10 OM decisions

Operations manager

10 Operations management Decisions

1. Goods and Service design:

• What are the cost, quality, and HR decisions made by you? What are the
upper and lower limits of cost of your services?

Ufone’s operational performance has been very encouraging. Despite the stiff
competition in Pakistan, telecom market which has lead to reduction of prices to
bare minimum level, due to its aggressive policies and strict control over
expenses ,the company managed to improved its revenue and after tax profit by
87% and 54% respectively., as compared to last year.

• How you have managed quality at low cost?

Ufone has the largest market share in Pakistan with respect to its subscribers. We
focus on providing quality on every cost to our customers. We design both long
term and short term plans for maintaining our quality and providing the best
service at best price i.e; cheapest prices in Pakistan.

• What is your role in planning a new service, what techniques are mainly used
by you for such purpose?

Our decision making style is CERTAINITY. Because ufone knows that what we are
spending and what in future we will get from it. When we spend any amount on
some project it always ends in profit. So the condtion we use is CERTAINITY.
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2. Quality:

• What are the customer quality standards/requirements?

Ufone understands the value of words and need to communicate effectively and
efficiently at all levels of society. This is why company’s whole emphasis is on “U”.
Customers require wider coverage, superior connectivity, clear signals, and voice
quality.

• How do you achieve those quality standards?

We provide our customers with their required quality and provide VAS (value added
services) as well that includes missed call notification, fonebook saver, my ufone
account services, infotainment, Urdu ufone, trivia quiz, call features, u-share etc..

• What processes or policies do you use to identify and achieve that quality?

We aim to connect people and provide them state of the art services to make sure
people get most out of their mobile phones. That’s why we focus on our value
added services and customer care through our company representatives. We give
direct debit facility, insurance, discounts, advance payment facilities etc for
customer ease and reliability on our company.

3. Process and Capacity Design:

• What process decisions are used in

 specific technology

 quality

 human resource use

 maintenance
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• What is the firm’s basic cost structure?

As compared to the other telecom companies u fone offers its services with lower
and affordable rates. The price of product matters in the market but low price high
density service is not an easy task to accomplish. For the satisfaction of valued
customer we have merged the low price and high density services with wide
network.

• How do you manage to give flexible structures according to customer

requirements?

We opt the rule of 4 P’s of marketing. I: e; product, price, place and promotion.
Pricing strategy has very important role to acquire market share where giant
competitors are already working and moving ahead. As I told earlier, u-fone gives
you the cheapest tariffs. We have flexibility in our rates and our main focus always
remains meeting our customer requirements.

4. Location selection:

(Facility location decisions for both manufacturing and service organizations may
determine the firm’s ultimate success …)

• What was your basic intimation when you decided to choose this location for
your production/provision of services?

We have largest network expansion in Pakistan. Our company commenced its

operations from Islamabad in January 2001. We serve 2336 cities of Pakistan. We
kept going according to Pakistani culture and traditions. Our office designs are
CONTEMPRARY. IT OFFERS SIMPLE, STYLISH AND UNCLUTTERD LOOK.

• Do you really think it’s worthy and profitable?

Obviously it is! Everybody loves u-fone. Since its inception, Ufone has focused on the
people of Pakistan, empowering them with the most relevant communication modes and services
that enable them to do a lot more than just talk, at a price that suits them the most. Along with
the claim of lowest call rates, clear sound and best network, Ufone offers its customers
simplified tariffs with no hidden charges. With a strong and uniquely humorous communication
direction that has now become Ufone’s signature across all advertising media, Ufone gives its
customers many reasons to smile .Head office at Islamabad helped us develop better
relationships with other huge multi-national firms as well as government
organizations.
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• How has this location helped you in operations?

Our managers usually communicate through e-mails, business meetings,

conference calls and town-hall meetings. Islamabad is an ideal location for all our
major operations as it is the capital city and all the regulatory authorities are
headed here e.g. PTA. We can easily communicate with them and solve our
problems.

• Is it that location, which provides you better suppliers or distributors (or

distribution channels) here?

Definitely it is! We have a huge network all over Pakistan. After the privatization of
PTCL, u-fone is now owned by ETISALAT.

We have more than 10.2 million subscribers all across Pakistan and have network
coverage in 750 cities. We offer efficient and friendly services through 255+
customer service centers across Pakistan. We have distributors spread all across
Pakistan.

5. Layout Design:

• How do you identify your capacity needs?

We use strategic planning tools through which we recognize how our layouts are to
be designed. Through LINEAR THINKING technique we collect info through external
sources (we people) process that info by the help of other employees and other
management staff through rational and logical thinking and logical designs.

• What kind and number of personnel are required for providing services?

Our organizational structure is lean and horizontal .thee is decentralization and all
the departments are connected to each other. We have a large hierarchy at u-fone.
We have marketing and sales personnel, people in customer care, information
system, H.R and admin and quality assurance.

