Operation Management Etisalat Services

“We enable people to reach each other, businesses to find new markets and everyone to fulfill their potential. Across the UAE, we provide telephone, TV and Internet services for everyone, and much more for businesses. We are increasingly present in international markets.

Our customers enjoy the latest services and technologies, as well as a choice of great entertainment.”

Table of Contents

Table of Contents 2

1. Abstract 2

2. Introduction 3

3. Strategic Context 4

4. Process design and layout 8

5. Capacity and demand 13

6. Conclusion 16

7. References 18

8. Appendices 19

1. Abstract

The project deals with the operation management of Etisalat telecommunication. Under the project, the history and achievements of the company are analyzed keeping in view the service and operation done in the company. The projects at first analyzes the Input Process Output Model in Etisalat, followed by some problems associated the company and performance objective of the company. Process mapping in Etisalat has also been discussed with work order process as the main theme. Finally, at the end of the project, capacity of the company and demand of the customers are discussed which leads to a higher demand and higher capacity in the company.

2. Introduction

2.1 Etisalat: History and achievements

Etisalat, also known as Emirates Telecommunication Corporation is one of the most population telecommunication services in Middle East. This is a UAE based company which performs its functions in 18 countries of the world including countries from Asia, Africa and Middle East. According to the statistics of November 2009, Etisalat has come to the level where it has reached the 13th position among all the telecommunication companies of the world. At that time the company had a total base of more than 100 million customers.

Etisalat is considered to be one of the biggest internet hubs in Middle East. It is known as AS8966 and it provides connecting services to other mobile operators in the region as well. It ha the largest network of international voice calling traffic in Middle East. Etisalat provides many other services in different parts of the world like it provides POP (Points of Presences) services in the cities like London, Paris, New York, Singapore and Amsterdam.

According to the statistics of January 2010, the company has reached net revenue of $8.4 Billion which is equivalent to AED 30.831 Billion attaining the net profit of 42.407 Billion.

Some of the international achievements of Etisalat count Mobily in Saudi, PTCL in Pakistan, Canar in Sudan, EMTS in Nigeria, etc. The company has reached a raking of A 1 + in maintaining strong balance sheet (Global rating portal, 2010)

3. Strategic Context

3.1 Input- Process- Output model

Etisalat deals its information handling with a model called Input Process Output Model in which the three terms has a huge significant. The information in the company is taken into care by these three processes. The first step of the model is input which means that the information regarding any issue in the telecommunication services is fed into the company. These the respective information is processes. Along with the processing of the information, storage is also associated. The information which are solved by the company immediately gives an output but the information which are difficult to tackle gets stored in the storage chamber and again thee are processed leading to a correct output.

Input Process Output model is generally used in the company in order to deal with the customer complaints and other issues. This model in Etisalat explains the issue of importance of customers in the organization and how important is for the company to maintain good relations with them. It is necessary for the company to solve the problems and Input Process Output models suits all the necessary requirements.

Input Process Output framework in the company suggests a linear progression which helps the company to proceed from one category to the next. It also helps in developing the thinking level o the employees working in the company.

There are three main characteristics of Input Process Output Model which are Trust, planning and structuring which come under the forming step of the model. Functioning step of the model contains some characteristics like Bonding, adapting, learning and finally finishing is the steps. These are three steps in which company enrolls the entire Input Process Output Model (Daniel R. Ilgen, 2005).

The following is the diagram showing Input Process Output Model in the company:

Fig 3.1 Input Process Output Model in Etisalat

3.2 4- VS

4- VS stand for four main points which are against the company. There are some important points on which the company needs to improve in order to get the best from the industry. Four of the main problems in Etisalat are as follows:

There are some GSM issues in the company which is considered to be one of the biggest problems of Etisalat in UAE. Recently, it has been found that some serious problems in GSM services of the company have come.

Another problem is the internet connectivity in the network of Etisalat especially in th BlackBerry phone. There is some problem with the company to get the code for unlocking the phone

I Phone is another issue in Etisalat network. The company is not able to give good support in the I Phone

E- Support of the company is not that effective as compare to the other companies. Customers are not satisfied with the electronic support of the company and its products. There are some regular problems occurring.

3.3 5- Performance Objective

The main performance objectives for Etisalat are quality, cost, time , flexibility and dependability.

