the service consumer, these characteristics make it difficult, or even impossible, to evaluate or compare services prior to experiencing the service delivery.

The problem of inconsistent service quality is a major cause of difficulty in mass generation and delivery of services. Both inputs and outputs to the processes involved in providing services are highly variable, as are the relationships between these processes, making it difficult to maintain consistent service quality. For many services there is labor intensity as services usually involve considerable human activity, rather than a precisely determined process. However, there are exceptions, these include utilities. 

In ensuring effectiveness in service delivery, human resource management is highly imperative. The human factor is often the key success factor in service economies. It is difficult to achieve sustain economies of scale or gain dominant market share without effectively addressing the human factor. Different people with different needs. These differences in need affect the rate of demand of certain services at a given time. There are demand fluctuations and it can be difficult to forecast demand. 

Demand can be by season, time of day, business circle, taste and peculiarity. There is consumer involvement as most service provision requires a high degree of interaction between service consumer and service provider. There is a customer-based relationship based on creating long-term business relationships. Accountants, attorneys, and financial advisers maintain long-term relationships with their clients for decades. These repeat consumers refer friends and family, helping to create a client-based relationship which in turn makes the service business to establish its relevance in a particular geographical location.

I hope this information have been helpful. If you know any other characteristic of service, please kindly post a comment to share it with us. Your contribution is highly appreciated.

Wishing you the best in business!

MANAGEMENT LEVEL

UNDERSTANDING MANAGEMENT LEVEL

Management level exist in an organization to create division of labor, ensure corporate integration, grass root integration and participation, effective system and profit maximization. The management of a large organization may have about five level.

These management level include:    

1. Senior management 
2. Middle management 
3. Low-level Management  
4. Foreman   
5. Rank and File 

Senior management: These are top management. They are responsible for strategic decisions. They are executive by nature and also by training. They require an extensive knowledge of management roles and skills. They make their decisions employing analytic, directive, and conceptual and or behavioral/participatory processes. They need to have in-depth knowledge of the external environment such as markets. Their decision is generally of a long-term nature. They test every plan to verify the future benefits before committing to implement it.

Middle management: Middle management is mid-level managers which have a specialized understanding of certain managerial responsibility. They are responsible for carrying out the decisions made by senior management. Finance, marketing etc comes under middle level management.

Low-level management: These are supervisors or team-leaders. They are called lower management. This level of management ensures that the decisions and plans taken by the senior and middle management are carried out. Their decisions are generally short-term in nature.

Foreman/lead hand: They are people who have direct supervision over the working force in office factory, sales field or other work group or areas of activity.

Rank and File: The responsibilities of the persons belonging to this group are even more restricted and more specific than those of the foreman. This rank is created so that senior management can effectively disseminate information to grass root employees which in most cases are unskilled labors. 

If this article has been helpful, please make your contribution by using the comment session below.

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MANAGEMENT FUNCTIONS

BASIC MANAGEMENT FUNCTIONS

 

In ensuring that resources are used for designated purposes within an organization, management carries out various functions. These functions are referred to as the basic functions of management. These functions include: organizing, staffing, motivating, directing/leading and monitoring/controlling.

In this article, we will briefly examine these basic management functions. A proper understanding of these functions will enable us to fully appreciate the role of these fundamental management functions in the struggle for organization effectiveness.

Motivation: This is a management function that generates the spirit of co-operation amongst company manpower’s. Without motivation employees will lose the required drive to work effectively and produce maximum result for the organizational growth. Grenier’s theory of organizational growth clearly demonstrates the role played by motivation in getting the best out of an employee.

Without motivation, employees may not make sense of the other management functions. Planning make no sense in the absence of motivation. Monitoring produces provocation because the employees now perceive them selves as being used by their employer. Organization produces more confusion and a deliberate waste of resources because it will lack the power of implementation. No matter how brilliant and profitable your strategies, if there no cooperating employees with the personal initiative to bring it logical conclusion, it will never be implemented.

Planning: This is the active process of deciding the structural layout of events and happenings within the organization. Management decides the daily, weekly, monthly and yearly activity of the company. All these they do in strict compliance with the best option for profitable utilization of the scarce resources of the organization.

