Management Information Systems At Singer Information Technology Essay

Management Information Systems At Singer Information Technology Essay Companies today are more dynamic and complex in terms of their products and operations. Therefore in order to survive in the challenging modern business environment the management needs information on their organization as well as the industry at the touch of a fingertip. Having appropriate information systems for the business processes help companies to have clarity across all aspects of their business, allowing them to act quickly with increased insight, efficiency, and flexibility. With information systems companies can reduce costs, optimize performance, and gain the insight and agility needed to close the gap between strategy and execution. Objective The objectives of this study comprises of the evaluation of business processes and information systems that support these business processes in the organization selected Singer (Sri Lanka) PLC, identification of areas where information systems have not been introduced yet and the suggested proposals to fill in these areas. The study describes in detail about the business and information process of Singer. 1.3 Methodology For this study, information was collected mainly through an in-depth analysis of the processes at Singer. In addition user manuals, articles by various scholars and books were referred in order to relate the Singer practices to the industry standards. INTRODUCTION ABOUT THE COMPANY SINGER (SRI LANKA) PLC Singer Sri Lanka started its operation in 1872 in Sri Lanka and is a Company that has grown over the years into a benchmark entity in Sri Lanka in terms of popularity, modernity and reach. Singer today is synonymous with quality, wide reach, and wide product range across diverse lines and wide appeal to consumers across the entire spectrum of buying power. Source: Singer (Sri Lanka) PLC Annual report 2007 With its inception through the sewing machine, Singers product portfolio has diversified to encompass a highly successful multi-brand strategy combining products of top world marques with the companys own products across a range of household, industrial and financial categories. Over the years Singer structure has strengthen immensely to incorporate with the strategies formulated to face the changers in the environment. Singer Sri Lanka has only around 10 brands in early 2000 and mainly concentrated on market penetration by providing affordable products to the mass market. In order to bring down the pricing, the company has moved to strategic sourcing of its major brands through an intermediary which purchases for the entire south Asian region which affects economies of scale. Singer has moved to differentiation and multi brand strategy to enter into a new era of retailing. In all categories, with different brands positioned to appeal to the different customer segments. Figure 2.2 Singer trade name has changed to SINGER Plus from SINGER on 1st of January 2007 and the slogan to MORE BRAND MORE CHOICE. It enables to increase the appeal to customers and the message of choice available in the stores. . Our journey into multi-branding commenced in 1996. With Singer as the parent retailing brand, we have acquired distribution rights for some leading brands in the world picked by a careful selective process. Among brands falling within our supervision are Whirlpool No. 1 Home Maker in the World, TCL largest manufacturer of Televisions worldwide, Hitachi the Japanese leader in Electronics and two heritage brands Sisil and Panasonic. The recent appointment as National Distributor for Samsung, leading electronics brand in the world and Philips, another global heritage brand, exemplifies our diversity and we believe will significantly add to our future revenue earning potential. Source: Chairmans Review Singer (Sri Lanka) Limited Annual Report 2007 Singer has moved to multi channel strategy to cater to the different market segments. Singer has identified and divided its customer base into different categories based on their purchasing power, level of education, standard of living, brand loyalty, etc. different channels are there to cater for these different customer groups, which have shown in the figure 2.3. Figure 2.3: Multi Channel Strategy Source: Singer (Sri Lanka) PLC Annual report 2007 LEVEL OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY USE AT SINGER (SRI LANKA) PLC Singer (Sri Lanka) has already implemented the ERP system (Powered by IFS) and this is greatly help in numerous ways. It provides lots of benefit to the organization such as it makes available in real time data, providing tools for planning and monitoring various business processes, facilitating customer interaction, maintain the records of entire customer base, speedy attention in customer complaints, etc. Singer as a trading company always used to practice modern technology and try to be edge over the other competitors in the similar industry. They have many Information Technology (IT)/Information Systems (IS) systems that provide various value adding and support functionality through the business processes. 3.1 ERP System: Through ERP system Singer handle all the transactions and information regarding the manufacturing, logistics, distribution, shipping, invoicing, accounting, human resources, shop sales, market campaigns, bargain or auction sales, promotion activities, etc. So in practice Singer district managers first getting the orders from their relevant shop managers in product wise and then they pass it to the area managers. Then the area managers review that and giving the information to the sales department. Then with the involvement of product managers, sales manages and sales director they have further adjust those figures and release the forecast for the next 03 months period. This cycle happen every month in continuous basis. ERP system helps a lot to keep this wheel turning. 3.2 Inventory Management System: Managing inventory for more than 1000 Stock Keeping Units (SKUs), delivering from 4 warehouses in separate location and to fulfill the requirement of more than 550 Shops Island wide is not an easy task. For that Singer have to have sophisticated inventory management system since over inventory results in tied up of money unnecessarily and shortage in inventory is directly resulting in loosing the customer as well. To over come both these issues Singer already implemented reliable Inventory Management System as main application software of ERP system. 3.3 Human Resource Information System: This system has installed with the Finger Scan System as well. Finger Scan Units will be installed at the required entry and exit points. The employees will point their fingers on these machines each time they enter or exit the work site. The machine stores this information in its memory and will transfer the same on to a PC as and when required. This system can provide summarized outputs such as Time In/Out reports, Absenteeism, Late Arrival, Attendance Summary, Over Time Report, Leave Report, Individual Employee Report and Integration to payroll, etc. 3.4 Financial Accounting Module: This is one of the key modules at Singer. It has control and monitoring features in receivables and collections management, dispute management, reconciliation, and auditing. Daily financial transactions can be tabulated at any given point of time and able to generate more useful results for the decision management purposes. Some of the results can be generated from this software are; Profit and Loss account, Balance Sheet, Cash Flow Statement, Variance Reports, Aged Analysis Reports, Non Moving Report, Obsolete Item List, Transfer Pricing report, etc. 3.5 Material Master Module: Raw Material stock at warehouses and stores are managed through this module. Authorized staff (eg: Production Managers) can request for goods (eg: Goods needed for forecasted production), and store keepers can release materials upon receiving necessary authorization. Any shortages in materials can be viewed from the purchasing department and they can order materials based on these requisitions. This module helps purchasing management to meet necessary re-order levels, and warehouse operations also have been smoothened. 3.6 Enterprise management and support: This is the most important and busiest module of ERP at Singer. This module handles day-to-day operation related matters such as purchase requests, purchase orders handling, payment processing, etc. 3.7 Sales System / Sales Force Automation System: Sales system at Singer is similar to key organizations in that nature. It would tracks all the sales done by the organization at the time of invoicing the product and keep on updating the system. This system is crucial in terms of operational efficiency and strategic value. IT department should ensure smooth operations of the sales system in order to avoid sales duplications. 