Information and Operations Management: Arriva Group of Companies Outline - Case Study Example

Information & Operations Management Arriva Group of Companies Outline The Arriva group of companies refers to a multinational public transport company whose headquarter is located in Sunderland, England. This prime company was founded in 1938 commonly known as the T Cowie at that time. With time, the initial company engaged itself in a number of mergers and several acquisitions too with other companies (Pederson, 2005). It was later named Arriva in the year 1997 and then later became a subsidiary of the Deutsche Bahn in the year 2010. During its formation, the company engaged itself in dealing with second-hand motorcycles that collapsed after some time. In the years 1948, the motorcycle business was re-launched by the founder’s son and in 1965; the company bought its first out of the many cars dealerships (Pederson, 2005). In the year 2011, the Arriva Company bought Grand Central Railways and at the same time sold its Arriva Scotland West bus operations. In the month of May 2013, the company acquired Veolia Transport’s Central European merchandise with its 3400 vehicles. At October the same year, Arriva employed 55,900 people and had operations of up to 1.5 billion passenger journeys annually. The company mainly engages itself in operating coaches, buses, trains, trams and waterbus in fourteen different countries across Europe (Pederson, 2005). INTRODUCTION The concept of sustainability has been given a lot of attention over the past few years. Projects linked to sustainability are placed in a position whereby they can harvest the benefits of the concept either directly or indirectly. The process is often characterized by many challenges resulting from the different perception of what the sustainability program entail. It also faces challenges due to lack of funding, lack of dedicated resources and lack of champions for the program (Coughlan and Coghlan, 2011). The primary goal of this presentation is to help the organization and the employees in it to engage in the process of sustainability initiatives via the organization through the provision of case studies and tools that the business values to be of importance in its operations. It is important to first find out and understand the kind of information that is available in the organization (Coughlan and Coghlan, 2011). It is imperative to know how the existing officials and workers in the organization have been contributing to sustainability initiatives fruition in the organization. The tools for achieving all this are also important to note. Definitions of Sustainability Sustainability can be best defined by understanding its core pillars that are, economy, ecology and equality. For any program to be counted as fully sustainable, it must entail these three elements. The economic pillar talks about the economic viability of the organization in question and includes the financial viability that focuses on both the long-term and short-term returns (Coughlan and Coghlan, 2011). The ecological pillar focuses on the viability of the planet related to the consumption of humans and the use. It is inclusive of developing standard business practices that consider the long-term effect of the organizations tasks to the environment. The last pillar of equality tries to address the social justice within the organization and ensure fairness and equitable accessibility to all the stakeholders. The overall quality of the lives of the communities served needs to be considered in this pillar (Blecker, Kersten and Ringle, 2013). These concepts always look to be very simple but are often very difficult to put into practice. The only sure way of selling these concepts to the employees of any organization is only by making each of these pillars relevant to each stakeholder across the three pillars of sustainability. Sustainability improvement initiatives and the planning The primary initiatives that help the Arriva company in achieving and maintaining its route towards sustainability is through; Sustainability Initiative Saves Money The company has had a target of meeting of over one hundred sustainability targets in the last tree years. There is a close review of recent achievement in the design of the facilities in the company. The company has worked to honor and meet the sustainability commitments to the Planet. From the time when sustainability commitment was put in place, the company should have saved a lot of resources in the process (Hitchcock, Willard and AtKisson, 2008). These savings should be done under the reduction initiative that I would introduce in this company if given the opportunity. Target plan initiative While as an employee in the company, I would work tirelessly to improve the companys target plan. To come up with a satisfactory target plan, the organization is bound to make a strong executive team with a stable and reliable board of directors. The intended plan should place its focus on the conservation of the resources available to the organization. The conservation is aimed at making more financial savings and also other resources that are used in the company like energy and water (Hitchcock, Willard and AtKisson, 2008). The board should be in a position to think of several ways of making investments in the company, they may recommend the use of total cost ownership approach in the company. The approach will be taken to make sure that the company incorporates the ongoing costs when considering capital investments (Mohrman and Shani, 2011). Incorporating Leadership For sustainability to be effective, it must start with the top management of the company. The board of directors and the branch manager should be in the forefront in ensuring that the policies made in the company are geared towards sustainability. The management may decide, for example, to use the green team approach in order to empower the employees and the other stakeholders. The companys staff also needs to be educated about the program so that they are all aware of the initiative (Mohrman and Shani, 2011). The result of this will be an organization of well-informed employees who in turn will buy the idea of sustainability and absorb it with a lot of ease. Partnering with other organizations and bodies with this