Organization:  By acting this way management carefully provides a blue print plan for the way the organization is to be operated. This blue print informs the required action to be taken for the realization of organizational goals and corporate objectives. Organization is the management power of implementation.

Staffing: Management carry out the function of analyzing the talent market place, create recruitment policies, create job specification and hire the right employee to match the job and task. By doing this they are able to employee the right employee that will increase the potential earning capacity of their organization. Employing the wrong person in your business can be the starting point in ensuring a business failure. For information in choosing the employee for your business, see my article on Hiring.

Controlling/Monitoring:  Controlling/Monitoring is a management function that checks progress against plans. You have to ensure that everything work according to plan to the minutest detail. Where there are differences, management assesses to ascertain the course, and also to affect corrective measures that ensures that the set objectives of the organization are excellently met.

Leading/Directing: Leading/Directing is a function of management that determines what needed to be done in a given situation, and also getting the right people with the perfect combination of skills and potential to do it. It is effectively providing leadership by example. Leading/Directing is not bossing over your employee, but it is the effective way of getting maximum result by showing how to do it by you getting involved in the process of getting the job done.

Take your time to understand the above management functions, and also applying it to your organization to ensure effective organizational structure, stability and profitability.

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SERVICE

WELCOME TO SERVICE (ECONOMICS)!

…a fresh perspective at the intangible business.

A service is a set of singular and perishable benefits delivered from the accountable service provider, mostly in close co actions with his service suppliers, generated by functions of technical systems and/or by distinct activities of individuals, respectively, commissioned according to the needs of his service consumers by the service customer from the accountable service provider, rendered individually to an authorized service consumer at his/her dedicated cause, and, finally, consumed and utilized by the triggering service consumer for executing his/her upcoming business or private activity.

A service is the intangible equivalent of an economic good which is the provision of an economic activity where the buyer does not generally, except by exclusive contract, obtain exclusive ownership of what is being purchased. In the light of such transaction, the befits if priced are held to be self evident in the willingness of the buyer to make effective demand.

Service providers participate in an economy without restricting themselves of carrying stock or the need to concern themselves with bulky raw materials by composing and orchestrating the appropriate level of resources, ingenuity, skills and experience for effective benefits for service consumers.

More so, their investment in expertise does require consistent service marketing and upgrading in the face of competition which has equally few physical restrictions. Many so-called services, however, require large physical structures and equipment, and consume large amounts of resources, such as transportation services and the military.

In a narrower sense, service refers to quality of customer service: the measured suitability of assistance and support provided to a customer. This is often the case in retailing.

There are difference between physical goods and intangible services. However, it is important to note that these differences are not discrete categories. Most business theories see a range with pure services on one side and pure commodity on the other side. 

Most products fall in between these two classes, and most business organization that are seen to be engaged in the sale and distribution of physical goods are also seen offering services. For instance, a restaurant that provides physical good, which is food, also provide services in form of setting and clearing of the table, and services in form of ambience. Though some utilities deliver physical goods like water utilities which deliver water, they are usually regarded and treated as services.

To maximize profit let there be value in the way and manner you offer your service to your targeted service consumer. Poor service rendition can spell doom for your business. But high quality service delivery will make you an indispensable and dependable service company in your area of operation.

The service session of this site is tailored to offer you with high quality information to make your service delivery business strategic, organized, well branded, valuable and profitable. Therefore, I employ you to pay attention to the quality service information provided in this session.

RELATED ARTICLES

1. The generic characteristics of Services

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MANAGEMENT

WELCOME TO MANAGEMENT EMPIRE ....organizing your business for maximum Profit!

The definition of Management in all organizational and business activities denotes the acts of getting people and resources to work in accomplishing desired goals and objectives in an effective and efficient manner. Management consists of organizing, planning, staffing, leading and controlling an organization or effort for the fulfillment of a definite goal. It carries with it the capacity for effective resourcing which encompasses the deployment and manipulation of human resources, financial resources, natural and technological resources.

