Why it is so hard to get Service Delivery right?

In a recent Business Times article dated 19 March 2012, titled "Service is just one part of the satisfaction equation", the author highlighted survey results from the Customer Satisfaction Index of Singapore (CSISG) conducted by Institute of Service Excellence at SMU (ISES), which indicates that consumers are getting savvier in discerning and differentiating service quality and satisfaction of the service organization in general.


The author gave the example of the Retail's service quality which fell from a score of 72 to 70.9 in 2011. But satisfaction with retailers rose from 68.2 in 2010 to 70.6, indicating that customers were happier with department stores, supermarkets, and retailers of fashion apparel, watches and jewellery.

The CSISG,whose methodological foundations are those of the American Customer Satisfaction Index, the de facto standardized measure of customer satisfaction in the US since 1994, has three key drivers: expectations, value and quality.


I remembered posting way back on June 11, 2008 about the challenges that service organizations face in developing, marketing and maintaining the level of delivery in their services. I also highlighted that service has 4 unique characteristics; intangible, inseparable, heterogeneous and perishable; core fundamentals which every service organizations need to understand to be able to design holistic end-to-end delivery systems.


And as Ms. Caroline Lim, Director of ISES rightly noted, while service quality; one half of the last driver which also involves product quality; is important, the other drivers are equally important. Thus the need for service organizations to look into the dimension of service quality and a good framework that service organizations should use is the Gaps Model of Service Quality developed by Parasuraman, Zeithaml & Berry in 1985.

source: The Marketing Association of Australia and New Zealand

To reduce Customer Gap, service organizations should also seek to understand the 10 determinants of service quality that helps service organizations focus on removing non value-adding processes or 'muda' from their delivery system.

source:The Marketing Association of Australia and New Zealand

However, for service organizations that truly wishes to be world-class, it is recommended that they adopted a Business Excellence framework which is a systems-thinking approach to building and sustaining organizational excellence. A Business Excellence framework typically cover categories that include Leadership, Planning, Information, People, Processes, Customers and Results.

A much cited testament of one such international service organization that is widely recognized as best-in-class is The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company; proud recipient of The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award from the United States Department of Commerce twice in 1992 and 1999; The Ritz-Carlton Millenia Singapore won the Singapore Quality Award from SPRING Singapore in 2001.

There are other management tools and techniques such as the 7Ps of service marketing, Lean and one that is much cited in recent times, Design Thinking. I will discuss a little more about Design Thinking in my next post, so keep a look-out for it.

Management often flounders with the myriad options available for improvements and the key to this is to sit down and conduct a "stock-take" of its current operations. An option would be to conduct a self-assessment using BEACON by SPRING Singapore, distill the results, and determine 3 key areas for improvement in the work year. As Steve Jobs once said, "Deciding what not to do is as important as deciding what to do".

Mis-guided Pursuit of Personal Excellence?

The New Paper on Sunday (4 March 2012) carried a report (Parents, why so kiasu?) about the state of Singapore parents 'not wanting to be left behind', with an example of a parent spending up to S$5,800 a month in tuition for a straight 'As' student in a top Singapore school. And this is on top of regular supplementary lessons that the student gets from the school.

One parent hires a private tutor to prepare her 5 year-old son and 6 year-old daughter for primary school and says, "Some of my friends have called me crazy but I don't care. When my children make it to a better school and do well, I'll be the one having the last and best laugh."

In another article"Parents, why hire tutors to do your kids' assignments?", a civil servant parent pays tutors to do her two daughters' homework from an elite tuition centre and cited the reasons behind this were one, due to the "mounting school assignments plus extra homework (from the elite tuition centre)"; and two, "It took my daughters nearly a year before they were given a place in the tuition centre. After all that effort, it'd be such a terrible waste if they had to give up their spots for others on the waiting list just because they cannot finish the work".

The cause of this civil servant parent's dilemma, her younger daughter is in a Gifted Education Programme primary school while her older daughter is in an Independent School. Both daughters takes English, Mathematics and Science at the elite tuition centre and also goes for ballet, piano and art classes. The younger daughter also gets tuition for Higher Chinese. The husband is also a civil servant.