kind of knowledge will also be beneficial to the organization. The benefits may result from the exchange of ideas from one organization to the other and the gained knowledge is then applied to the company towards sustainability. Exchange programs may also work as an alternative to and some knowledge will be acquired and applied from one organization to the other (Mohrman and Shani, 2011). If given a chance to work in this organization, I will make sure that the practices mentioned are put into practice for sustainability n this particular company. Revenue Driver integration to sustainability initiative Some sustainability initiatives may be used as drivers of revenue for the organization and especially the livable streets initiative if applied. If the practice of sustainability is well maintained in the company, there might be a lot of benefits attached to this. The benefits might be attractions to other organizations that will then opt to learn how the whole thing is done fro this company (Hitchcock and Willard, 2007). The result will be some payments will be made for capacity building and seminars thus raising some revenue for the company. For this o happen, lots of media campaigns and display of facts must be done for the company. Implementation issues associated with sustainability In the process of initiating the sustainability principle to the company, there are some expected challenges that the person driving the whole thing will face. One of the major challenges that might result in the implementation process is that of making sustainability drive within the company while at the same time being faced with some direct economic changes in the company (Blecker, Kersten and Ringle, 2013). The solution to this problem can come from leaders by putting a lot of focus on the sustainability initiatives that are ought to bring cost savings, by either energy efficiencies, reduction of consumables and the enhancement of the companies operations. The leaders of the company may also find hope in the one-time, competitive grant opportunities that will enable them to finance the improvements that are in the position of delivering returns-on-investments (Hitchcock and Willard, 2007). Long-term vs. Short-term issues The other hurdle for those in the process of implementing the sustainability initiative is that of long-term versus short-term thinking. An example is that of constructing a maintenance facility within the organization that is certified and the activity employs some of the most advanced technologies in the world that require a lot of capital to acquire. Though sustainable, the amount of money to be invested in this project can be difficult for the implementers of the sustainability initiative to come up with. The result is a delay in the process of implementing the initiatives. It is also hard to convince the top management and especially the managers to play a part in these long-term initiatives as most of them are usually in the office for a very short period ranging from two to four years. Staffing Levels issues The acquisition of adequate human resource in the organization to aid in the sustainability initiative also acts as a major problem to the implementation of the initiative. The main problem arises when trying to balance the needs of the company in hard economic times. Most of the finances are directed towards the development of the company rather than in the implementation of the initiatives thereby affecting their adoption in the company. It’s also hard to maintain the companys employees to be fully devoted to sustainability and it may look like a luxury to many of them. It is for this reason that most of the employees are not devoted towards the implementation of these initiatives and instead, they put their efforts in other posts. To overcome this, the company needs to set aside funds for developing and implementing the initiatives early in advance to avoid a situation of conflict of interest. Politics and Partisanship issues The hardest challenge that may arise in the implementation process is that of politics and partisanship about sustainability. In most organizations, the term sustainability has been politicized which has resulted in the process of supporting sustainability initiative political too. The most cited means for the implementation team to solve this problem is through articulating a given business case for the intended initiatives without considering the value attached to them. Validating the initiative  Services of the Arriva Company on its sustainable expansions should be strictly validated in two potential ways. The first means of validation is through the recognition of the third party standards. For the number of services provided by he company, third party standards should also be considered, as they exist in reality (Mohrman and Shani, 2011). The consideration of these standards will, therefore, result in all stakeholder involvement and will lead to sustainability. The second validation of the initiatives may be done through the use of sustainable product scorecard. The scorecard is applicable for a number of solutions to automotive lightweight design of the vehicles used by the company. Conclusion In conclusion, the above sustainability initiatives will help the company in saving a lot of money and at some point raising revenue through the same avenue. It is in order therefore for the company to adopt these initiatives for its well being. All the employees need to contribute to the implementation process so that they enjoy the benefits of the sustainability initiatives. References Blecker, T., Kersten, W. and Ringle, C. (2013). Pioneering solutions in supply chain performance management. Lohmar: Eul. Coughlan, P. and Coghlan, D. (2011). Collaborative strategic improvement through network action learning. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar. Hitchcock, D. and Willard, M. (2007). The Business guide to sustainability. London: Sterling, VA : Earthscan. Hitchcock, D., Willard, M. and AtKisson, A. (2008). The step-by-step guide to sustainability planning. London: Earthscan. Mohrman, S. and Shani, A. (2011). Organizing for sustainability. Bingley: Emerald Group Pub. Pederson, J. (2005). International directory of company histories. Detroit, Mich.: St. James Press. Read More