Problems In The London Zoo

Problems In The capital of the United Kingdom zooThe zoological gardenlogical Society of capital of the United Kingdom known as ZSL was founded by Stamford Raffles in 1826 and in 1828 it was undecided to member of capital of the United Kingdom Zoological Society for the study of animate beings, Zoo was on open to public until 1947 to get aid funding.In 1926 there were major expansions to Zoo to accommodate untested animals and to cover large animals into vivid environment. As Zoo continues to progress and in 1931 it was worlds first open zoological park. In 60s Institute of animal was established.London Zoo has been known as national history and contribution to the zoological world. Despite the low visitant turn up and today its a home of wonderful animals of more then 650 species and 130 animals ar used breeding purposes. Not alone that its also recognized worlds first reptile irrigate in late 40s and in 1852 worlds first aquarium.Decimus Burton was the first architectur e designer of the zoo who was also the designer of Marble Arch London and Colosseum Theater.Q1 Identify and make come out one of the problems that currently exist and explain how it is potentialityly harming the company.Problems in London ZooLondon Zoo since its opened in 1828 has played vital power in the country scientific and entertainment activity of the baseball club. London Zoo had grown rapidly from early start and continues expending but it ran into multiple problems in 1960s and 1970s due to various reasons.One of the major problems which shadower be easily identified is the lack of strategy execution plan for London Zoo. Operation strategy involved keeping the routine operations in place despite the number of visitor to the Zoo. Marketing plan had work out in the past but it all goes into drain, if end of the day customers feel lost and be not entertained or managed well. Customer dis gaiety privy potentially unravel to customer not returning to Zoo and as well a s it can create bad impression which can harm new or returning visitors.In these free-enterprise(a) era of entertainment customer satisfaction is make do a key to success, which London Zoo has failed to provide effectively over the period of time. London Zoo has failed to delight its customer by not providing tone of voice of return for customer processing which involved managing parking areas, queues, study desk, customer handling and information processing. Fail to achieve can lead to customer unhappiness, can create chaos and seriously damage the Zoo image. some otherwise problem can be link up to Society military capability and behaviour towards the animals, today people are well more aware of animal warfare, rights and conservation. in that location bring in been questions and debate concerning what is the role of a Zoo in society, should animal be kept in captivity or used for human entertainment. mass have become much more educated and are questioning the role of Zoo in the society.Attracting number of visitors and applying capacity management operation to keep them organise have been crucial problems of London Zoo for long time. It has harmed company potentially as it has lead to various problems which included cut down in exploitation projects number of large animals has been move to sister Zoo to cut down the cost, services tonus has affected due to lack of funds. This may lead to people not returning to Zoo for next 3 to 6 categorys unless there has been major development or new attraction in Zoo to drag them back to Zoo.Q2. Describe the evidence that support your claim that problem exists.Problems EvidenceThe major problems of London Zoo as identified previously have come to know from various sources. The source has been various analyzes, feedbacks and various studies have been conducted on London Zoo to identify these problems.From past experience of the Zoo we have seen the whole operations crashed when more then expected visito rs attendance. oversight announce save my Zoo campaign after it failed to meet the expenses. Campaign attracted 18000 visitors in a day which lead to acquit chaos in Zoo there were queues everywhere, restaurants run out of food, parking problems and visitors found them self lost. in that location have been continues decline in number of visitors since 60s and 70s. Number of visitors have be fluctuating because of various reasons, There has been continues increment in number of leisure and attraction places in London only, there are around 130 major attractions in London. There have been numerous communications and travel invention has made lenient to travel and trip around world which has made number of domestic visitor to decline.As stated in case there has been no major development for last 30 years, but in last couple of years Zoo has done some development work to better the visitor attendance level.There have been animal welfare, rights, law and morals awareness as it never been previously. Britain Govt created animal welfare advisory committee in 1967 which subsequently became Farm Animal Welfare Council in 1979. It recommends animal freedoms and rights. There are 5 major freedoms which are promoted under this council which have been given in appendix. There have been debates in society in first half 20th century but its get intensified in 1980s to protect the ethics of animals. Due to continue awareness and debate in society has made people to think about the existence of the Zoo in society and their amuse towards the Zoo.Customer Quality satisfaction has been the main issue in zoo. As its mentioned in case study, as Zoological society restructured is organisational departments to change the operations and quality of service. After reviewing various unbiased reviews, the quality of service has been suffering in London Zoo and as customer feedback shows there has been lack in operation management.There have been number of issues with visitors whic h includes poor operations and Planning, Empty Cages, Low Food Quality, Queues Everywhere, Lack of Seating, Baby facility.Few customer reviews have been attached in appendix with references.Q3. Carry out a critical literature review to identify what is considered to be Best-Practice in the area of Operations Management related to the problem. publications Review and Best-PracticeIntroductionLondon is one of the major tourist attraction for visitors around the world, every year