3.8 Internet Access via a Company Lease Line: Singer has given internet facility to all executives via a separate SLT line leased by the company. This helps managers to update with latest tools and facilitate to get required information on time. Exchange server system is the controlling server of company email system. It provides both client based and web based email solutions to internal staff. 3.9 Black Berry Phones for All Directors: Timely decisions are vital factor for the success of any organization. Since the directors are involve with corporate level expansion activities most of the time they are out of the office and the large number of important mails are pile up in their PCs waiting for a approval or quick decisions for further actions. The new CEO has identified this gap and decided to offer Black Berry phones for all directors to overcome this matter. 3.10 Lap Tops For All Managers (Entitle for Replacement Computers): All replacement due computers belongs to managers have replaced with Lap Tops to enable managers to do urgent office work even they are at home. More significantly this would help managers to answer for the important e-mails without any delay. 3.11 Sophisticated CNC Machines: All new machines purchased by the Singer factories are decided to go for sophisticated CNC machines, mostly imported from European countries and always compatible with the latest technology and the software available. As an example engineers are doing all the designs in their PCs by using common design software like AutoCAD, Pro-Engineering, etc and directly transfer those data to the CNC machine as it is. Then these machines are able to convert it to machine coding and no need to do the manual programming again, which save a lots of time and money to the company. 3.12 Well Trained And Updated Live Ware: All level of staff starting from key managers to junior clerks, well trained for using the available systems and software and also promote to do the improvements by their own. COMPETITIVE PRIORITIES OF SINGER (SRI LANKA) PLC A product or service should have key attributes to be competitive in the market place. These are known as the competitive priorities. The competitive priorities may change with the market segment. For example, customers in a rural area may be interested primarily in the cost of product while the customers in urban areas are interested in quality of the same product. (Chandana, 2009, p.9) Cost Or Price As A Competitive Priority Type of competitive strategy with which the organization aggressively seeks efficient facilities, pursues cost reductions, and uses tight cost controls to produce products more efficiently than competitors (Daft, 2009, p.240) Manufacturing plants should plan their systems in such a way that all resources such as material, labour and machines are efficiently used to bring down the cost significantly. Also company should make sure to keep sufficient margin to cover all other overhead before going to reduce the selling price to get more volumes. Quality As A Competitive Priority Quality should be there in every aspect including design quality, process quality, product quality, service quality, etc. While maintaining ISO 9001:2000 standards factories are make sure that every item produced up to the required or expected level in terms of both quality of conformance and quality of design. To continue that everybody was well trained and responsible to maintain the required quality standards in each working point as specified in the documents (work instruction lists). In overall companys point of view its also a crucial factor to maintain the balance approach between the price and quality of all the products. So to have a full range of products in each categories company decided to go with multi brand strategy, where the company doesnt want to compromise quality and damage the brand image due to get the price advantage. This differentiation strategy is also a type of competitive priority with which involves attempts to distinguish the firms products or services from others in the industry (Daft, 2009, p.239) Flexibility As A Competitive Priority With the bath production operation system in factories they are able to produce variety of products, develop new products, able to do some product changes to fit the customer specifications and also quickly able to respond increasing and decreasing demand due to the seasonal sales pattern. Manufacturing system is also able to undertake bulk special orders at a competitive price and deliver within a shorter time period. Company highly believes there should be a flexibility and variability in all categories. That is also another reason company has moved to differentiation and multi brand strategy to enter into a new era of retailing as explained earlier; in all categories, with different brands positioned to appeal to the different customer segments in terms of quality and the price. Delivery: Speed And Dependability As A Competitive Priority As a policy Singer is maintaining one month finished goods inventory in all SKUs in general and 1.5 to 2 months finished goods inventory for identified fast moving items in the sub warehouse. Singer also has the island wide distribution network with more than 500 shops and goods are transporting everyday to all locations from the central warehouse. Shops are also permit to keep sufficient inventory in their stores and with that the factories and company can assure they can deliver products on time and most often customers can get the products without waiting. Service As A Competitive Priority Singer provide unmatched service to their customers by giving not just a product but with a full package which include super shopping environment, friendly customer care staff, product demonstration, discount schemes, easy payment schemes, free delivery to the door step, free installation, customer training, free services for selected items like A/Cs, extended warranty scheme, excellent after sales service, etc. In other words simply customer doesnt have to worry about any other thing after purchasing the item. MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS USED AT SINGER (SRI LANKA) TO GIVE A COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE ERP Implementation At Singer In year 2005 ERP was a quite new concept for the Sri Lankan businesses, the majority have heard that ERP is a tool which can integrate the individual divisional business processes and give information about the entire organization and increase the efficiency. Usually Singer is well known company for try out new concepts in the industry in its nature. The requirement of implementation came into the picture in the top to bottom approach, which is the normal case at Singer. Even though before the idea of ERP emerge there were no big issues in the existing processes and whatever the IS used, senior management started to see large loop holes in the existing systems compared to the capabilities of ERP. The introduction of the ERP to the existing setup required comprehensive study, lot of changes and reengineering to the existing processes. Actually this can be considered as one of the major revolutions which Singer has gone through the short history which is less than two decades. The senior management view ERP as an IT system rather IS. The main reason was nobody wanted to understand the difference between IS IT, or even nobody realized these are two different things and ERP implementation is an IS project not an IT alone. The best example of ignorance of IS aspect is throughout the revolutions of the organization structures at Singe r they have not thought of IS managers, only about IT managers. There has not been a job description of an IS manager nor the IS functions inside IT manager. It is essential to look at any IT related changes to be done to the organization in an IS perspective. Since the senior management identified ERP implementation as an IT task, they did not thought it about on the IS perspective. Thus the ERP implementation team was formed as an IT team. The attitude toward ERP from the middle management and rest of the organization was in the negative side at the initial phase. They visualize ERP as a tool which will be introduced by senior management with the support of IT team to find the mistakes and audit individuals on their deliverables. For an example warehouse managers saw ERP as a watch dog who can report the inefficiencies of the warehouse. He