Introduction
The writer is working as the junior journalist of a newspaper. The writer’s role is to produce an article demonstrating the importance of providing effective and efficient support for an organisation. In this assignment, the writer has utilised his skill and knowledge to carry out tasks to support business activities.
1. Know the purpose of supporting organisational activities
1.1 The tasks that support the functional areas
Carysforth (2006) mentioned that Supporting organisational activities refers to those not directly involved with manufacturing products or services. The supporting activities include Maintenance and Repair, Training, Marketing, Security, and supporting the welfare of employees. A business organisation needs to do support activities to run the functional activities properly. The supporting activities help a company perform a wide range of roles that include finance, production, service providers, and retailers. In the complex business environment, Samsung needs support to survive in the market and achieve success in its activity. Samsung has centralised departments to control the support activities of the organisation like Human Resource, production or finance. Small business organisations need to perform support activities to facilitate the functional areas (Samsung UK, 2016). In this case, the business owner assigns an individual as a receptionist or as a secretary. However, the people assigned for accomplishing the support activities must have excellent interpersonal and communication skills that include problem-solving and time management knowledge.
1.1.1 How efficient support contributes to business success
Different support roles play a critical role in business success. For example, if Samsung doesn’t provide customer service, the customer will not ask, query or provide feedback (Gleeson, 2004). If Samsung cannot get customer requirements, they will not be able to meet the customer needs with their offer. The customer service satisfied the customer, which motivates the customer to repurchase from Samsung. Therefore, the support role indirectly increases sales and revenue that is the key to business success.
1.2 Factors involved when working in an international support role
The ever-expanding global marketplace has created an opportunity for business organisations to enter the international market. Samsung has to perform a different support role in the international market. The supporting role includes customer service, customer service, etc. (Gleeson, 2004). Some factors, directly and indirectly, influence a business organisation in the international environment. To pursue the support role in the global arena, the business organisation needs to consider those factors. Samsung needs to conduct its support activities to a diverse culture. Thus, the organisation’s employees have to interact with the customers and colleagues in the international environment. The cultural difference is a significant barrier for the employees of Samsung to contact them. For example, the behaviour of South Asian people differs from the UK people. So, when Samsung provides customer service to Indian people, they need to understand the language and culture of that country.
1.2.1 Roles supporting organisational structures and functional areas
The author has found out that different supporting roles support the organisational structure and functional areas of Samsung. Samsung has a divisional organisational structure. Samsung has additional finance, production, and supply chain departments to accomplish the active task (Skills CFA, 2016). Therefore, the supporting roles are essential to support the business activity of Samsung.
On the other hand, the public health sector has a hierarchical organisational structure. There is no different department to do the functional activities. The authority has all the power to make any decision. Therefore, the supporting role is not necessary for this sector.
2. Understand the support role in the structure of organisations
2.1 How to support roles vary in different organisations
An organisation plays various types of support roles to assist the functional activities. Various organisations play different types of support activities to satisfy their customers. In this section, the author has compared the support role of two other organisations.
Support Role Tesco Plays
The support role of Tesco includes business support, customer assistant, tech support, diary management, etc. Tesco provides business support to the customer to give them an excellent shopping experience. The customer assistant helps the customer by answering their question (Tesco plc, 2016).
Support Role Samsung Plays
Samsung plays different types of support roles such as customer service, providing a warranty, supervising office facilities, organising various types of event and campaign, Maintenance and Repair, Training. Samsung arranges those support activities to satisfy the customer (Samsung UK, 2016).
From the above discussion, the author has found out that different organisations play different support roles to delight customers by providing functional benefits and some other support service.
2.1.1 Improvements to a selected support role
Carysforth (2006) mentioned that in this section, the author would justify the improvements of the support role of Samsung. Samsung has a good reputation for providing customer care service to its customers. Though Samsung is providing good customer service, the support role can be improved. The author is suggesting some points by which Samsung can improve customer care service. The management needs to recruit some skilled, polite and intelligent employees for Samsung to reduce the waiting time. The employees will provide day to day updates for the service of the customer’s electronic device. Besides, the employees need to deal politely with the customer and satisfy them with an appropriate answer.
