Question

Frederic Taylor applied the scientific method to management. In many cases, this meant measuring a process to determine its optimal possible output. From your own work experience, discuss a time you have seen measurements used to manage a process. Examples might include allowing a certain amount of time for a phone call or a project deadline. Do you believe the results were optimal, based on the measurement used?

Answer 1

Answer:

I have observed the training process for the job related to the marketing of cosmetics products at the point of sale. The girls were trained in a very precise manner, where the key takeaways were:

- The sales pitch of a particular skin cream should not take more than two minutes per customer.

- A customer should be shown more than five products of the range.

This was the measured guideline proposed by the manager, according to previous experience.

If the sales girls managed to keep each particular sales pitch shorter than two minutes, they would obviously cover more customers. Also, when presenting more than five products to a potential customers, the customer would have a bigger choice to choose from when deciding to buy.

Having in mind the rewards and the absence of rewards, the manager decreased the salary for each sales girl who broke the pitch duration limit, or showed less than five products for more than 7 times a day. Accordingly, the manager gave them a bonus for a day when they managed all customers in the proposed manner.

Although this kind of measurement and productivity has substantial rationale (bigger customer coverage and better product exposition), I think that the strict propositions do not result in the optimal output all of the times.

For example, some customers naturally need more time for the pitch process if they want to thoroughly educate themselves about the product benefits and usage. In that case, more time invested in the pitch isn't necessarily a loss, as those customers can still buy lots of products.

Similarly, if a customer is well prepared and knowledgeable about the skin care range's scope of products, there is no need to show them the proposed, fixed amount of products, as it is probably enough to just pinpoint the benefits of 1-2 products concerning a specific skin care problem.

To sum up, I think that this kind of strictly quantitative, scientific approach to management can be highly irrelevant in some areas of modern business. After all, this approach originated during the time of great industrialization and was mainly used directly in facilities and plants, assessing the production. Having that in mind, it probably does not reflect the productivity of other business segments, such as marketing-intensive processes.