never understood ERP as a tool which can increase his efficiency. The problem is not with either the managers or ERP, it is due to the human nature. As human beings anybody does not like to change, there is an inherent resistance for change. Therefore it is the duty of the steering committee to make the environment and culture where employees are ready for change. This is nothing related IT, but its completely related to the IS. Simply the attitude should be changed slowly where employees will say yes we need the change. One major reason for not doing proper change preparation was the strict timeline for the ERP implementation. Thus some of the key aspects of IS has been ignored. It is a known fact that sometimes we need to do the changes gradually, when the resistance is high. Therefore this could have been a good strategy if Singer ERP implementation was initially well planned and introduced as a gradual change. Even though the ERP implementation went with a rapid phase it was 50% successful at the first attempt because of the visionary leadership of the chairman Mr. Hemaka Amarasooriya. The formation of the ERP implementation was done with the majority of IT personnel but with the presence of representatives of key divisions. At this stage most of the middle managers did not treat this seriously and they asked somebody from his/her division in the ERP team, but the member was frequently changed when divisional workload increases. Thus there were no dedicated representatives from key departments. On the other hand middle managers do not involve in reviewing the progress. Further in 2005 Singer did not have well defined and documented processes to handle the day to day work. The general working culture was heavily depending on the manager of the division. There were lots of situational decisions taken by the managers with the gut feeling and most of the time they worked fine. Eventually what happened was the existing process was not thoroughly studied by the ERP team and they came up with an inappropriate reengineering plan to fit ERP into Singer processes. In a nutshell, this plan was not to customize the ERP into the Singer culture, but to customize Singer culture in such a way that it will fit ERP general template. For an example if we compare the finished goods delivery for a particular location, previously it was approved by the district managers or area managers. At that point they decide exact quantity to go there and make the delivery note for the ware house team. Then if the goods are available they will directly deliver them and acknowledge the originator. If the products are not available warehouse will contact the requester and ask for a modification with available types of products. Sometimes this make the things to get delayed but good situational decisions were possible. When this process was cutover to the ERP, the process was modified. Th e new request was to be selected among pre defined product sets. Therefore if any single product was short, system will not allow to select that template and choose an equivalent to unavailable product from the list. This became a big restriction for day to day operation, because in majority of the cases people were used to do customization according to the situation and send the goods to the shops. Eventually the efficiency achieved by integrating warehouse and material planning is of no use due to the restrictions which were not thought of at the planning stage. Even though the above discussed example is related to product delivery similar examples are spreaded across the company with the ERP implementation. The major reason for this was lack of the support given by experienced staff when the ERP implementation was planned. The ERP implementation at Singer in year 2005 was an exercise of more than 2 years, but not fully bad experience; even there were highly impacted cases. The finance department got much enhancement for their day to day operations because almost the entire business was integrated compared to previous individual MIS run at individual departments. For an example the finance manager can get an entire view on the financial status online and drill down to micro detail for analysis purposes. Further the documentation work of the ware house material ordering departments were reduced immensely. Because prior to ERP the same information which was entered in different systems at different departments. Sometimes due to mistakes the same information recorded by two departments was not identical. Since ERP integrated all the departments via the processes, information was accurate and available online. Even though ERP was took the cold start and kept on moving with day to day work, Singer did not stop the previous systems overnight. It was like a parallel operation of the previous systems and ERP. This was a very good decision, because otherwise there could have been a significant impact and delays due to the initial problems ERP faced. At the ground level running ERP had lot of operational issues because the existing systems were not studied properly and necessary reengineering was not done. The next biggest problem was the real users of ERP were not feeding the accurate data in to the ERP system. This was mainly due to the culture which was established in the lower levels of the company. Majority was interested in doing the job properly, but hated the documentation work. Thus they entered some data for the sake of completion; this was severe because the initial ERP system was not equipped with proper data validation mechanisms. Again this was not a limitation of ERP; it was an issue of customization and implementation. For an example when issuing products for a new location (shop), there was a requirement to fill something in the location/shop name field. So the person who is issuing the delivery note just enters some word as the location/shop name. Therefore for the financial department it would be like junk information, because they cannot perform the assets capitalization at shop level. After few month of the operation this problem was noticed and resulted in doing a n audit on the entire network on the shop level. Plenty of money was spent on this audit just to correct some mistake which were not anticipated at the beginning due to tight time schedule. After running ERP for about six months all the people began to realize that ERP implementation have lot of problems than expected. The employees from the bottom was complaining and raising the voice that the ERP is not functioning properly and signs of failures of entire system were popping out, since ERP is the only integrated system running in Singer. For an example in first quarter of 2007 employees freely express their views to senior management on the problems of ERP. These motivated the senior management to take the bottom up approach and relook at the ERP again. Eventually management took a serious call and formed cross functional teams (CFT) to find the problems in ERP and iron them out. This was initiated in second quarter of 2007 and given a time line of 12 months. More importantly real hard users of ERP was put into the CFTs and take out all the issues of the system. Then there was an ERP consultant in each CFT, who has to solve the issues with the agreement of the team. Finally the CFT has to certify and sign off there are no more identified issues in the ERP. This became a fruit full exercise due to following reasons, Actual users became a part of the team who studied the issues in the system. Each CFT was equipped with ERP consultant IT department played the role of IS with the support of all the divisions Senior management support and guidance Last but not least attitude of the organization was to correct whatever issues with ERP and move forward to face the competition. Finally after about 2 years of period Singer was able to make ERP a success. In any successful project there is plenty of room for improvement, thus that global rule applies to Singer ERP as well. For an example currently the ERP operates as an internal system, but the capability of ERP is far beyond. The present supply chain should be extended to include the suppliers, distributors and business partners, though internet to guarantee a smoother process of ordering and purchasing of goods with minimum time-to-market, stock holdings, less problems. Singer should improve and use the present ERP system to access suppliers and distributors stock databases on-line and in real time to check stock levels. There should be information integration, planning synchronization and work flow coordination to achieve this goal. With a fully fledged SCM and close cooperation with the each organization