Solving The Problem Of An Organization In The Maritime Safety Industry

The problem faced by the maritime company

Discuss about the Business Capstone Project of of Maritime Company.

The issue we had to provide a solution concerned a private sectors organization that operated on the maritime safety industry. The company according to our analysis was fully established and its services were provided across to many organizations. The particular problem began due to a point of inflection that the organization arrived. Initially, the company had established a variety of services which of course were popular and known by other organizations that they carried with business. Moreover, their performance financially was satisfying to them and they had a good bond with customers in the markets. Whatever the company had acknowledged earlier around is that they could not remain static as a company thus they thought it better to alter the way they provided services to their clients. A lot of changes were evident in the external environment and so themselves they need to change. Regardless of their hard stand on their activities, the company had begun making changes about three years ago before involving us.

The problem became complicated when Maritime Company had inflection at three different stages where they got impelled to prevent the changes that were occurring then until they begun again, this time raising a big concern to the management and the company as a whole. The concern entailed, funds, regulations by the company, reputational risk and also sustainability of the services since their directly had an effect on Maritime safety. Good enough, the company was able to realize unless they changed their structures them it was going to be hard to deliver its services successfully, making them invite us over for a solution.

The problem at Maritime Company had been attributed by a number of factors; key among them by the organization itself. The organization lacks an independent perspective on the appropriate success to lead to transformation. Besides, it had minimum independent oversight in the manner it can create change or rather adjust to the inflections that it encountered. To a given extent, there was also a degree of organizational capability which was missing. Even though this had been identified by the organization in the past years, it made minimum efforts to rectify the problem. Instead, the company kept providing parallel services without internal changes and transformation. In other words, the company did not show the desire to change and adjust towards reaping positive outcomes. The same management that is blamed for the outdated styles opposed the idea of new changes in the company. Any suggestion to bring change was stopped by their decision which ensured such projects remained pending. According to them, all they had was enough since the company was still doing well with its operations even with the traditional services. Bold enough, they saw no point of change as long as the company was in a position to deliver services to its clients. More causes of the problem as identified were, the approach towards problems was one continuous method, with similar capability and similar service. Of course, this was to maintain the traditional style in services delivery without ever initiating a new idea. So the problems remained constant, without a solution. The company continued to deliver even in such a status but realized slowly their competitors had become fast in overtaking them and taking over the market. Also, they admitted very little had been done in terms of innovation hence part of the problem. Each time, their risk associated with the company`s reputation and its commercial status was so high that they had to find a solution. One key reason as to why we had to come in and carry out the reviews. At least, it can identify different options to select the best one moving forward. 

Proposed solutions for the company

After reviewing the company, we established five key alternatives to serve as solutions for Maritime Company. As we suggest the implementation of these alternatives can bring foresee the company in making a positive turn. The most appropriate alternative will be selected considering the research and measure as per the decision criteria.

The first alternative for Maritime Company is to motivate employees to adjust to new changes in the organizations. This means the company must understand and be in a position to tell values inhibited by employees, their culture, skills, and interests and then attract them towards initiating the changes. Maritimes company must bear in mind is beyond hardworking only and doing tasks as recommended. The workers in the organization can be considering their sources of motivation from different grounds which must be prioritized.[1]It may come even from doing the work alone from a perspective to obtain specific objectives at the end. In a sum, the behavior of employees in the organization depends on what motivates them. Considering the case of the Maritime company, the employees ought to find motivation in the company`s urge to create change.[2] A well-talented worker who is not motivated may not perform to similar standards with the one who is motivated.

The second alternative suggests, Maritime Company should involve its employees in decision making and policy making, specifically for change. Such a step implies, the company is able to get additional reviews and also assign the workers roles for a steady flow of the process of change. notably, the workers are in a position to settle for the best decisions concerning change because they possess adequate information regarding the company`s direction.[3] They are the same managers who do not involve employees in decision making and then complain about employees’ inability to make the right decision.

The third alternative states the company is supposed to create new ideas. Apparently, this is towards advancement and pertains both skills and experiences in the team and is able to create a sense of recognizing the work from employees. In addition, bring a solution to the very old traditional tasks but in a new style. The process of developing new skills by the company contributes to the way employees carry out their activity and also increase the speed and quality of the work, in turn saving on time spent and efforts.[4] Therefore, for employees to stay informed about the current trends and create change, learning new skills and ideas is quite significant. Otherwise, if learning stops, then it means little or no development takes place in us.

Decision criteria used to evaluate solutions

The fourth alternative that the company can rely upon is conducting market research to stay updated with the ever-changing trends and practice relevant activities to fit into the market. In order to achieve such a step, the company can have many sources of data and then make comparisons. Otherwise, the whole process may end up useless without a thorough scrutiny.[5] The company is assured of staying ahead of its competitors by adequately researching its market. Market research comprises of a systematic, collection of data with a determined objective and then analyzing, with more focus on the target market and activities by competitors. [6] The ultimate goal of the organization is supposed to been adding up to the amount of knowledge that is already in place and so should be done more frequently.

Lastly, the fifth alternative is to improve the technology and uses and incorporate some of the latest and most advanced. Technological improvements mean well for the business is that it improves quality of output and make workers use minimum efforts.[7] They can always give more attention to the activities that test on intellectual capacity since much of the physical work is left for the new technological changes. It becomes very simple for Maritime Company access information concerning changes in the organization at any place and time. Of course, such operation has been facilitated through the use of current technologies.  Most of the companies are transforming towards incorporating modern technologies which Maritimes must also do to competent.[8] The recent improvements in technologies will also create a boost in the company`s production. Arguably, human beings cannot keep up with the speed in the machines in producing results hence new technology is just in order for the company.  

In any decision-making process, there are elements to weigh upon to settle on the right decision. Decision criteria, therefore, highlights the aspects taken into consideration before choosing the best alternative for Maritime Company. Their target is, in particular, is to identify and evaluate how much then alternatives are effective. For this scenarios, SWOT analysis identifies the strength, weakness in every alternative and picks the best one among five.

After a keen analysis of the alternatives using SWOT analysis, Maritime Company is recommended to implement alternatives 1, 2, 4 and 5.

Motivating employees in alternative one is okay for Maritime Company to implement. The suggested solution suggests workers are encouraged to be positive when dealing with organizational changes. This method is cost-free and affordable by the company in addition to being achieved within a shorter duration. It is not mandatory that employees are motivated using rewards where the company has to spend.[9] Encouraging them alone can be enough for them to change attitude.

Conclusion

In alternative two, involving the employee in decision making is cost-free. All that the company aims for is hearing the workers contribution in relevance to creating change. Ideally, the solution requires no resources so as to be implemented and also saves a lot of time.[10] As long as employees are invited to make a decision, then it means they are ready to adjust to changes in the company. 

Similar alternative two recommended for the company to conduct a good market research. Which means the company is in a position to capture a wide range of information concerning what the customers want. It is also recommended since the company will have a good market penetration and coverage and establish a stronger brand. Though it requires the use of resources, researching about the market is worth. The same situation applies for alternative five, which is good for the company.

However, alternatives three may not be very appropriate for the company to implement. Basically, bringing new ideas into the company may mean the company has to recruit new employees which may be relatively expensive since it has to set its status right still. Besides, the duration to train on new skill and knowledge may be long.[11]

The best way to implement alternative one on motivation is use of incentive plans. Such a plan encourages employees achieve at higher levels.[12] While involving employees in decision making, the company can implement alternative two by allowing employees a free forum to air their opinions. Finally, alternative four can be implemented by carrying out an investigation on the customers’ desire and five replacing the old facilities with modern facilities in the company.[13]

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