The management wishes to link business strategy with the day-to-day operations of the business. As a management consultant for the company, you plan…

(a) (i) Identification of Corporation Vision and Market and Financial measures for company's success Objectives Corporate Vision Business Units Market Financial Customer Satisfaction Flexibility Productivity Business Operating Systems Quality Delivery Cycle Time Waste External Effectiveness Operations Internal Efficiency Departments and Workcenters Measures Level 1- Corporate Vision: Corporation Vision of Road runner is that "The company aims at maintaining good quality delivery standards to make its mark in the competitive environment it operates*". *Alternative is also possible. Level 2- Market related measures: To increase its market growth and enlarge its clientele base, the company plans to increase its advertising spend to make its presence known in the market. It is resorting to off-line print media, online media as well as by participating in relevant trade association events. It has a target clientele of mid-sized companies that have shipments to make at regular intervals. It has to track customer satisfaction of its service with relation to the quality and delivery of its service. Ancillary services like packaging services on outbound shipments and transport insurance advisory services based on customer requirements are aimed at increasing the value proposition of service offered to the clients. This can help maintain, if not grow, FPL's market share. Level 2- Financial measures: Within the specter of rising costs, to maintain financial sustenance, the senior management has put in place metrics that will track profitability. Difference between the revenue per kilometre and cost per kilometre would be the profit earned per kilometre. The target profit per kilometre = 800 -500 = 300 per kilometre. Also, the company is clear that it wants a quick turnover of its accounts receivable. For getting credit worthy customers, it has targeted clientele whose customer lifetime value is at least 20lakh or more. The presumption made is that these mid-sized companies are less likely to default on their bills. For quick turnover of its accounts receivable, it proposes to give a 10-day credit period to its client to settle the bill. Quick conversion of accounts receivable into cash helps maintain liquidity. This is especially important for FPL to maintain since its costs of operations, especially fuel costs, are going up. (ii) Operational level measures and their link to customer satisfaction and productivity The operations level measures can be classified as follows: (a) Customer claims filed for damaged goods (absolute numbers and % of shipments made) – Quality of service. Incidents of such claims should be maintained at the very minimum to have good customer satisfaction. (b) Time taken to resolve the above claims (days from date of customer filing claim) – Quality of service. Quick resolution of claims leads to better customer satisfaction. (c) Delays in delivery beyond the agreed delivery time (% of shipments made) – Delivery of service. Incidents of such delays in delivery should be maintained at the very minimum to have good customer satisfaction. (d) Number of days truck was not on the road (due to maintenance or insufficient load) – Waste of resource. Utilization of resources impacts productivity. Trucks have to be used efficiently in order to improve productivity. (e) Average time taken to get exclusive FTL orders as well as full truck load under LTL (days) – Cycle time, time taken to complete the task. Currently, time taken is 4 days for FTL shipments and expected to be 3 days for LTL shipments. This should be kept at a minimum level to improve productivity. Faster the ability to fill up the truck, improves the utilization of resource and enhances productivity. (f) Deadheads (kilometres): Kilometres the truck is on the road with no load to carry– Waste of resource. When a truck runs on the road without any load, it incurs a cost but earns no revenue to recoup it. Therefore, the number of kilometre deadheads is a waste and should be kept to a minimum. (iii) Impact of measures (g) and (h) on business (g) Number of orders turned down due to non-availability of trucks – Flexibility of service. This metric has to be maintained at the very minimum. The business must be able to cater to as many orders as possible. Tracking this metric can indicate if the current capacity of trucks is sufficient to cater to the demand from customers. (h) Ability to deliver within 7 days from the date of receiving client's goods under the LTL system (% of shipments under the LTL system) – Flexibility of service. It is given that under the LTL system, given the piecemeal orders that are aggregated to form a full truck load, on an average the client is willing to wait for maximum 7 days from the date of handing over goods until delivery. It is expected that it would take 3 days to fill up to full truck load capacity under the LTL system. Hence, the company has only 4 days left to ensure that the goods reach their destination. The ability to meet this expectation of the customer is very important to maintain and sustain business. Therefore, the company has to have sufficient capacity to cater to customers' expectations. It must have enough flexibility (capacity) in its operations to accommodate any exigencies to ensure that this expectation is met.