in the supply chain will add value, reduce costs, improve flexibility and increase responsiveness of Singer. Information Systems In The Human Resource Department One can ask why we need IS for the HR department, but actually IS can improve the HR department functions extensively in a large organization like Singer. Human Resource Management Information Management System is vital organization, where manual record keeping is an inefficient task. For an example let us recall the method of sending birthday greeting to employees. If the data was not available in the computer and it is in the personal files clerk or assistant should routinely check for the upcoming birthdays and trigger the sending of birth day card. But thank to computers every morning there is a pop up with the names of the birthday celebrities. At Singer, its HRIS basically performs three services, Record keeping parallel to the traditional method of keeping hardcopies in the personal file, all the information is fed to HR database. This database is shared in the intranet at different access security levels. For an example the basic information is shared among everybody, but personal and HR specific data are limited to selected HR personnel. Even though IT is used for record keeping it can be seen that the work is duplicated by keeping hard copies too. Thus it is recommended to limit the hardcopy based record keeping to the documents which have a legal requirement. Otherwise the IT use is not optimized in the aspect of record keeping. Facilitating human resource operations Thanks to the HRIS majority of the HR operations are computerized. For example staff recruitment, attendance and leave recording, linking up with payroll, performance appraisal, training management are done using the HR portal, and this saves a lot of time. HRIS is accessible to any staff in the company. Staff performs all their administrative requests via the HRIS portal and the relevant supervisor can approve or reject the relevant request from the system itself. There will be automatic email alerts sent to relevant parties by HRIS, if any task is pending to be performed by a person. Therefore HRIS is linked with the exchange server of the organization to facilitate this feature. Staff personnel file details are scanned and stored securely, in addition to the hard copies for back-up and easy retrieval purposes. Payroll system is connected to the HRIS to minimize intermediate human intervention. The human resource management can retrieve custo mized reports from HRIS such as, division wise staff attendance, overall working hours, division/ unit wise performance etc. Reporting for management decision making Since the entire aspects of HR is computerized, it is very easy to do data mining and come of with summaries which will ease the decision making with quantitative figures. The cost reduction Initiatives Company has implemented in the recent past has been taken with the support of HRIS data. Another important support HR got by means of IT was implementing the forced ranking performance appraisal. Since 2006 Singer was trying to implement the forced ranking in the annual performance evaluation. This was initiated to make sure the best performers will be filtered and top percentage will be rewarded. The majority of the company did not like this bell curve method because it can deteriorate the team culture, but the management wanted to implement this and the HR was trying hard. Somehow the exceptional performance of the company made HR to deviate from the forced bell curve. The major reason was the power and politics of the line managers. For an example the line manager who was doing the performance evaluation ranked everybody in his team with A+, for a year he has achieved targets exceptionally. After couple of rounds of discussions HR changes their mind and agree with the line manager. Therefore consecutive two years of failure on implementation of bell curve based ranking, HR decided to get the support of IT. IT modified the existing HRIS in such a way that a single manager cannot submit his evaluation on his team if he does not adhere to the bell curve. With this manager was not supposed to mark A+, A, B, C D they had to give marks out of 100, but cannot give identical marks. Then the system will rank them accordingly. So one can give almost 99% to all employees, but system will rank using the differences in decimal places. Eventually in 2008 HR was able to implemented to bell curve based ranking in reality without going for personal level arguments with managers, because they used the IS effectively. IDENTIFICATION OF GAPS The information systems (IS) at Singer can be identified from the functional perspective based on the major business functions of sales and marketing, manufacturing and production, finance and accounting and human resources. As illustrated by the following diagram, the IS serve the three different levels of the organization i.e. operational level, management level and strategic level. IS at Operational Level The operational level systems support operational managers in monitoring the daily activities and transactions of the business. At Singer, the sales and marketing function at operational level is supported by four information systems. The order processing, is mainly related to sales and billing at Singer. The material movement control under manufacturing and control is done using ERP System (e.g. Material Master and Plant Maintenance modules). ERP accounting system at Singer enhances the financing and accounting function by tracking the flow of funds in the firm through transactions such as paychecks, payments to vendors, securities reports and receipts. The operational management of Si

Consider the poems Dreaming Black Boy and Epitaph Essay

a) Compare the ways in which these two poems deal with the experience of oppression and racism. b) State which of the two poems you find more disturbing, and give reasons to support your answer. c) Identify and comment on TWO poetic devices used in each poem to highlight the workings of oppression or racism. â€Å"Dreaming Black Boy† and â€Å"Epitaph† are two poems which address the issues of oppression and racism. though they both deal with the same problem, it is handled and discussed differently. In † Dreaming Black Boy†, the persona, a young black boy in school, talks about his aspirations and dreams. He hopes for an end to racism. The persona tries to use his education to try to escape the harsh reality of racism. He not only mentions what is going on around him now, but also the past and even how he would like things to be in the future. He longs for acceptance, a good education, success, to travel and a break from mental slavery. He fails to grasp that despite his intelligence and physical maturity, the racist treatment will continue. Thinking that what he experiences as a young boy is the worst, he has yet to find out how it is in the future. On the other hand, â€Å"Epitaph†, a significantly shorter poem, is about a black slave who was hanged. People stop what they are doing to watch the sight, yet the rest of the world continues to go on. the sugar cane continues to grow. Unlike in â€Å"Dreaming Black Boy†, the persona in â€Å"Epitaph† is an adult, looking on a past occurrence and commenting on how these types of events have impacted on our lives today. â€Å"Epitaph† appears to be the most disturbing as it suggests that many of these slaves’ deaths are forgotten. The idea or notion that life goes on after you die and all you are awarded is a â€Å"pause†. The images in â€Å"Epitaph† are also more graphic. In â€Å"Dreaming Black Boy†, the poet uses euphemism to down play the harsh reality of the young black boy. For example, â€Å"plotters in pajamas† is used to refer to the klu klux klan, a group infamous for the terror they caused on the black race. The main literary device used in â€Å"Dreaming Black Boy† is allusion. The persona alludes to white supremacy groups, a famous singer etcetera, to express the things he would like to change about his reality. â€Å"Epitaph† uses the â€Å"apostrophe† to give a visual image of the black slave hanging and swinging as he is hanged. This metaphor is effective in showing also how the slave has taken on the problems of the black race as his own. And his death belongs to the blacks. It is their history. Racism and slavery are two of the most controversial and oppressive elements in human history. Though both poems differ in style and technique, both successfully describe the physical and emotional effects of racism and oppression (slavery). This success is achieved through the use of allusions, vivid images, symbolic language and even euphemism.