These objectives of the company may be summarized as follows:

Etisalat mainly work in order to get to more and more people to extend the reach of the company continuously in order to grow more as the time goes

Company aims for the people to live in a world where the distance between them does not matter. This means that company need to perform in such a way that through telecommunication technology, it can rule out the distance among the people

Company’s objective includes full openness towards the customer so that any customer can reach to the company if he or she has nay problem

Company aims to open up the opportunities for each and every individual and loves to help the people in order to get the best output and give the best performance to the industry

One of the main performance objectives of the company is to attain a high level of energy among the employees and other staff of the company in order to nurture the people with the best telecommunication services possible.

3.4 Polar diagram

There are several characteristics of the services provided by Etisalat. These characteristics are associated with the performance of the company. These are some of the important features relating to performance objective of the company. Characteristics for performance objective for Etisalat are quality, cost efficiency, time, and flexibility in work and dependability in production. We can have a polar representation of above described characteristics of performance objectives.

Cost

Technical services

Speed dependability

Production services

Quality Flexibility

Fig 3.2 Polar diagram for Performance Objective of Etisalat

4. Process design and layout

4.1 Process Type

The main process which comes under consideration in Etisalat services is Work order process. Work Order processing is one of the finest solutions for the companies which provide services with repair and fresh new products. This process mainly deals with the entire processing unit of the company which helps in tracking the work order of the company which means that processes which are implemented will be managed under this. There are some of the important features of work order process of any company like:

Work order entry in a logically designed way

It is easy to make the priorities in the job function according to time, quality and cost

Inquires regarding drill down in the company can be done

Out of stock items can b easily identified

Easier to generate contracts of work order for the customer

It facilitates the back order for the process which help the process t be re writable

There are different types of list associated with the work order process which are as follows:

Work order report

Report for the technician

Report for open work order

Report for work phase

Tools for work phase

4.2 Process Mapping

Process mapping in the company’s work load process goes according to a proper scheduling work. Process mapping is also known as charting of the process. This method is used mainly for the work to be stream lined. In Etisalat, the mapping of the process is done in order to depict the exact sequence of the manufacturing the telecommunication services and get the desired outcome.

There are mainly six steps used in Process mapping in Etisalat:

Follow one product or service and the group of that product or service: In such a case, Etisalat clearly follows the telecommunication services and the industry which it belongs to is the telecommunication service

Placement of the components at the right position is the next step in process mapping. In Etisalat, it is necessary to form a group among the customers regarding the market potential and market capture

Showing the components is the next step in which the decision is taken among the grouped market scenario. Under this, all the strategies are made according to market positioning of the company and the customers

Describing the events is an essential step a before taking the final decision, it gets necessary to know about all the groups which have been taken into consideration

All the additional information are added in the process mapping in order to make it clear that nothing gets left under the entire implementation of the process

Finally merging is done in order to combine the sub services or sub products to make the product or services complete. Like in order to make a SIM, company needs to do various sub services like adding telecommunication facility in it, internet, GPS, etc. These all are combined and presented

Fig 4.1 Process mapping

4.3 Through out efficiency

Etisalat has got a through out efficiency for the past few years as over the past several years, the company has attained a very good recognition in the international market and has got awards in the sub continent of Africa and Middle East. The company provides the customer services through out which is of the highest level. The success in the country has continuously increasing as at the recent past customer base of he company has reached more than 94 Million which means that there are around 100 million customers of the company (Etisalat’s Global Customer Base Reaches 94 Million, 2009). Through out success of the company is mainly because of the three corner stones of the company i.e. improving quality, services to the customers and innovation in the products (Quality Counts).

4.4 Layout and flow

Fig 4.2 Work order process Layout/ Flow chart

Above flow chart shows the work order process which takes place in Etisalat. There are some important steps which are followed in the layout. At the initial stage the customers visits the company centre of business and fill the application for high speed internet which gets updated in the IT system of the company as per the requirement. Then work order gets transferred to the quality team for inspection purpose. Then work order from the company gets released. Automatic port is allocated to each process. After all this work order gets printed with the name of the team of customer services which is further sorted by the supervisor and distributed equally among the technicians of the company. These records are maintained by supervisors.

Now the role of the technician in the company starts as customers are called by him for the model to get installed in the computer of the customer. If the work is proper then work orders will be signed by the customers who are returned to the main office and are checked by supervisor again for closing ad finally bills are made for the customer. This is how the entire process goes on.

4.5 Long- thin compared to short fat

Etisalat believes in the policy of long thin business as compared to the short fat business which means that company believes in the long term profit rather than short term profit in the company. Even if the profit is coming lesser then also company goes for a long term relationship with the customers. Main reason behind preference of long thin on short fat is that company wants to make better relationships with the customers and in order to do so, company is ready to compensate for the huge profit but it is not possible for the company that it go for huge profit but very short term relationship with the customers. This will not give good business to the company and will come to an end very soon; hence the approach followed by Etisalat is absolutely fine as far as business context is seen.