One other parent even go on to say, "It's nothing illegal. At most, you can only argue whether it's morally right or wrong". Is it then any wonder that the students in Singapore have lost their moral compass when parents condone such actions. Imagine when these kids grow up to pursue post-graduate certifications and pays for Master and PhD thesis to be written on their behalf and blames it on their parents for setting a 'good' example. What would the society think of them then?

I suppose then it is no also surprise that we are seeing an eroding of values in a small number of civil servants entangled in a number of high profile cases that involved educators, senior managers and senior management leaders of  government agencies.

The Education Ministry have stressed the importance to look beyond academic excellence in the development of our children and most recently at the Singapore Conference in Washington D.C., USA, on Wednesday, 8 February 2012, Mr. Heng Swee Kiat, Singapore's Education Minister commented: 

"education is fundamentally about developing the unique individual, helping him to discover and develop his interests, talents and strengths, so as to fulfil his potential and aspirations. It is about developing the whole person, enabling him to lead a full, creative, and meaningful life."

".....to prepare our students for the future, it is critical for us to have some notions of the variety and demands of the jobs of the future. The education system can then tailor the right skillsets for each individual. Not all the jobs will require academic degrees. Indeed, in many areas, practical, hands-on skills are valued."

Please go to http://www.moe.gov.sg/media/speeches/2012/02/08/speech-by-mr-heng-swee-keat-at-the-singapore-conference-washington-dc-usa.php for the full speech.

During his opening address at the Ministry of Education (MOE) Work Plan Seminar, on Thursday, 22 September 2011 at Ngee Ann Polytechnic Convention Centre, Mr. Heng also commented about the importance of "Values-driven Education" and he said:

"We must put values and character development at the core of our education system. We need personal values to enable each of us to have the confidence and self awareness, and the grit and determination to succeed. We need moral values, such as respect, responsibility, care and appreciation towards others, to guide each of us to be a socially responsible person. In particular, for our multi-racial, multi-cultural society, a sense of shared values and respect allows us to appreciate and celebrate our diversity, so that we stay cohesive and harmonious.

If values provide the philosophical underpinning, character development makes these values come alive. Character development is about developing social emotional competencies, and the habits and inner disposition based on sound values to act in a consistent way. Personal values such as grit, determination and resilience enable the individual to realise his or her potential, and develop ‘performance character’. Moral values enable the individuals to develop ‘moral character’. These values are intertwined, and are critical to the success of the individual and the society. Hence, values and character development must form the core of our student-centric, holistic education."

Please go to http://www.moe.gov.sg/media/speeches/2011/09/22/work-plan-seminar-2011.php for the full speech.

I certainly do not condone what these parents are doing and in my own personal experience of having to work and study at the same time, it taught me about time management, self-learning and builds my character in a better way. 

Integrity is something that is highly valued professionally and socially. Something that cannot be traded in one's pursuit of excellence. The lack of which created the downfall of many individuals and organizations such as Mohamed bin Hammam, Raj Rajaratnam, T. T. Durai, Olympus Corp, Enron, Siemens AG and many others.

While there will be more cases that goes unreported, I hope that we can only get better with each new day.

Attaining a Diploma by attending a 2-days workshop?

As a HRD professional, it is sometimes worrying to see for-profit training providers potentially getting themselves into unnecessary situations by being careless with their marketing messages, unintentionally or otherwise.

I'd came across one such academy recently and I was a little surprised to see them 'proclaiming' their programs as "The ........... Diploma and the relevant subject matter" (see picture below). Furthermore, this academy is part of an organization providing strategic intelligence to the financial services industry since 1996.

Qualifications such as Certificate, Advanced Certificate or Diploma is usually awarded by approved educational institutions or professional bodies after completing a stipulated study period (most often at least 3 months or more) and candidates have been assessed and proven competent in the particular area of study.

In Singapore, Private Educational Organizations (PEOs) are required to have an Academic and Examinations Board to ensure that the PEO puts in place proper processes for ensuring the quality of the academic courses that it conducts, the suitable deployment of teachers, and proper examinations procedures.

I felt that it would not be appropriate to 'advertise' the programs with the term 'Diploma' as it creates an incorrect perception that just by attending a 2-days workshop, a participant will be awarded a 'Diploma' certification. Unless of course, the program had already been accredited by an approved higher education institution or non-regulatory bodies such as British Accreditation Council.

Of course recognition and acceptance of certificates for employment or further study are entirely at the discretion of the individual employer or education institution and participants should always conduct the necessary background check if such were the purposes of attending these workshops. Caveat Emptor.