Astonishing Info About College Essay Online Prof Reading Service Uncovered

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Origins Of Servqual Model - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 15 Words: 4523 Downloads: 8 Date added: 2017/06/26 Category Statistics Essay Did you like this example? In chapter 1, an overview of the whole dissertation has been provided. It can be considered as a backbone of the dissertation with the clear objectives and purposes stated. As an illustration, the chapter has mentioned about the overview of Vietnam banking system as well as credit services in Vietnamese bank in general and BIDV in particular. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Origins Of Servqual Model" essay for you Create order Moreover, chapter 1 has also presented about the significance of this study, research scope, research purpose, the research questions, research hypotheses. Moving to chapter 2 of this dissertation, SERVQUAL Model measuring the customer satisfaction and its theories and concepts will be discussed. Moreover, some literature reviews of critical factors determining customer satisfaction in different industries, customer satisfaction on variety of banking services and credit facilities in Vietnam as well as other countries will be mentioned. Lastly, the limitations of previous researches will be concluded. 2.2 SERVQUAL Model 2.2.1 Origins of SERVQUAL Model Managers in banking industry are under increasing pressure to demonstrate that their services are customer à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" focused and that continuous performance improvement is being delivered. Given the financial and resources constrains under which banks must manage it is essential that customer satisfaction are properly met and measured and that from the customer satisfactions, any gaps in services quality are indentified. This information the assists a manager in identified cost à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" effective ways of closing services quality gaps and of prioritizing which gaps to focus on a critical decision given scare resources. SERVQUAL Model which is a popular model of quality research of services and the most common application in the marketing research as well as other industries such as hospitality and economy. It can be said that the origin of SERVQUAL Model is derived from the study of Parasuraman, ZeithamI, and Berry in 1985 based on expectation à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" perception gap model. In 1985 work, Parasuraman, ZeithamI, and Berry illustrated that consumers quality perceptions are influenced by a series of four distinct gaps occurring in organizations. These gaps on the service providers side, which can impede delivery of services that consumers perceive to be of high quality, are: Gap1: Difference between consumer expectations and management perceptions of consumer expectations. Gap2: Difference between management perceptions of consumer expectations and service quality specifications. Gap3: Difference between service quality specifications and the service actually delivered. Gap4: Difference between service delivery and what is communicated about the service to consumers. Gap5: Difference between service expectation and perceived service quality According to Parasuraman, ZeithamI, and Berry (1985), perceived service quality is defined in the model as the difference between consumer expectations and perceptions, which in turn depends on the size and direction of the four gaps associated with the delivery of service quality on the marketers side. In addition, Brown and Bond (1995) stated that the conceptual of service quality also called the expectation à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" perception gap model is one of the best received and most heuristically valuable contributions to the services literature. The model identifies the keys discrepancies or gaps relating to managerial perceptions of service quality, and tasks associated with service delivery to customers. The Gap 1, Gap 2, Gap 3 and Gap 4 are identified as functions of the way in which service is delivered, whereas Gap 5 pertains to the customer and as such is considered to be the true measure of service quality (Shahin A., 2006). 2.2.2 Dimensions of SERVQUAL Model As Shahin A.( 2006) concluded that one service quality measurement model that has been extensively applied is the SERVQUAL model developed by Parasuraman et al . (1985, 1986, 1988, 1991, 1993, 1994; Zeithaml et al. , 1990). SERVQUAL as the most often used approach for measuring service quality has been to compare customers expectations before a service encounter and their perceptions of the actual service delivered (Gronroos, 1982; Lewis and Booms, 1983; Parasuraman et al., 1985). The SERVQUAL Model is derived from the study of Parasuraman, ZeithamI, and Berry in 1985 and originally 10 dimensions of service quality were reliability, responsiveness, competence, access, courtesy, communication, credibility, security, understanding/knowing the customer, tangibles. Later, ZeithamI, Berry and Parasuraman, 1988 tested the variables and reduced them to five factors including tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance (combining communication, credibility, security, competence and courtesy) and empathy (combining understanding and knowing the customer with accessibility (Saleh, F. and Ryan, C., 1991). Figure 2.1 SERVQUAL MODEL Reliability Responsiveness Customer satisfaction Services quality Tangibles Assurance Sympathy Ravichandran et al, 2010 Reliability Reliability shows the ability to provide services accurately, on time, and credibly (Parasuman, Zeithaml and Berry, 1985). This requires consistency in the implementation of services and respects commitments as well as keeps promises to customers. Responsiveness This criterion measures the ability to solve the problem fast, deal with customersà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ complaint effectively and the willing to help customers as well as meet the customersà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ requirements (Parasuman, 1988). In other words, responsiveness is the feedback from banks to what customers want. Tangibles Tangibles are the images of the facilities, equipment, machines, attitude of staffs, materials, manuals, and information systems of the bank (Parasuman, Zeithaml and Berry, 1985). In others words, the tangibles refer to the effect of physical facility, equipment, personnel and communication materials on customer (Sureshchandar, Rajendran and Kamalanabhan, 2001). The atmosphere also called servicescapes influences directly both employees and customers in physiological, psychological, sociological, cognitive and emotional ways (Sureshchandar, 2001). Assurance This element creates credibility and trust for customers, which is considered through professional services, excellent technical knowledge, attitude courtesy, and good communication skills, so that customers can believe in the quality of firmà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s services. Sympathy Sympathy is the caring, consideration, and the best preparation for customers, so that they can feel as à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“guestsà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬? of the firm and are always welcome at any times, anywhere. Human factors are the core of this success and the more caring the bank gives to customers, the more customer understanding increases. 2.2.3 Applications of SERVQUAL Model There is no doubt that a firm wants to survive in a competitive environment, they have to ensure about the quality of products and services they are supplying to the market. Some firms provide only services therefore the quality of services is an important issue for all of these firms. Competing goods firms such as department stores, supermarket may sell a wide range of products and quality of services is a primary means of competitive differentiation. Firms that supply only services like telecommunication companies, airlines etc. have a little to offer if their quality is not good (Berry, 1986). It can be said that SERVQUAL is multiple à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" item scale with good reliability and validity that help firms to have better understanding evaluation the services expectations and perception of customer and improve the services as well. Parasuraman et al. (1988) claimed that à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“SERVQUAL provides a basic skeleton through its expectations/ perceptions format encompassing statements for each of the five service quality dimensions. The skeleton, when necessary, can be adapted or supplemented to fit the characteristics or specific research needs of a particular organizationà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬?. SERVQUAL shows its best valuation when it is used to track service quality trends as well as in combination with other forms of service quality measurement. Moreover, SERVQUAL is used to evaluate the firmà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s quality according to the five services dimensions by averaging the difference scores on items making up the dimensions (Parasuraman et al.,1985). Similarly, an overall measure of service quality in the form of an average score across all five dimensions. Determining the relative importance of the five dimensions affecting customersà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ overall quality perception is one potential application of SERVQUAL. Another application of SERVQUAL is used in categorizing a firmà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s customers into several perceived quality segments on the basis of their individual SERVQUAL scores (Parasuraman et al.,1988). 