Management is also defined in systemic organization perspective as human action, including design, to facilitate the production of useful outcomes from a system. In view of this definition, management concepts open up the opportunity to manage one’s self which is a fundamental pre-requisite to manage others. He who cannot manage himself cannot effectively manage others. For the effective management of people and resources for the accomplishment of specific goal involve the firm ability to organize one’s self in an appropriate and an acceptable manner.

 In a brother term, management is the organization and co-ordination of the activities of an enterprise in accordance with certain pre-established policies clearly coordinated along the drive for the achievement of clearly defined objectives. It also include other factors of production such as machines, money and materials.

The group of people who perform the act of management are also referred to as management.

Take your time to explore the content of this site for useful information to effectively manage your business for optimum performance.

 

Related Articles

1. Management Level

2. Management Functions 

 

To your success!

MARKETING

Welcome to Marketing Expert

...Supercharging your Business Success!

Marketing is the unique process of performing market research, selling products, goods and or services to customers and promoting them through advertising to strategically enhance sales. It provides the strategy that underlies sales techniques, business communication, and business developments. It is an integrated process through which companies build strong customer relationships and creates value for their customers and also for themselves.

The American Marketing Association (AMA) defined marketing as the activity, set institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large. 

Marketing is a set of processes that are interconnected and interdependent with other functions, whose methods can be improved using a variety of relatively new approaches.

Marketing is the driving force of every successful business. The concept of Marketing connotes that achieving organizational goals depends on knowing the needs and wants of target market and giving them the desired satisfaction. In order to satisfy organizational objectives, an organization should anticipate the needs and wants of consumers and satisfy these more effectively than competitors. 

Marketing is used to identify the customer, to satisfy the customer and also to keep the customer. In view of this, customer should be the focus of marketing. Therefore, marketing management is one of the empirical components of business management. The adoption of marketing strategies requires businesses to make a fundamental shift from production to seek ways of adequately satisfy the perceived needs and wants of their targeted customers. It is in doing this that they can achieve a level of profit maximization.

The institute of marketing defines marketing as “the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably”.

There is different definition of marketing, each giving an understanding of the diverse perspective of marketing. In addition to the above definition, there is the value-based marketing which defines marketing as, “the management process that seeks to maximize returns to shareholders by developing relationships with valued customers and creating a competitive advantage”. 

In the light of the unique role of marketing in achieving success in business it is important that managers and CEOs take it seriously. Marketing should not be left in the hands of subordinate staffs. This does not mean that top managers and CEOs should take the marketing task from subordinate employees. However, they should be in the fore front of marketing decisions, policy formulation, and marketing plan formulation and implementation. CEOs and managers should be directly involved formulating marketing strategies and ensure that they are effectively and efficiently executed as planned.

In the past marketing practices was seen as a creative industry included distribution, selling and advertising. However, because the scholastic study of marketing dive into extensive use of psychology, sociology, social sciences, neuroscience, mathematics, economics and anthropology, the profession is now globally regarded as Science allowing several universities to offer Master of Science(MSc) programmes. The marketing process now involves marketing research, market segmentation, business planning and execution, and culminates in pre and post sales promotional activities. 

It is my commitment to offer you quality information to enable you builds your business to success. Stay with me and explore the various contents in this site and you will surely find it a reliable source helpful resource for business, financial, personal, career and educational transformation.

Marketing is surely the driver of all successful business. Great entrepreneur like Bill Gate, Donal Trump, Warren Buffet, etc, have all used it to maximize profit. If their business succeeded by understanding and applying  marketing, you too will grow your business to success by understanding applying the principles of marketing. I will like to recommend that you watch the movie titled, "the apprentice" You will learn a lot about the importance of marketing in growing successful business. Take your time top explore all the information that are available under this session, apply them to drive your business to profit maximization.

If you have a contribution on this topic or a suggestion on how I can serve you better, please, kindly post your comments in the comment session provided below.

To your success!

BANKING

Welcome to the BANKING information Resource Center

...your gate way to financial Education!