approximately 150m number of tourism day trips are made to London (source The Countryside Commission website) and estimated total attendance 50m to London attractions during 2006 (Source Visit London website). As a result of large number of visitors attraction increases ambition and importance to continuously improve the service quality to attract large chuck of visitors coming from domestically and internationally.Literature ReviewAs previously discussed London Zoo has number of problems from which one of th e major problem is to cite the issue of service quality and customer satisfaction. There are various academic studies has been conducted to address the issues related to customer satisfaction, service quality and behavioural intent.Different lay present different method of measuring the service quality some root describe as ranch between customer expectation and perception, alternate author believe assessing the perceive quality by customer is a serving to measure quality.A literature overview of different models can be found in Cauchick Miguel and Salomi (2004) presented in table 1 below.Table 1 Proposed models for measuring service quality(adapted from Cauchick Miguel and Salomi, 2004).As it can be concluded from the diagram there is no best utilize to be adapted to measure the quality service. SERVQUAL has been pump of debate for most researchers but there have been critics of its accuracy, validity and implication on all kind of service fabrication.There has been intens e use of SERVQUAL model in different service industry uniform banking, fast-food restaurant, call centre and other various industries despite huge criticism of the model. As oppose to SERVQUAL other model was developed as a result of criticism, SERVPERF is comparatively less used in industries interchangeable hotels, public services, cell phones services and various other. SERVPERF critics believed its only applicable in developed countries.SERVPERF ModelOne of the strong critics SERVQUAL model were Cronin and Taylor (1992) and they developed their own new model based on the original model, they argued that quality service can be measured based performance only. SERVPERF model is single item surmount and developed based on performance satisfaction as oppose to performance and expectation in SERVQUAL.SERVQUAL ModelThe SERVQUAL model is a technique that can be used to measure a gap and perform depth psychology of an organization between customer expectation for the service and thei r perceptions of the providers. It can also be used internally to perform the gab analysis of the employees and employers.It was initially based on 10 aspects if measuring the service quality of an organisation and later refined by author to five dimensions which are reliability, assurances, tangibles, empathy and responsiveness.SERVQUAL requires conductivity a detailed survey or questioner to analysis the gaps between what was expected by the customer and what currently offered by the organisation. It involves relevant important of for each one question and measurement of perceived service and measurement of quality service provided.ConclusionFrom the brief literature review we can conclude that best practice can be SERVQUAL Model as its widely used in for service quality measurement model. SERVERF can be useful but its not as intensely studied and reviewed by researches and practitioners.SERVQUAL Gap Model Diagram illustrated purchasable at http//www.gccrm.com/eng/content_detail s.jsp?contentid=2068subjectid=101 Accessed 8 November 2009Q4. From the conclusions drawn from your literature review and your findings in spite of appearance the case study create a proposal for the changes you would standardised to see introduced to solve the selected problem.Finding and Change ProposalA conclusion can be drowned from research, evidence and literature review that Zoo has number of problems which can be addresses by following these steps.Service Quality and Customer SatisfactionDevelopment bailiwickAnimal Captivity and welfare IssuesService Quality and Customer SatisfactionAs previously found the customer satisfaction and quality of service realise was low. Furthermore the finding of review of different customer at various review sites shows that London Zoo operations have poor performance which includes poor operations and planning, empty cages, low quality food and queues everywhere. This shows there is a gap between customer perception and service provided.As suggested from literature review that customer satisfaction and perception can be achieved and that can be used to improve the services. After gathering the results from SERVQUAL model, these issues should be addressed operation management tools.Development WorksThere has been coarseer decline towards the visitors attendance due to lack of attraction and facility provided by London Zoo. The new development like African Bird Safari in 2005, In 2006 Meet the Monkeys opening and walkthroughs Into Africa Butterfly Paradise and Gorilla Kingdom and Clore Rainforest Lookout in the year 2007 by the London Zoo were encouraging and right steps towards creating more attractions, But as analysis shows its only mange to increase visitors at smaller scale and reviews shows customer were not satisfy with the new Gorilla Kingdom as their expectation were much higher then the what the got.There should be continue development in providing support facilities like baby facility, seating facility, par king, extra counters to reduce queues and journey planner for Zoo to walk through the Zoo to give complete and entertaining day out in Zoo.Animal Captivity and welfare IssuesOne of the major concerns by animal rights and welfare society were to address the issues related to animal facility and welfare in society. London Zoo management should work towards the captivity and happiness of animals. London Zoo should work to provide natural environment for animals so there happiness are confirmed with the entertaining of the visitors.Animal breading and preservation research work should be launched by zoological society and should raise awareness about the work been done but zoological society, so in this way instead of become party against all the animal rights and welfare organisation ZSL can actually work with hand to hand to address these issues and develop a positive society attitude.ConclusionThe above mentioned points can clearly address the basic and