2.3 Theories and concepts of SERVQUAL Model 2.3.1 Definition 2.3.1.1 Service quality Service quality is a concept that has aroused considerable interest and debate in the research literature because of the difficulties in both defining it and measuring it with no overall consensus emerging on either (Wisniewski, 2001). Besides, there are many different definitions of what is meant by service quality. The most common definition used to define service quality is the extent to which a service meets customersà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ needs or expectations (Lewis and Mitchell, 1990; Dotchin and Oakland, 1994; Asubonteng et al ., 1996; Wisniewski and Donnelly, 1996). Service quality can also be defined as the difference between customer expectations of service and perceived service. If expectations are greater than performance, then perceived quality is less than satisfactory and the result is customer dissatisfaction (Parasuraman et al ., 1985; Lewis and Mitchell, 1990). 2.3.1.2 Customer Satisfaction There are several definitions of customer satisfactions that come from the different point of views of researchers on customer satisfaction. For example, in opinion of Oliver (1981) à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“Satisfaction is a psychological state resulting when the emotion surrounding disconfirmed expectations is coupled with the consumers prior feelings about the consumption experienceà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬?. While Kotler (2000) defined satisfaction as: à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“a personà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s feelings of pleasure or disappointment resulting from comparing a productà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s perceived performance (or outcome) in relation to his or her expectationsà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬?. Hoyer and MacInnis (2001) said that satisfaction can be associated with feelings of acceptance, happiness, relief, excitement, and delight. While Hansemark and Albinsson (2004) stated à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“satisfaction is an overall customer attitude towards a service provider, or an emotional reaction to the difference between what customer s anticipate and what they receive, regarding the fulfillment of some need, goal or desireà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬?. 2.3.2 Service Quality Realizing the growing importance of services quality to compete on the service dimensions of the augmented product, several scholars have examined the problems of measuring and managing service quality (Baumann, Burton, Elliott and Kehr, 2007; Bitner, Booms and Tetreault, 1990; Boulding, Kalra, Staelin and Zeithaml, 1993; Gilbert and Veloutsou, 2006; Parasuraman, Berry and Zeithaml, 1985, 1988, 1990, 1991, 1993; Robledo, 2001). However, service quality is more difficult to measure than goods quality (Gronroos, 1982) due to the intangibility of services. For this reason, firms actually find it more difficult to understand how customers perceive services and evaluate service quality (Zeithaml, 1981). According to Lewis and Booms (1983) service quality is a measure of how well the service level delivered matches customer expectations. Delivering quality service means conforming to customer expectations on a consistent basis. Parasuraman et al. (1985, 1988) also shared the opinion with Lewis and Booms (1983) by the statement: à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“Service quality perceptions result from a comparison of consumer expectations with actual service performanceà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬?. To demonstrate the above statement, Parasuraman et al (1985, 1988) proposed the SERVQUAL scale for measuring the service quality. Cronin et al. (1992) summarized four different measurement models for service quality these are SERVQUAL, SERVPERF, Weighted SERVQUAL, and Weighted SEVPERF. However, SERVPERF was regarded as the best of four models. Furthermore, Martilla et al. (1977) conducted the Importance à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" Performance Analysis which was considered as another measurement for service quality. 2.3.3 Customer Satisfaction Customer satisfaction is generally considered among the most important long term objectives of firms. The marketing concept suggests that a satisfied customer will be more likely to repurchase products or use the services again than those are dissatisfied (Al à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" Wugayan et al., 2007). Al à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" Wugayan et al, (2007) also concluded that it is generally accepted that satisfaction is a psychological state that results from consumer experiences after consumption. Additionally, the basic conceptualizations focus on either or both of two aspects: the customersà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ initial expectations in relation to product attributes and the customersà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ perceptions of the product performance in relation to these expectations. There are many different factors influencing customer satisfaction these are friendly employees, courteous employees, knowledgeable employees, helpful employees, accuracy of billing, billing timeliness, competitive pricing, service quality, good value, billing clarity and quick services (Hokanson, 1995). In order to gain the customer satisfaction, first of all firms have to understand and satisfy their customer needs and wants (La Barbera and Mazursky, 1983). According to Kotler (2000) customersà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ needs illustrate the felt deprivation of a customer. Meanwhile customersà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ wants refer to the form taken by human needs as they are shaped by culture and individual personality. Singh, H. (2006) indicated that customer satisfaction affect positively and directly to an organizationà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s profitability. Hoyer and MacInnis (2001) claimed that satisfied customers form the foundation of any successful business as customer satisfaction leads to repeat purchase, brand loyalty, and positive word of mouth. To some extents, the consequences of a lack of customer satisfaction need to be taken into account. According to Hoyer and MacInnis (2001), dissatisfied consumers can decide to discontinue purchasing the good or service; complain to the company or to a third party and perhaps return the item, or engage in negative word à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" of à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" mouth communication. From summarizing a numerous previous researches about satisfied customer and dissatisfied ones, La Barbera and Mazursky (1983) made a conclusion that à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“satisfaction influences repurchase intentions whereas dissatisfaction has been seen as a primary reason for cus tomer defection or discontinuation of purchaseà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬?. Moreover, customer satisfaction affects positively and directly customer loyalty as well as customer retention. According to Sivadas and Baker-Prewitt (2000), there is an increasing recognition that the ultimate objective of customer satisfaction measurement should be customer loyalty. It can be denied that high customer satisfaction will result in increased loyalty for the firm and that customers will be less prone to overtures from competition (Fornell, 1992). Anton (1996) also shared his opinion with statement: à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“satisfaction is positively associated with repurchase intentions, likelihood of recommending a product or service, loyalty and profitabilityà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬?. Clearly, customer loyalty brings customer retention to repurchase or use the products and services the firms supply. In addition, long-term customer retention in competitive markets requires the business to go beyond mere basic satisfaction and to look for ways of establishing ties of loyalty that will help ward off competitor attack (Clare, 2001). 