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from case 45 FastFlowers.com posted Question: There are many techniques that can be used by organizations to help gain improvement. Based on the provided data in table 1, identify one main technique that Jane can use? support answer by giving a reason.

Case 45:fastflower.

Jane Babson set up FastFlower.com three years ago to provide a small range of cut flowers to customers over the internets. The site shows a range of wreaths, boquets, buttonholes and table displays suitable for all occasions. Unlike her competitors who promise delivery sometime during the day, she offers delivery within one hour either side of an agreed delivery time, ant time between 8am and 6 pm. Despite initial scepticism from friends and colleagues in the trade, she had successfully managed to negotiate with flower delivery companies, including some national and international chains, to meet her delivery targets. Indeed a survey of delivery times undertaken by a student friend last year showed that the average delivery time was 29.5 minutes after the agreed time with a standard deviation of 13.3 minutes. In the first year the business managed a turnover of 30 000 which has grown to 150 000. Jane now employs one person to help her deal with the orders which arrive by internet, email or phone. This involves sending email acknowledgement of the order, and arranging delivery with a national flower delivery chain. If she is unable to find a company that is able or willing to fulfil the order on time, she arranges her local florist to make up the order which she then spend by courier. With a margin of less than 10% Jane was unwilling to employ extra staff as yet, but she was finding much of her time was taken up with dealing with what seemed to be a rapidly increasing number of complaints about the late, and in a few cases, the early, delivery of flowers. When analysing the complaints she noticed over half of them would have been delivered by just three of the seven national chains that she uses, interflower, fleuro and Blossoms USA. She was reluctant to complain to the companies as good relations were essential because she had to negotiate prices and delivery times on every occasion. Furthermore, she did abut 60$ of her business with these three. The alternative, sending flowers by courier, was much more expensive. Jane needed to understand what was happening so she selected one customer who should have received flowers from each of the suspect organisations on each day for the last two weeks(excluding sundays). the results, in terms of minutes late/early as reported by the customers, are shown in the table 1 below: Table1: results of delivery survey late/early

interflower. Fluero BlossomsUSA mon. 60. -15. 20 tue. 45. 45. 30 wed. 40. 70. 15 thu. 70. 80. 20 fri. 60. 0. 30 sat. 50 -20. 25 mon. 60. 50. 30 tue. 65. 50. 15 wed. 40. 0. 80 thu. 20. -20. 40 fri. 40. 40. 20 sat. 70. 70. 40

Note: a minus signifies an early delivery.

Question 1: (a) There are many techniques that can be used by organisations to help gain improvement in performance. Based on the provided data in table 1, identify one main technique that Jane can use? give a reason for your answer. (b) How can converting all parts of the organization helps Jane to satisfy her customers needs?