BUS204e: Singapore is a Land-Scarce Country and There is Limited Land Space for Road: Business Excellence Assignment, SUSS, Singapore

SECTION A – “Moments of truth for taxi” Assignment

Question 1

Singapore is a land-scarce country and there is limited land space for road carriageways. Car ownership is made expensive to curb the number of cars on the road so as to ensure smooth traffic flow. Hence, public transportation, such as buses and MRT, is relied upon by much of the population. Taxi and public hire vehicles fill the gap for people who want fast transportation
at a reasonable price.

In this ECA, we shall focus on companies that offer taxi services in Singapore (exclude organizations that offer Private Hire Vehicle Services, such as Grab and GOJEK). You must select one of the taxi companies as your subject of analysis (hereafter called the ‘subject”).

Your answers shall be based on your experiences, observations, researched information from multiple sources, such as the company’s website and annual reports, and the application of Business Excellence theories and models.

(a) Describe the following that relates to the subject:

(i) Identify the subject, its background and how it differentiates itself from other taxi operators.
(ii) Two (2) major business challenges it is currently facing.
(iii) How the subject segments its customers.

(b) The following is a simplified Business Excellence self-assessment tool. Assume that you are an Enterprise Singapore’s Business Excellence assessor performing an assessment on the subject. You are required to practise and rate the subject according to the statements. For each statement, explain the rating that you assign by providing evidence, reasons or comments. Finally, you must compute the Total Rating and Percentage Total. All your ratings must be based on the subject’s taxi operations in Singapore.

Note: You need to provide your answer in a table format similar to that below, without the “Statements” column.

Question 2 – moments of truth for taxi Assessment

(a) To counter competition from Private Hired Vehicles (PHV) operators, the subject decides to launch a mobile app with Surge Pricing System (SPS). Assume that you are a business consultant, write a short essay, with a maximum of 400 words (indicate word count at the end of your answer), to discuss how you would advise the subject on applying the Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) cycle for the SPS development process, and the subsequent improvement process. You must relate the process to the four (4) stages of the PDCA cycle.

(b) GOJEK is a PHV operator from Indonesia. It has decided to enter the Singapore market to provide PHV services. It would be essential for GOJEK to understand the Singapore taxi industry before starting its business and to compete with the taxi operators, like the subject. Write a short essay, with a maximum of 350 words (indicate word count at the end of your answer), to explain the Rapid Knowledge Transfer Framework (Ref: SU5- 13, Figure 5.2) and discuss how the four (4) steps in the middle ring of the framework could be adopted by GOJEK to benchmark against the current industry players and help start its operations in Singapore. Your essay must define and relate this framework to the given scenario.

Note: You are not required to perform any benchmarking exercise.

Question 3

A “moment of truth” (Ref: SU4-48) is an instance that create an experience for the customer that will impact his/her perception of the company. Write a short essay, with a maximum of 700 words (indicate word count at the end of your answer), to advise the subject in the following sequence:

For taxi services in general, identify four (4) “moments of truth” and explain what can go wrong in them. You could base your answer on any inadequate services you have experienced or heard of.

Then, discuss how the subject has or can enhance each of the five (5) Attributes of Service Quality: Reliability, Assurance, Tangibles, Empathy and Responsiveness, in order to provide quality taxi services, and relate how the enhanced attributes can address at least one (1) moment of truth that you have identified earlier.

SECTION B

With reference to Question 3 in Section A, assume that you are the Business Consultant hired by the subject to advise on its business excellence journey.

You are to prepare a presentation to the subject’s top management on the following:

1. Identify four (4) critical “moments of truth”.

2. Discuss how the subject has or can enhance the five (5) Attributes of Service Quality to address the moments of truth.

Prepare a video recording of the presentation of at least 3 minutes but not exceeding 6 minutes.

There are two methods for ECA video assignment submission; either Record Media or Upload Media. For Upload Media, please note that your file size should be no more than 500MB and the format is in .mp4.

SECTION C

Prepare a set of PowerPoint presentation upon which the video presentation is based. Please note that the PowerPoint must be converted to PDF before submission to Canvas.