5. Capacity and demand

5.1 Capacity Plans

Etisalat has a huge capacity to provide various services to the customers. This is the reason that the company is one of the biggest in the capacity planning in entire UAE. Capacity of the company is like it has purchased 155 Mbps broadband cable between UAE ad Japan which has a very high capacity and will give very sharp assistance to the company (ETISALAT Purchases STM-1 -155Mbps- Broadband Capacity On Flag Europe-Asia Cable Between UAE and Japan.).

The company has a huge capacity of six business centers like:

Main Business Center in Etisalat Tower

Khaledia Business Center

Salem Business Center

Mussafah Business center

Samha Business Center

Mafraq Business Center

The above described are the business centers for the company which means that these are the six main places from where the business of the company is running. The manufacturing, production, financial and operational function for the company takes place from these business centers only.

There are six main outlets of the company in UAE from where the selling of the services of Etisalat takes place. These outlets are as follows:

Marina Mall

Abu Dhabi Mall

Al wahda Mall

Khaledia Mall

Raha Mall

Madinat Zayed Malls

The above are the outlets of the company which means that these are the place where the company sells the product and services to reach it to the normal public.

There is a very close relationship between the capacity of the company and the demand of the customers. The capacity of the company according the number of orders which have been created by the company is given in following table. The table also given the value which shows the how many orders were utilized which means that what exactly was the demand of the customers. The table is as follows:

Apr-10

May-10

Jun-10

B/F

Created

Closed

B/F

Created

Closed

B/F

Created

Closed

10349

14,571

12586

10,398

15,556

13,504

10,332

13,936

11,467

Table 5.1 Number of service orders created and closed during second quarter of 2010

The above table shows that there is a gap between the demand of the customers and the capacity of the company. This is true that demand of the customers are very high which shows that the company has a huge value but the processing system of the company is so brilliant that it has a capacity much higher than it is required by the customers. But, from the above table we can see that the gap between demand and capacity continuously decrease.

Fig 5.1 Service orders of Etisalat

As far as the capacity of the company according to the employees it has is concerned, the company has 140 field technician and 80 sales staff of the company. Capacities of technicians are higher than the sales staff. The average performance of the staff is higher in case of the sales staff; the main reason could be the higher productivity in the company by the sales department. Fig 5.1 shows the entire service order capacity of the company

Number of Staff

Avg. Performance of staff

Monthly output

Field Technicians

140

88

12320

Sales Staff

80

176

14080

Table 5.2 Number of staff involved in creating and closing service orders

5.2 Demand Management Option

Demand management is one of the most important roles which is played by the company. We have seen in the previous section that demand of the customers and the capacity of the company are closely related. It may be possible that both have a very short gap and it may be possible that both have a very long gap. Etisalat always want to shorten the gap between the capacity of the company and the demand of the customers.

Etisalat keeps in mind the fact that capacity of the company should be higher than the demand and it should be much high but in case of the product or the services created should have a very short gap with respect to the demand of the customers of the company.

Demand management option gives Etisalat an exact figure about how much such the company produces in order to fulfill the needs of the customers. It is not necessary that company should be 100 percent efficient i.e. it should create 100 percent of its capacity. The services should be created keeping in mind the demand of the customers in order to generate the maximum profit and in order to escape from the excessive storage. Demand is something which is absolutely in the hands of the company as higher demand is created with high level of commitment of the company with improved quality and nice services provided by the company. So, in order to increase the demand and make it according to the capacity of the company, Etisalat should more think about the quality prospective.

6. Conclusion

Etisalat is one of the leading telecommunication services in the world and in UAE, it is the best. This report includes operational management prospective of the company and has shown how the services provided by the company are generated. Company uses Input Process Output model in order to decide the work order process in the company which is maintained by the process mapping done in order to streamline the things going on in the company as per the operations perspective. High growth and high performance of the company neglects some of the disadvantages.

Etisalat has a wonderful capacity to generate more and more services and it has a huge demand as well but still the capacity of the company is so high that even the services created go much higher than the demand of the customers. It is required by the company to fulfill the gap between the services produced and the demand of the customers in order to succeed in the business. Large capacity with demand management option with the company makes it easier for Etisalat to further earn profit in the industry. With impressive achievements made by the company, Etisalat stands among the top three companies with highest market capture in Middle East.