Case Study

Go Go Travel is designing a new travel package for a large Japanese travel wholesaler with an aim to commence in 12 months time. The company is Nakatomi Holdings and the contact is the President of Sales Mr Yoshinobu Takagi. He is based in Toyoko and has been with the company for 40 years. Due to Covid 19 there is no travel between Australia and Japan. The company has 700 travel agencies in Japan and has been a valuable source of data on the types of people that buy these tours. The three objectives for this project are:

· Increase distribution in Japan. At least 50% of Nakatomi agents selling our tours within the first 12 months. All marketing material approved and ready for distribution by launch date. Project updates every two weeks to Nakatomi Holdings.

· Increase company profitability. Tours sales to increase by 40%, company profitability to increase by 15% after 12 months. Website completed by launch date with payment system in place and allowing agents to log in to access tour details and make bookings. Costs to be restrained as per budget and pricing not to be below minimum approved sale price. Minimum 100 package tours with minimum 20 people per tour to be sold in first 12 months.

· Develop new Designer tour packages. Minimum 5-star accommodation and use jet aircraft only. Day tours to be exclusive to Go Go Travel with emphasis on indigenous tourism. Include all meals onsite.

You are the Assistant Manager and have been tasked by the Operations Manager with putting together a team to develop the new travel package. The members are:

· John, an expert in hotel accommodation and airlines and has been with the company 5 years. He is responsible for all hotel and flight bookings.

· Margaret, an expert in finance and has been with the company for 2 years. She is responsible for developing a budget for the cost of the tours and the final sale price of the tours and payments

· Miho, a day tours expert that lived in Japan for many years and speaks fluent Japanese, and has been with the company 18 months. She will be responsible for communication to Nakatomi Holdings and developing day to day activities of the tours

· Gupta, an IT expert originally from India and been with the company 3 years is responsible for updating the website, developing booking software

· Edward, a former sales manager with Go Go Travel for 7 years. He left 2 years ago to work elsewhere and has come back to Go Go Travel 6 months ago. He is responsible for the implementing the marketing plan, digital media for Nakatomi Holdings and its agents.

A copy of the organisational chart is available here:Organisation Chart - Go Go Travel

Download Organisation Chart - Go Go Travel

In the past few seeks there has been increasing disagreement and conflict between John and Edward. John has been wanting to have the project run his way as he has been with the company the longest. Edward also wants the project run his way as his background is sales and he has worked for the company for some time previously. No marketing material has been approved yet and is behind schedule. No airline or accommodation agreements have been drafted. The remaining staff members have been reluctant to speak up and have not been completing all their work on time as they are concerned, they will be offside with either John or Edward no matter what they do. Margaret has said to you that she is finding it difficult to confirm a budget as there is no agreement in the team on the makeup of the tours and it changes week to week. Gupta is behind schedule with the website as he does not know how build the marketing pages without the marketing plan. Miho has stated to you she cannot book day tours as she does not know how long each tour will last and what airline and hotel they are using. Your contacts at the airlines and large hotel chains have emailed you that they are having to amend their quotes to try to obtain our business every week and this is costing them in staff time. The Japanese company has written to you expressing concern at the lack of progress and the reports seem to contain little information of value. The management of Go Go Travel is concerned now and seeking your answers and plans to fix these issues.

Task 6: Team Conflict and Issue Resolution

Part A

Considering the situation described in the case study, identify the issues and then describe the process you will take to manage the conflict with the team including suggestions on employee behaviour.

You are also required to complete an email to the Operations Manager on your investigations into the feedback from the stakeholders, the outcome of the conflict resolutions and the plan to correct the situation.

Download and complete the Conflict Process Plan and Email Template here:Conflict process plan & Email template

Part B

Ronin is the Office Manager for Go Go Travel and has been having a few problems with his staff. In particular, he is wondering why the staff are not motivated and do not appear to be happy with their jobs.

Ronin started in this position 2 months ago. When he started he was told that staff enjoyed their jobs, took initiative, contributed to finding solutions to problems and generally did more than was expected of them.

Ronin is finding staff reluctant to perform the basic requirements of their positions and often ring in sick at short notice. Ronin is finding that this lack of interest in their jobs is making achievement of the departments goals and objectives near impossible. He is currently looking for solutions to put to senior managers.

Background:

Staff have been working for the organisation for between 12 months and 5 years. In the past 2 months, since Ronin’s employment 3 staff has resigned.

When Ronin commenced as Manager he changed all procedures and told staff the new procedures were to be followed. He also had an office built, which he works in with his door shut, asking that staff do not interrupt and all issues are to be discussed during morning meeting only.

Senior management has approached Ronin with their concerns including:

· the need to increase staff satisfaction

· reduce the ever increasing number of customer complaints

· resolve the problems which have resulted following the implementation of the new procedures

Ronin’s Actions

Ronin decided to hold a meeting where staff were told they must improve their attitude, be positive, be thankful they have jobs and increase customer service standards. He informed staff that they were all under close supervision and unless problems were fixed disciplinary action was going to be taken.

For this task you are required to answer questions in the following template. Download the template here:Task 6 Part B Template