Trng Minh Hong Problem solving in reality

October 6th, 2011 MGT 6671

PROBLEM SOLVING PROCESS -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sannamfood is a domestic company operating in foodstuff and beverage industry. The main product of the company is soft dried fruits such as: mango, pine apple, papaya and apricot liquor. The company have a factory in Ba Vi district (a mountainous district of Hanoi) and another in Hoa Binh province, the headquarter located in Hanoi. Sannamfoods products have been sold locally in supermarket channel such as Big C, commercial centers for example Trang Tien plaza and other channels and export. In fact, the company had to face with many problems related to its business operations such as logistics, sales and marketing, personnel, finance and so on. Actually, there was not any standard problem solving model in the company, it depended on the emergency and importance of problems. Some problems could be solved within very short-time by solely solutions of the Managing Director, others were solved in a longer period by solutions from a group of managers of the company. The author took charge of the Managing Director of the company for 3 years from 2009. In the mean time, the author and colleagues had dealt with many problems that sometimes affected whether the company existed or not. For different problems, the ways to solve were also really different. Normally, simple problems were regularly dealt with by some available solutions generated by functional department of the company. In contrast, most of serious problems had been solved by creative solutions from the meeting of the Managing Director and managers, and the practical problem solving process of Sannamfood was quite same as Rational Model.

The rational model introduces seven steps sequence that managers are able to use when making decisions as following: The first step is Define problem to determine purposes and what must be overwhelmed. A problem exists when the real situation is different from the expected situation, so it requires a solution to make the desired situation happen. The statement about problems should be exact and specific to find suitable alternatives and solution. After identifying a problem, the next sequential step is generating and integrating alternative solutions (Generate alternatives). In this step, all ideas need to be respected and acknowledged as potential solutions. However, not all the given alternatives are able to be the key; they should be evaluated and eliminated to select possible solutions. That is the third step named Evaluate alternatives. The next step is choosing among alternatives to find out the feasible solutions that comply with the purposes in the first step. The solution should not be limited in only one because it will not flexible and practical to many angles of the problems. Since a solution is chosen, it requires to be implemented. This is the fifth step in the model call Implement selection. In order to carry out a solution, it is necessary to gain commitment from involved parties. This commitment will assure the success of selected solution. The sixth step is rectifying outcomes by making decision right according to circumstances in implementing solution. Finally, the solution and decision should be evaluated and systematized. If the solution is implemented successfully, it will reduce the gap between the actual and expected situation. Otherwise, if the solution is not successfully, management can return the first step to define problem until all feasible solutions fit the problem. In addition, the problem solving process should be systematized as companys experiences for treating any similar problems in the future.

Although Sannamfood did not officially stated the above model in companys document, the foodstuff company still applied the problem solving process to the reality. Lets consider a striking example as follow. At the last quarter of 2009, the company had been very busy because it was the time for the peak demand of dried fruits and apricot liquor, two main products of the company. Vietnamese use them as important foods and beverage for lunar Tet holidays. It was also the difficult time that Sannamfood had to face upon many serious problems in sales and delivery. The delivery often had been late and delayed because of overwhelming orders from customers, other side the company had only one official man for delivery, this lead to customers got angry and unsatisfied. In addition, Sales & Marketing department had regularly conflicted with not only Logistics department but also inside themselves as resulted from the delay and confusion in delivery. The inventory had been quite large, the orders from customers had been also very high, but they could not meet each other. The staffs got bored and the workplace was out of order. In this situation, the Managing Director had called for an emergency discussion among the two departments and Chief accountant to immediately end the circumstance. Firstly, the top managers of the company had defined the main problems including the excess task of Logistics department and lack of activeness from Sale & Marketing function. The Logistics department had to do many other important tasks beside fulfilling the orders such as packaging print, assuring raw-materials for production and so on with only 4 people cum delivery man. The Sales & Marketing division had been inactive for supporting Logistics department in delivery; they were relatively subject to operations of transporting division. Therefore, the major purposes

were to reinforce capacity of Logistics department and to enhance activeness of sales and marketing staffs. After defining clearly goals and what must be overcome, the managers and all the staffs had generated potential solutions. Everybody could freely give any ideas to deal with the current condition. There had been many interesting ideas. The manager of Logistics section suggested that the company should employ more delivery men to handle the transport and sometimes ignore customers negative responds on delay. On the contrary, the manager of sales & marketing mentioned to part time delivery men who only received salary in agreement with the completed orders. Once the peak time was over, the company would not be responsible for these delivery men. The Chief accountant recommended sales & marketing staffs to have sense of initiative on moving orders with small quantity. The Managing Director concerned about setting rules to assure fairness in delivery such as FIFO (first in, first out), prior to vital customers. All the suggestions were listened and discussed without criticism. In order to select feasible solutions, the managers all decided to eliminate the ideas of Logistics Manager because it was not highly practical. If the company ignored customers responds, they would feel disappointed and bail out the company. Also according to his ideas, employing more delivery men met the short term need but in the long term, they could be the burdens after the peak time passed. In addition, the managements had chosen ideas of the Managing Director, the Chief accountant and The Manager of Sales & Marketing department to apply to reality. A new rule on delivery had been given, that assured the fairness and transparency in delivery and relatively reduced internal conflicts. The Managing Director had made decision about the activeness of sales staffs. They were able to take care of transporting to small

inquiries; the company would pay the fee basing on real bills. Besides, some part - time transporters would be employed to share the large volume of works with the existing delivery man. These transporters only received payment for their completed transportation and the labor contracts would finished within one month after the peak time ended up. These solutions had kept pace with the initial purposes; Logistics department had been reinforced with the task share of the part time transporter and the sense of initiative of Sales & Marketing department. Finally, all the participators had agreed with the last alternatives and the responsible managers had signed in the memorandum of the discussion with their commitment for implementing the given solutions. As a result, Logistics Manger and delivery men had easily made decision on prior transporting because they based on delivery rules. Sales man also had dealt with by themselves with small requirements from customers because delivery charge was set by the company. Fortunately, the percentage of conflicts and failures on delivery had reduced by 80 85% and that of unsatisfied customers had went down by 90%. The solutions were clearly effective and highly appreciated by the Chairwoman of the company. The problem solving process on overwhelming task and inactivity in Logistics and Sales & Marketing department had become a reference model for the board of director of Sannamfood to solve similar problems originated from other functions such as production, human resources and so on. In conclusion, Rational Model was not the official standard model for problem solving process of Sannamfood, however, a little or much the model was also involved in real decisions to deal with complicated problems and it could be effectively applied to specific circumstances of the company.

REFERENCES

1.

Robert Kreitner / Angelo Kinicki , Organizational Behavior, 9 th edition, McGraw-

Hill, 2010, pp 37-340.

2. 3.

Sannamfood, The break down report, 2009, 2010. Craig R.M. McKenzie, "Rational models as theories not standards of behavior:

September 2003", Trends in Cognitive Sciences 09, pp 403.

4. The happy manager, Rational Decision Making Model, http://www.the-happymanager.com, 2011.

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Evaluate & systematize