MGMT 400
27 August 2020
Question 1
Consider the following processes that you frequently encounter:
(a) Shopping for groceries.
(b) Taking a class.
Describe each process and its inputs, activities, and outputs. What is being converted or
transformed in each process? Who are the customers, suppliers, and stakeholders for each
process?
When shopping for groceries, inputs include money and the effort that you put into the
shopping process. Activities in the shopping process include spending money, where money
exchanges hands from the buyer to the seller. Another activity that happens is the labor that is
involved (the physical activity of going to do grocery shopping). The output becomes the
groceries that are bought. When taking a class, the input is the amount of time that you spend
taking the class, while the activities include going to the class physically, listening, writing down
notes, and the teacher sharing knowledge and information with students. The output here
becomes the acquisition of knowledge and mastery of concepts by students. When doing
grocery shopping, money is transformed into goods or services, and when taking a class, students
become transformed/converted into educated and learned individuals. When doing grocery
shopping, the customers include the person doing the shopping, and the seller who is selling the
groceries since he/she must have obtained them from another person, most likely a farmer. The
, suppliers in grocery shopping include the people who sold the different grocery items to the
seller at the grocery store, and the stakeholders include the supplier of the grocery items, the
seller, and the customer who buys them. When taking a class, customers include the students,
and the suppliers are the teachers, book sellers, and the non-teaching staff such as the cleaners
because they supply the service of cleaning the classrooms. The stakeholders here include
students, teachers, non-teaching staff, the book sellers, and the school management who build the
classrooms.
Question 2 a
Describe the differences between goods and services. How do the differences make the
processes designed to provide services more difficult to manage than processes designed to
provide goods?
Goods are tangible products, while services are intangible – we cannot really touch them,
e.g. education and experiences. Goods can be stored (inventoried) since we can touch them, but
services cannot be stored. In the process of producing goods, there is less customer contact
involved until the very end of that process (when selling the goods), whereas in the process of
offering services, there is extensive customer contact involved. When producing goods, one has a
long time to come up with the finished product (long lead time), but in the provision of services,
there is short lead time because customers are not usually willing to wait a long time to be
offered a service. When it comes to goods, one can be easily assured of quality, but when it
comes to services, it is much harder to assess quality, and assessing the quality of services (for
example through reviews and evaluations) is quite subjective and inaccurate when compared to
the determination of the quality of goods. The process of making goods transforms the materials
27 August 2020
Question 1
Consider the following processes that you frequently encounter:
(a) Shopping for groceries.
(b) Taking a class.
Describe each process and its inputs, activities, and outputs. What is being converted or
transformed in each process? Who are the customers, suppliers, and stakeholders for each
process?
When shopping for groceries, inputs include money and the effort that you put into the
shopping process. Activities in the shopping process include spending money, where money
exchanges hands from the buyer to the seller. Another activity that happens is the labor that is
involved (the physical activity of going to do grocery shopping). The output becomes the
groceries that are bought. When taking a class, the input is the amount of time that you spend
taking the class, while the activities include going to the class physically, listening, writing down
notes, and the teacher sharing knowledge and information with students. The output here
becomes the acquisition of knowledge and mastery of concepts by students. When doing
grocery shopping, money is transformed into goods or services, and when taking a class, students
become transformed/converted into educated and learned individuals. When doing grocery
shopping, the customers include the person doing the shopping, and the seller who is selling the
groceries since he/she must have obtained them from another person, most likely a farmer. The
, suppliers in grocery shopping include the people who sold the different grocery items to the
seller at the grocery store, and the stakeholders include the supplier of the grocery items, the
seller, and the customer who buys them. When taking a class, customers include the students,
and the suppliers are the teachers, book sellers, and the non-teaching staff such as the cleaners
because they supply the service of cleaning the classrooms. The stakeholders here include
students, teachers, non-teaching staff, the book sellers, and the school management who build the
classrooms.
Question 2 a
Describe the differences between goods and services. How do the differences make the
processes designed to provide services more difficult to manage than processes designed to
provide goods?
Goods are tangible products, while services are intangible – we cannot really touch them,
e.g. education and experiences. Goods can be stored (inventoried) since we can touch them, but
services cannot be stored. In the process of producing goods, there is less customer contact
involved until the very end of that process (when selling the goods), whereas in the process of
offering services, there is extensive customer contact involved. When producing goods, one has a
long time to come up with the finished product (long lead time), but in the provision of services,
there is short lead time because customers are not usually willing to wait a long time to be
offered a service. When it comes to goods, one can be easily assured of quality, but when it
comes to services, it is much harder to assess quality, and assessing the quality of services (for
example through reviews and evaluations) is quite subjective and inaccurate when compared to
the determination of the quality of goods. The process of making goods transforms the materials