President's Design Award Singapore 2009 Jury Session

Happy New Year and towards a better year in 2010.

It has been a while since my blog was last updated and I must say that it is long overdue.

There has been a couple of changes over the last few months and I will talk more about that in my next couple of posts.

The final event which we were tasked to managed was the President's Design Award Singapore 2009 Jury Session which was held at the InterContinental Singapore from the 29th to 31st July.

Eight international and 4 local design luminaries came together at the invitation of DesignSingapore Council to preside over the prestigious award that recognises excellence across all design disciplines, including advertising design and visual communications, architecture and urban design, fashion design, furniture design, interior design, landscape design, product and industrial design.

Once again the team rose to the challenge and showed just why Singapore manages to stays constantly in the forefront of events planning and management with our precious human capital.

Ministry of Manpower's DHRVP Events, April 2009

The month of April passed quickly and was glad that we had once again helped our client organized the 2 DHRVP events successfully.

Here are some photos of the 2 events held on the 7th and 8th April at the Marina Mandarin Singapore.

7 April 2009, Public Forum














8 April 2009, HR Masterclass

Benchmarking for Excellence, 27 & 28 May 2009

"A 2008 global survey of 500 organizations of all sizes and sectors conducted by the Global Benchmarking Network, revealed that Informal Benchmarking was one of the most popular quality technique used by 69% of organizations. Best Practice Benchmarking, used by 39%, delivered the most benefit with projects achieving returns of over $250,000."

Against this benchmark, it is surprising that a large number of organizations in Asia do not practice or are not able to conduct proper benchmarking projects and in turning the results into both financial and strategic operational gains.

Benchmarking focuses on how to improve any given business process by exploiting "best practice" rather than merely measuring the best performance. Being reflected in various Business Excellence award criteria more extensively than any other management concepts, Benchmarking also promotes the emergence and evolution of a "learning culture" throughout the organization, a key to continuous improvement, total quality and competitiveness over the long term.

MgDelxis is again delighted to have invited Dr. Robin Mann to share the proprietary TRADE Benchmarking methodology that is widely adopted by a number of countries in the Asia Pacific, the UK and US.

For more information regarding the Masterclass, please visit www.mgdelxis.com/services_p2b_upcoming, email platform@mgdelxis.com for the event brochures or contact us at +65 6841 1379.

MgDelxis' "White-collar Crime" Series - 18 May (Singapore), 20 May (Jakarta) & 22 May (Kuala Lumpur)

It is interesting to note that with the current crisis, there has been a great increase in the cases of corporate financial irregularities ranging from Societe Generale, Lehman Borthers, AIG, Satyam Computer Services, Oriental Century, Ferro China, Fibrechem Technologies, Beauty China and most recently in Singapore, Ren Ci Hospital.

Even individual investors is not spared. 'Ponzi' types schemes such as Bernard Modoff's Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, Robert Allen Standford's Stanford Group and our very own James Phang's Sunshine Empire has led to many a broken man and family.

MgDelxis has invited Mr. Mike Comer, an internationally recognized global expert in the prevention, detection and investigation of fraud, to lecture on the seemingly unending financial fiascoes happening all over the world, in Singapore on 18 May, Indonesia on 20 May and Malaysia on 22 May as part of an Asian tour.

While many regulatory agencies are urging investors (both individual and institutional), auditors, accountants, independent directors and audit committees to be extra vigilant during the current financial crisis, in Mike's opinion, regulations have all too often simply created a mentality of ticking boxes and of feigned compliance that does little to prevent fraud.

He says," Organizations can cosmetically comply with every regulation, tick all of the boxes, have ethics policies coming out of their ears and can still be badly exposed. Organizations that want to truly prevent fraud, succeed in an increasingly corrupt world and comply with regulatory whimsicality have to think again. You do not dig a better a hole by digging the old hole deeper".

Mike will be sharing his expert opinions on "Fraud and The World's Financial Collapse: The Great Compliance Scandal" Forum, and "Investigating Major & International Frauds: Getting Your Money Back" Masterclass.

For more information regarding the Forum and Masterclass, please visit www.mgdelxis.com/services_p2b_upcoming, email platform@mgdelxis.com for the event brochures or contact us at +65 6841 1379.