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In the highly competitive environment of global business, strategic planning and effective decision-making is vital aspect of competitive advantage. Effective decision-making involves identification and evaluation of various alternatives so as to adopt correct course of action. In workplace, assessing various options help to encourage critical thinking and help look at paradoxes from new perspectives that can give leverage in the market. Everyone makes decisions but to make the right decisions at the right time is the crux of the matter. The six-step decision making process is hugely helpful in recognizing the need for making decision and selecting the best course of action for achieving desired goals (Jones & George, 2010). The decision process involves: recognize the need for decisions; generating alternatives; assess alternatives; choose among alternatives; implement chose alternative; and learn from feedback. I have found these steps of making decisions very useful both at my workplace and in my personal life.
Recently at my workplace, management was having problems with its field staff. The people at the field could not provide satisfactory services to the customers because of lack of coordination with the warehouse and the office. Getting information about the availability of spare parts for servicing the products at the customers’ place was delaying the work. As a sales and marketing manager, I called a meeting to resolve the issue. Decisions had to be made for improving the services and marketing. We looked at different options of communication devices that would be cost effective and at the same time, highly efficient and which could provide constant and fast communication across different departments like inventory, administration, sales etc. From the various alternatives, we decided to provide the field workers with smart phones that could be connected to the warehouses to find out the availability of required accessory that might be needed at the service location. The smart phones were thought to be the best option as they would greatly facilitate online connectivity with the various departments including experts who could advise field staff when they come across difficult situation.
Implementation of the decisions made was immediately started. It took two months to get the approval from the management committee and buy the necessary things like phone and getting internet installed etc. Once the initial training of field staff in using the smartphones was completed, we all awaited eagerly for the feedback. Though there were initial hiccups when the field workers were unable to connect to the right person in the office, it was soon sorted out. There lag time in services were considerably reduced and after sales services were streamlined to meet new challenges. Most importantly, it considerably reduced the inventory and helped the different departments to coordinate with higher efficiency.
The success of the decisions regarding the use of smartphones clearly showed that effective decisions greatly help companies to maintain their market position and gain leverage against their rivals. In the current times, technology is important facilitator of advancing and meeting our goals. Smartphones had enhanced communication that had not only resulted in higher customer satisfaction but it had also saved extra time and effort of other experts. In the long run, it was very cost effective. The decision making process has also served as motivation for others to adopt and get feedback so that decisions can be improved and improvised.
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Reference
Jones, Gareth and George, Jennifer. Contemporary Management, 5/e. NY: McGraw Hill, 2010.