2.3.4 Relationship between Service Quality and Customer Satisfaction Customer satisfaction is often defined as the customersà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ post-purchase comparison between pre-purchase expectation and performance received (Oliver, 1980; Zeithaml et al., 1993). The relationship between service quality and customer satisfaction has been discussed in numerous previous papers during the past decade. First of all, many researchers present that service quality has positive related relationship with customer satisfaction. In other words, service quality influence customer satisfaction and vice versa customer satisfaction influence quality (Jun and Cai, 2010). There is no doubt that in the worldà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s today intensive competition, once a business wants to survive, they have to improve the service quality that helps them to achieve a different advantage over their rivalries. Service quality, therefore has become one of the critical factors for satisfying and retaining valued customers in every industries and banking is not an exception. Many scholars indicate that high service quality results in customer satisfaction and loyalty with the product or service. A satisfied customer will have the willingness to recommend someone else, reduction in complaints and the bank can achieve the customer retention. Furthermore, a satisfied customer is likely to be a loyal customer who will give repeating business to the firm (Heskett et al., 1997). More importantly, according to Bedi (2010), the cost of retaining existing customer by improving the quality of product and services is perceived to be significantly lower than the cost of achieving the new customers. On the other hand, when regarding the relationship between service quality and customer satisfaction in some industries as banking, some scholars point out that service quality is not related to customer satisfaction under certain circumstances. For example, through numerous studies, Parasuraman et al. (1985) indicated that even though customers were satisfied with a particular service, they did not think that it was of high quality. Another scholar also agrees with this idea, Storbacka et al. (1994, pp. 24) stated that: à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“A customer could, therefore, respond on a questionnaire that a particular bank is of high quality, even if this did not mean this customer was satisfied with using the bank. Its interest rates on loans may be too high or it might not fit the customerà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s preferences for some other reasonà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬?. 2.4 Previous research 2.4.1 Critical summaries of previous research a. Title: Lending Policies of Informal, Formal and Semiformal Lenders à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" Evidence from Vietnam Authors: Thi Thu Tra Pham and Robert Lensink (2007) Country: Vietnam Data collection: the data used in this study are from a household survey on living standard in Vietnam that conducted by Vietnamà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s General Statistical Office in 1998 with the sample of 6,002 households. Summary: This paper aims to compare lending policies of formal, informal and semiformal lenders towards household lending in Vietnam. The study points out that the probability of using formal or semi formal credit increase when borrowers provide collateral, a guarantor and/or borrow for business-related activities. The probability of using informal credit increases for female borrowers. Formal loan contract terms such as loan interest rate and form of loan repayment affect strongly default risk of formal credit. While internal characteristics of the borrowing household influent much on default risk of informal credit. Lastly, this paper aims to explore how different types of lenders try to avoid adverse selection as well as moral hazard by screening, monitoring and enforcement instruments. b. Title: Formal and Informal Rural Credit in Four Provinces of Vietnam Authors: Mikkel Barslund and Finn Tarp (2008) Country: Vietnam Data collection: A survey of 932 rural households (in four provinces of Long An, Quang Nam, Ha Tay and Phu Tho) in combination with information from the 2002 Vietnam Household Living Standard Survey. Summary: This paper aims to indicate how the rural credit market operates in Vietnam. Households can obtain the credit provided by both formal and informal lenders. Normally, formal loans are used for production and asset accumulation, whereas informal loans are supplied for consumption smoothening. The determinants of formal and informal credit demand are extremely different. While credit rationing depends on education and credit history, in particular, regional differences in the demand for credit are striking. The study indicates that credit policy in Vietnam only has one size fits all approach would be inappropriate. c. Title: Research on Customer Satisfaction: Take the Loan Market of the Taiwanese Region as An Example. Authors: Chih-Chung Chen, Su-Chao Chang (2006) Country: Taiwan Data collection: In this study, 650 questionnaires were distributed of which 413 valid questionnaires returned. Moreover, this research also conducted interviews five native branch office managers. Summary: This study aims to examine the feasibility of employing customer satisfaction model in the loan departments of banks. The research presents that once customer expectations are significantly as well as positively related to the bankà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s performance, customer satisfaction and loyalty will be high and the complaints will be few as the result. d. Title: Credit and Non à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" Interest Rate Determinants of Loan Demand: a Spanish Case Study Authors: Manrique, J. and Ojah, K. (2004) Country: Spain Data collection: This survey contains data for 21,155 Spanish households. 430 observations were excluded due to missing and/or inconsistent information, leaving a final sample of 20,725 observations. Summary: This research aims to investigate the potential relationship between the condition of being credit à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" unconstrained and holdings loans as well as the determinants for a household being credit à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" unconstrained, consumer loans and real à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" estate loans. Spanish householdsà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ desire and capacity to hold loans depends on the family size, education, permanent and transitory incomes. Lastly, this research provides deeply insights that attract credit consumers, credit suppliers, and policy makers in Spain. e. Title: Consumer Credit and Money Policy in Malaysia Authors: Kassim, Salina Hj and Manap, Turkhan Ali Abul (2008) Country: Malaysia Data collection: The study uses monthly data from January 1998 until March 2006. Data such as interest rates and bank loans come from Bank Negara Malaysiaà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s Monthly Statistical Bulletin. Data on the economic conditions such as the CPI and the IPI are gathered from the respective publications of the Department of Statistics, Malaysia. Summary: The study aims to find out the consequences of interest rate on consumer credit in Malaysia based on empirical investigation. The authors categorized aggregate consumer loans into specific types including loans for purchase of residential property, loans for credit cards, loans for personal needs, loans for purchase of securities and so on, so forth. Through categorizing types of loans, the paper aims to present the relative sensitivity of each loan to interest rate shocks. f. Title: Credit demand of Rural Enterprise and Loan Supply in China Authors: Du Zhixiong (2004) Country: China Data collection: The two databases were collected during two fields of rural enterprises, undertaken in 2000 and 2001 in different provinces, namely, Jiangsu province in coastal China, and Anhui province in the central part of China. Summary: This study aims to supply the information about the real situation of rural enterprises financing. Moreover, this paper also illustrates