• Within what time period, you plan to bring out a new design or layout?
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There are no boundaries defined for that. We plan out things and the processes are
forwarded. After recommendations from different departments, new layouts or
offerings are made.

6. Human Resource and Job Design:

People are an integral and expensive part of the total system design. Therefore, the
quality of work life provided, the talent and skills required, and their costs must be

determined….

• What is the quality of work life in your organization?

We have a flexible and friendly environment. By chain of command we mean the

right to give order to the sub-ordinates but in any difficult situation we all work
together. The people here at u-fone make it a great company and exciting place to
work with a shared desire to learn leading edge skills and stretch beyond their limit.
The environment is all about integrity, mutual respect, teamwork, creativity and
empowerment. It has adaptive and pleasant environment for even anybody who
enters new.

• What sort of talents and skills are required for this department or operational
unit?

Employees are expected to use coaching, counseling and if necessary the

CONSTRUCTIVE Discipline PROCESS to address performance problems and consult
with other appropriate HR professionals for guidance.

• What are the approximate costs of that talent (cost of hiring & training)?

U-fone follows a proper human resource planning procedure. Planning provides a

guideline to accomplish an activity. At u fone HR team plans everything so that the
outcomes and results can be perceived before they are actually implemented. This
makes planning more wonderful and it saves time and money. Exact costs can’t be
disclosed.
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• From where do you expect to derive those skills from people/ are temporary
workers hired for this or you seek skills from you permanent employees?

Recruitment at u-fone is both external and internal. In case of internal, people

within the organization are hired to fill the vacancy. While in external, people from
outside are hired from external resources. We have word class professionals
working here. There is collaborative and supporting environment and clearly
defined recruitment and selection and R&D departments.

• Do you arrange for any kind of training to improve these skills of employees?

A continuous training is conducted inside ufone to improve knowledge, skills and

abilities of the individuals. There are two types of training inside u-fone:

In-house training

External training

In-house training is the customized training only for the u-fone employees. External
is carried out through its trainers in training institutes. Employees are usually
trained through RAMEEZ ALLAH WALLA in khi, POSSIBILITIES and INTECH.

• How frequently you hire new employees? (Is it on yearly basis or quarterly
basis?)

OUR management checks whether there is a need to employ a new person for some
particular job or whether it can be filled by existing employees.

So recruitment is done on the basis of company needs. There are no set time
periods for this. Well, the formal recruitment is done semi-annually.

7. Supply-chain management:

These decisions determine what is to be made and what is to be purchased.

Consideration is also given to quality, delivery, and innovation, all at a satisfactory
price. Mutual trust between buyer and supplier is necessary for effective
purchasing…

• How do you decide about your quality and its maintenance during supply
chain?
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U-fone and u-fone service centers have been set up to provide quality service under
one roof so that people can walk to any u-fone sales and service centre for services
like connection purchase, bill payment, sim activation, number blocking etc. An
overall strategy is established to achieve quality goals and developing plans to
integrate and co-ordinate work activities. Our Vp’s and officers decide along with
our consent, that how the prices are to be kept satisfactory and how to build
relations with the distributors and suppliers through our sales people.

• How do you assure delivery on the right times at right prices?

We make proper plans for this purpose as it is the matter of repute of our company.
Deliver assurance is the important most part of all this. We keep three things in
mind while making such decisions:
 Certainty (when outcomes are known)
 Uncertainty (situations in which neither certainty nor reasonable
probability estimates)
 Risk (estimate likelihood of some outcome)
In the cost matters we are certain that what we are spending and what we are
going to get from it in future. Sometimes hindsight errors are possible to occur in
u-fone where after the outcomes, managers realize that they should already have
had predicted that uncertainty.

• How do you maintain your connections with the distributors of your services?

U-fone uses a high work-specialization to provide best services in town to its

customers efficiently. We play the role of leadership in maintaining connections
with our distributors. Distributors are motivated through road shows, organizing
parties, movie nights, cultural shows etc.

8. Inventory:

• How do you schedule your production and HR planning?

Our operations management system processes and transforms resources into

services. We follow planning, organizing, leading, and controlling step by step in
scheduling our production and HR planning includes screening, outsourcing, and
training and development.

9. Scheduling:

• How do you manage Feasible and efficient schedules of production?

We have implemented low pricing strategies to reach our objectives. The

procurement and production departments seek guidance from us and through
collaborative meetings, summaries of schedules are prepared.
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• How are the demands on human resources and facilities determined and
controlled?

Proper controlling and screening is done for this task. HR department analyses the
demands and prepare development plans for this purpose.

10.
Maintenance:

• How are the reliability and stability levels achieved?

As u-fone is the widest network of Pakistan, a large number of engineers and other
related professionals are hired for maintaining the operations of the company.
Being the largest network, it has number of franchises and subsidiaries across
Pakistan. Therefore this has an impact that we have reached to a stable level.
Further research and training programs keep going inside the company so as to
keep the company up-to-date thus maintain its reliability and stability. Pricing,
promotion, and placement plans are made time to time.

• What systems are used for reliability and stability?