3. Know the requirements for reviewing support services
4.1 Effectiveness of support roles in Samsung
In this section, the author has illustrated the effectiveness of support roles in Samsung. Before evaluating the significance, the author will recognise the system Samsung uses to play a support role. The author has found out that Samsung has a telephone system in each call centre where the customer can solve their query. Besides, Samsung has an excellent electronic communication system, including mail, computer network through which it continuously communicates with the employees. On the other hand, the management assigned employees to take customer feedback in the diary (Skills CFA, 2016). There are some stages of reviewing the effectiveness of the implemented system of Samsung. Samsung collects input from the customer, evaluates the customer feedback, monitors the work closely and takes corrective action if needed. Therefore, the author found out that the support role Samsung plays is influential for the business.
4. Be able to plan work and carry out a support role
4.1 Plan time and resources for support tasks
In this section, the author will use his skills and knowledge to plan support tasks. The plan of Support activities Samsung has been given in the following table (Fleming, 2003):
Support Activities | July | August | September | October |
Taking Diary logs | ||||
Records of in-tray exercises | ||||
Customer Support | ||||
Tech Support |
The writer has designed a timeline of supporting activities in the above table and suggested those supporting activities for Samsung. In order to keep the functional movements, the organisation must acquire the resources like man, machine, material and money. When completing this plan, the organisation may face different types of the problem including a schedule. So, the management needs to make a detailed schedule for each of those support activities.
4.1.1 Review the effectiveness of different support roles
There are some critical stages of the review process for the support service. In the case of Samsung, the company first collects feedback from the clients. After collecting the feedback, the management orders employees to compare user requirements with the existing system. The employees review the problem closely and take corrective actions for improvement. So, customer feedback is essential for the company because the company can’t understand the problem or customer requirement without feedback (McGoey et al., 2013).
4.2 Suitable procedures and policies in providing support for an activity
Policies refer to the concise formal statements of principles that illustrate how an organisation will take action in a specific aspect of its activity. The approach consists of the present rules and regulations and standards set by Samsung. On the other hand, the procedure illustrates the process of any work that is implemented for the policy. In this section, the author has described how Samsung has adopted the internal policies and procedures in providing support for an activity (Gleeson, 2004). For example, Samsung wants to sell a product online where the customer needs to sign up to purchase that product. The organisational policy is to store customer data legally, provide the highest security and confidentiality to the data. Samsung assigned personnel and empowered him to accomplish that task.
4.2.1 Policies, procedures and techniques used in a support role
In this section, the author will analyse and evaluate the policies, procedures, and techniques used by Samsung. In section p5, the writer has designed the timeline of some supporting activities for Samsung. The support activities have been designed for only four months. The author suggested the management make a schedule to make the plan more successful. On the other hand, in section p6, the author has illustrated Suitable procedures and policies in providing support for an activity. Therefore, the policies, procedures and techniques Samsung use contribute to the smooth running of the support role.
Conclusion
In this assignment, the writer has demonstrated his planning and support abilities when implementing various responsibilities to support the business. The author has described different theories, policies, procedures and techniques of other organisations’ support activities. Therefore, support activities are essential for a company to facilitate functional movements, which is the key to business success.
References
Samsung UK, (2016). SAMSUNG UK – Home Electronics | Home Appliances | Mobile | Televisions. [online] Available at: http://www.samsung.com/uk/home/ [Accessed 4 Mar. 2016].
Tech Life – Samsung, (2016). 5 Unique Galaxy S6 & Galaxy S6 Edge Features that Make Your Life Easier. [online] Available at: http://techlife.samsung.com/7-unique-features-make-life-easier-1543.html [Accessed 4 Mar. 2016].
Carysforth, C. (2006). Business & Administration. Oxford: Heinemann.
Fleming, I. (2003). The time management pocketbook. Alresford: Management Pocketbooks.
Gleeson, K. (2004). The personal efficiency program. Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley.
Kupersmith, K., Mulvey, P. and McGoey, K. (2013). Business Analysis For Dummies. Hoboken: Wiley.
Skills CFA. (2016). Apprenticeships, Standards and Qualifications – Skills CFA. [online] Available at: http://www.skillscfa.org/ [Accessed 19 Apr. 2016].
Tesco plc. (2016). Tesco plc. [online] Available at: http://www.tescoplc.com/index.asp?pageid=750 [Accessed 14 Apr. 2016].