major problems currently face d by London Zoo. It can certainly create positive and healthy attraction and attitude of the society and which can lead to new visitors and as long as returning visitors as well.Q5. Additional task If you were appointed as a Management Consultant of London Zoo and you were requested to conduct a competitive analysis of your park versus those offered in 1) Bristol zoo and 2) Chester zoo in order to improve your competitive edge and attract more customers which operations mange tools/models would you use to do so and why? After so doing, what set of reasonable improvements would you suggest to the London Zoo director. warring compendTo evaluate the strength of competition is the key to gain competitive edge on your competitors. The competitive environment provides opportunity to analysis the own organization and competitor as well, to achieve this edge various tools and models are available which are widely used in different industry sectors.There are different methods and techniques available to conduct a competitive analysis of different organization in similar industry. Popular models includePorters quin Competitive ForcesSWOT AnalysisCompetitive BenchmarkingPorters Five Competitive ForcesMichael Porter model provides the framework to gain competitive edge by analysing the industry context of use in which firm operates. The competitive model is identifying the 5 basic competitive forcesEntry of competitorsThreat of substitutesBargaining Power of buyersBargaining Power of suppliersRivalry among the existent playersCritics believe that this model is to analysis individual business strategies and extra care is required to not to underestimate current organization strength and weakness.SWOT AnalysisSWOT analysis is used to analyze the competitor and identify their strengths, weaknesses opportunities and threats which help determine the target market, competitive edge, customer services and forecasting.StrengthsThis is use to identify the strength, potential st rategy, marketing strength, customer services and positive tangible, intangibles.WeaknessesWeaknesses involve evaluating the culture, organization structure, operation efficiency, operation capacity, market share and position on experience curve.OpportunitiesAn opportunity is consider as a pretend to introduce new product or service. Opportunity can arise due to external factors and can increase the chance of high return.ThreatsSimilar to opportunity these may lead to potential threat, it can be social changes, customer, competitor, new technology, economic or political and regularity changes.BenchmarkingBenchmarking is a process to identify performance of organizational processes and activity are best-practice. The objective of benchmarking is to evaluate business unit, division, and organisation performance as compared to similar industry.There are 5 types of benchmarkingInternal BenchmarkingCompetitive BenchmarkingFunctional BenchmarkingGeneric BenchmarkingCollaborative Benchmar kingIn this scenario competitive analysis should be performed using performance or Competitive Benchmarking.Competitive BenchmarkingCompetitive Benchmarking is used to identify and compare the company performance with a competitor. Comparison can be all dimension of a business it can range from finance, product and services, technology, development and personal polices.To increase Zoo competitiveness, it helps to understand how your operations and business processes compare to that your competitors. It allows to examination of current processes and weaknesses which help to change and improve with experience and practice. While conduction benchmarking it should be clearly define and data information shared. Wrong comparison and less information may lead to hollow comparison.Process of benchmarking can be elaborate using following diagram.Benchmarking process onlineAvailable at www.pcimag.com Accessed 17 November 2009Improvement RecommendationsWould like to suggest following recommen dations change the competitive edge and try to come over weakness identified while doing competitive analysis.Improve Quality of service and customer satisfaction leave support facilities like baby facility, seating areas and information deskImprove daily operation task effectivelyIncrease the big animals which can increase the competitive edgeProvide animals with closer to nature living facilitiesTake measures to cater the animal happiness and welfare issues.AppendixCustomer ReviewsLondon Zoo, not greatOn a 3 day trip to London and unfortunately was part of a day I felt could have been spent someplace else It is one of the worst Zoos I have ever been to Most of the cages were empty and to be honest I have been to much better zoos by gooseuk7 onlineAvailable at http//www.tripadvisor.co.uk/ShowUserReviews-g186338-d187553-r48182591-London_Zoo-London_England.html Accessed 9 November 2009London Zoo An expensive waste of timeCostly admission prices to a zoo with few interesting animals and many a(prenominal) sections and stalls empty.The admission prices are already expensive at 13 per adult, 10 per child, but then the ticket sellers force you to pay an extra 1.50 optional donation. Its gravid to stand up to them to avoid this donation. Car parking is expensive at 9.There were no elephants. This has been the case for a while, and has been mentioned by other reviewers, but seems a shocking omission. There were no gorillas the whole section is boarded off and under development. The bugs area was also under development. There are none of the exotic animals like pandas any more. Many of the animals that were present stayed out of view. The food was pricey like the admission (but this is normal for such places).by yood onlineAvailable at http//www.dooyoo.co.uk/theme-parks-zoos-national/london-zoo/1034722/ Accessed 8 November 2009DisappointingIve been many times and this time was the most disappointing.Too many areas seemed to be in the middle of refurbishment.Nigh t zone was too dark couldnt see anything.I like meerkats, but they seemed to be everywhere.The outback was dismal showing a lack of ideas.As Ive said Ive been before and those visits were much better, I would still go again in the hope that things improve.To be honest Chester zoo is better. By munslowl OnlineAvailable at http//www.tripadvisor.co.uk/ShowUserReviews-g186338-d187553-r36778432-London_Zoo-London_England.html Accessed 8 November 2009