information on the banking systemà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s restructuring and the ways banks provide credit for rural enterprises to overcome the financing constraints. Undoubtedly, the article shows useful information on financing of rural enterprises based on using data from two surveys of rural enterprises. g. Title: Deteriorating Bank Health and Lending in Japan: Evidence from Unlisted Companies under Financial Distress Authors: Fukuda, Shin-Ichi, Kasuya, Munehisa, and Nakajima, Jouchi (2006) Country: Japan Data collection: The data are taken from Tokyo Shoko Research (TSR) Database Service about 3644 Japanese unlisted firms. Summary: This study aims to investigate the impacts of banksà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ weakened financial conditions on loans outstanding to medium size firms in Japan. The paper examines the determinants of lending to unlisted Japanese companies in the late 1990s and the early 2000s. Moreover, the study indicates that the bank health, regulatory capital adequacy ratios and ratios of non-performing loans had opposite impacts on lending. In the case of regulatory capital adequacy ratios, its deterioration had a perverse impact on the bankà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s lending. h. Title: An Investigation of the Relationships among Consumer Satisfaction, Loyalty, and Market Share in Kuwaiti loan services Authors: Al-Wugaya, A., Pleshko, L.P., and Baqer, S.M. (2007) Country: Kuwaiti Data collection: the paper used the survey of nearly 700 customers using Kuwaiti loan services. Summary: This research aims to investigate the relationship among customer satisfaction, loyalty, and market share of loan services in Kuwaiti. Based on the research result, the authors indicate that the relationship between customer satisfaction and market share is not supported in banking industry. However, customer loyalty is pointed out to be related to market shares. Moreover, customer loyalty is not derived from customer satisfaction but rather on other factors like price, special deals or bank à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" customer relationship. i. Title: Provisioning of Rural Credit: an Indian Perspective Authors: Mishra, S., Mohanty, A.R., and Choudhury, S. (2009) Country: India Data collection: the survey covering 90,000 rural households in 6,552 villages in India was conducted from January to December 2003 by the National Sample Survey Organization. Summary: The paper aims to analysis rural credit provisioning measures as well as the rural credit delivery scenario in India through different rural financial institution. The study indicates that rural credit delivery still has been suffered from low levels of access to credit by the farming community, declining share of agricultural loan as a share of the total credit uptake, inadequate coverage of small and marginal farmers and exclusion of tenant farmers and share croppers. j. Title: The Incidence of Loan Collateralization in Small Business Lending Contract: Evidence from the UK. Authors: Cowling, M. (1999) Country: the UK Data collection: the data were used as random samples of 272 small businesses from a survey conducted by Association of British Chambers of Commerce. Summary: The paper aims to investigate the relationship between small firms and banks focusing on the incidence of loan collateralization. The study indicates that age of the small firms and close relationship with the banks that helps to reduce the incidence of loan collateralization, which implies that relationship banking can bring tangible benefits to small businesses. 2.4.2 Limitations of previous research General speaking, everything has its own advantages and disadvantages. There is no doubt that previous research has provided readers comprehensive knowledge about sectors it mentioned especially in customer satisfaction as well as credit facilities provided in different countries in general and in Vietnam in particular. However, the previous papers also show their limitations as there were a few studies specializing in credit facilities provided by Vietnamese banks. Further the real situation of credit services in Vietnam including outstanding loans, loan structures well as the quality of credit facilities has not been comprehensively researched. Accordingly, the customer satisfaction on credit facilities was not paid much attention by previous scholars. Therefore it can be said that the previous studies do not provide adequate information about customer satisfaction on credit facilities in Vietnamese banks. 2.5 Criticism of SERVQUAL Model It can be denied that although SERVQUAL has grown popularly and widespread applied it still has been subjected to a number of theoretical and operational criticisms as below. Under theoretical aspects, first of all SERVQUAL is criticized due to its inappropriate base on an expectations disconfirmation model rather than an attitudinal model of service quality. Secondly, it does not build on extant knowledge in economics, statistics and psychology (Francis Buttle (1996). Cronin and Taylor (1992; 1994) said that SERVQUAL is paradigmatically flawed because of its ill-judged adoption of this disconfirmation model. Moreover, they stated that perceived quality is best conceptualized as an attitude. They criticized Parasuraman et al. for their hesitancy to define perceived service quality in attitudinal terms, even though Parasuraman et al. (1988) had earlier claimed that service quality was similar in many ways to an attitude. Another criticism has been proposed by Anderson (1992), he indicated that SERVQUAL fails to draw on previous social science research, particularly economic theory, statistics, and psychological theory. Parasuraman et al.à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s work is highly inductive in that it moves from historically situated observation to general theory. Andersson (1992) reckoned that Parasuraman et al. renounces the principle of scientific continuity and deduction. For theoretical aspects, Francis Buttle (1996) also presented a related set of criticism of SERVQUAL including factors involved in Gaps model, process orientation and dimensionality. In Gaps model, there is little evidence shows that the customer assess quality in terms of Perception à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" Expectation gaps. For process orientation: SERVQUAL has been criticized for concentrating on the process of service delivery rather than focusing on the outcomes of the service encounter such as technical dimensions (Kang and James, 2004). In other words, the SERVQUAL measurement does not adequately explain a technical attribute of service (Ravichandran K., et al, 2010). Dimensionality: SERVQUALà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s five dimensions are not universals; the number of dimensions comprising service quality is contextualized; items do not always load on to the factors which one would a priori expect; and there is a positive inter correlation between the five RATER dimensions (Buttle ,1996). Under operational aspects, many scholars have argued that the components of SERVQUAL fail to fully evaluate customer perception on service quality in certain industries (Cronin Taylor, 1992; Finn and Lamb, 1991). Two attributes of service was proposed by Gronroos (1984) which have been identified as dimensions of service quality relied on the conceptualization of service quality as between expectation of service and perceived service. Rust and Oliver (1994) extended Grunionsà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ model by providing a three-component model explaining service quality through service product, service delivery and service environment. Whereas Brady and Cronin (2001) suggested three service quality dimensions including service outcome, consumer-employee interaction and service environment. It can be said that the conceptualization of service product/service outcome and service delivery/consumer employee interaction is consistent with the idea of technical attribute as well as functional att ribute derived from Gronroosà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ model. (Ravichandran K., et al, 2010). 2.5 Chapter Summary To conclude, first of all SERVQUAL Model measuring the customer satisfaction as well as its theories and concepts have been presented. After that this chapter has reviewed many academic previous researches about critical factors determining customer satisfaction in different industries, customer satisfaction on variety of banking services and credit facilities in Vietnam and other countries have been mentioned. However, these previous researches cannot illustrate perfectly all aspects related to this dissertation therefore the limitations of previous researches have been summarized.