Basic Marketing: A Global Managerial Approach

Perreault−McCarthy: Basic
Marketing: A
Global−Managerial
Approach, 14/e

19. Implementing and
    Controlling Marketing
    Plans: Evolution and
    Revolution

Text © The McGraw−Hill

Companies, 2002

Implementing and Controlling Marketing Plans: Evolution and Revolution 555

So far, our manager has only identified the problem. To solve it, she creates a

fishbone diagram—a visual aid that helps organize cause-and-effect relationships

for “things gone wrong.”

Our restaurant manager, for example, discovers that customers wait to be seated

because tables aren’t cleared soon enough. In fact, the Pareto chart (Exhibit 19-2)

shows that customers also complain frequently about tables not being clean. So the

two implementation problems may be related.

The manager’s fishbone diagram (Exhibit 19-3) summarizes the various causes for

tables not being cleaned quickly. There are different basic categories of causes—

restaurant policy, procedures, people problems, and the physical environment. With

this overview of different ways the service operation is going wrong, the manager can

decide what to fix. She establishes different formal measures. For example, she counts

how frequently different causes delay customers from being seated. She finds that the

cashier’s faulty credit card scanning machine holds up check processing. About half

the time the cashier has to stop and enter the credit card information by hand. The

fishbone diagram shows that restaurant policy is to clear the table after the entire

party leaves. But customers have to wait at their tables while the staff deals with the

faulty credit card machine, and cleaning is delayed. With the credit card machine

replaced, the staff can clear the tables sooner—and because they’re not so hurried

they do a better cleaning job. Two dragons are on the way to being slayed!

Internet

Internet Exercise BaRaN Systems Ltd. has developed a software product

called SQC for Excel that works with the Microsoft Excel spreadsheet pro-

gram and makes it easy to do the types of analyses that are useful for quality

management. Go to its website (www.baran-systems.com) and click on the

link for SQC for Excel.Then at that page scroll down and look at the “Quick

Tour” section. What is it about the graphs that makes it easy to see which

areas need special attention?

Figure out why things

go wrong

Can’t start clearing

soon enough

Not allowed to clear until

entire party has left

Takes too long

to pay check

Credit card

machine jams

Waitress must bring

check to desk

Policy

Waitresses not available

Waitresses spend too much time

sorting dishes in kitchen—less

time to clear

Bottlenecks in kitchen

Procedures

No standard training

People

Can’t clear promptly

Customers drink coffee

endlessly

Waitresses don't care

Poor morale

Poor pay

Not enough staff

at busy times

High

turnover

Physical environment

Takes long time to get

to kitchen

Kitchen is far from tables

Empty tables

are not cleared

quickly

Exhibit 19-3 Fishbone Diagram Showing Cause and Effect for “Why Tables Are Not Cleared Quickly”