Banking is a highly regulated industry of financial activities or transactions. To maintain a high level of discipline, the government of each country has some restrictions on the financial activities of banks, and these restrictions varied over time and location.  The current set of global bank capital standards are called base II. In some countries such as Germany, banks have historically owned major stakes in industrial corporations while in other countries such as United States banks are prohibited from owning non-financial companies.

A bank is a financial intermediary that accepts deposits and channels those deposits into lending or any profitable money generating activities, either directly or indirectly through capital markets. A bank does a major job of connecting customers with capital deficits to customers with capital surpluses.

Banking information resource center covers Banking business and all the basics of smart money management. The information provided in the banking session of this site is an easy and enjoyable way to learn financial education; the basics of bank services, the relevance of savings, smart money management, using credit responsively, investing, wealth building and first hand information that provides real world skills and knowledge that you can use to create and sustain your own economy.

Take your time to explore all the various banking information and accounting knowledge available in this session and your financial skills shall greatly improve. 

Wishing you the best in Money management!

BUSINESS

Welcome to Business Resource

....Your Ultimate Guide in Business Management!

Get all the information and resources you need to start, manage, grow and maximize your business.

A business is a company, corporation, enterprise, or firm that is legally structured and recognized organization designed to provide goods, services, or both to consumers, end users or tertiary business in exchange for many. This exchange takes place in a market. Business is predominantly operated in capitalist economies because it creates room for its proper functioning. They are privately and or publicly owned. Businesses are basically formed to make profit and increase the wealth of business owners.

Business owners have the achievement of financial returns in exchange for the effort, time and monetary resources they have invested in the business. Though business can also be formed for non profit, the most reasons why most business men go into business is to make profit. Where this fundamental reason is not realized, the business is said to be unprofitable.

The exact definition of business like much else in the philosophy of business is a matter of debate and complex meanings. The term business has a lot of meaning depending on its usage, but I am going to concentrate on the monetary aspect of business in the business session.The exact definition of business like much else in the philosophy of business is matter of debate and complex meanings.


This site will offer you first hand business information that will bring life to your business, making you a wise and very successful business man. The information offered here is time proven, practical and result oriented.

The business category, gives you access to high quality business information in the under listed areas: 


 Banking

 

Banking is a highly regulated industry of financial activities or transactions. To maintain a high level of discipline, the government of each country has some restrictions on the financial activities of banks, and these restrictions varied over time and location.  The current set of global bank capital standards are called base II. In some countries such as Germany, banks have historically owned major stakes in industrial corporations while in other countries such as United States banks are prohibited from owning non-financial companies. Read more....

Marketing

Marketing is the unique process of performing market research, selling products, goods and or services to customers and promoting them through advertising to strategically enhance sales. It provides the strategy that underlies sales techniques, business communication, and business developments. It is an integrated process through which companies build strong customer relationships and creates value for their customers and also for themselves. Read more......

Management

The definition of Management in all organizational and business activities denotes the acts of getting people and resources to work in accomplishing desired goals and objectives in an effective and efficient manner. Management consists of organizing, planning, staffing, leading and controlling an organization or effort for the fulfillment of a definite goal. It carries with it the capacity for effective resourcing which encompasses the deployment and manipulation of human resources, financial resources, natural and technological resources. Read more........

Business Law 

Money 

Advertising

Service

A service is a set of singular and perishable benefits delivered from the accountable service provider, mostly in close co actions with his service suppliers, generated by functions of technical systems and/or by distinct activities of individuals, respectively, commissioned according to the needs of his service consumers by the service customer from the accountable service provider, rendered individually to an authorized service consumer at his/her dedicated cause, and, finally, consumed and utilized by the triggering service consumer for executing his/her upcoming business or private activity.

Read more..

 
Products 

 Goods

Franchising





 

 Related Articles

1.  Setting up a Small business
2. Conditioning your self for success in Business 

The business session of this site is strategically designed to give you maximum empowerment to create and sustain your own economy. Take your time to explore the business session of this site for all your business solution! We are appreciating your feed back. This will enable us to know how to serve you better. If you have any contribution to make to this business session, please feel free to post your comment below.

Wishing you the best in business!