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Improving Service quality using service Blue Print Summer Internship Project
NETAJI SUBHAS INSTITUTE OF BUSINESS MANAGEMENT POKHARI, JAMSHEDPUR

APPROVED BY AICTE, MINISTRY OF HRD, GOVT. OF INDIA AFFILIATED TO KOLHAN UNIVERSITY, CHAIBASA
SUMMER TRAINING PROJECT REPORT ON Improving Service Quality using Service Blueprint in FIRST FLIGHT Couriers FOR THE PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENT FOR THE AWARD OF MASTER IN BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION
Under the Guidance of: Mr. Rahul Under the Supervision of Mr. Ranjeet Choudhary
Submitted by Vivekananda Mahato University Roll No 10MBA210023109 University Registration No: MBA29994/2010 SESSION -MBA 2010-2012 1|Page Netaji Subhash Institute of Business Management
TABLE OF CONTENTS
DECLARATION ............................................................................................................... 4 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT................................................................................................... 7 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ................................................................................................. 8 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................. 9 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ....................................................................................... 21 ANALYSIS ..................................................................................................................... 23 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................... 36 BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................ 37 ANNEXURE ................................................................................................................... 38
2|Page Netaji Subhash Institute of Business Management
LIST OF TABLES
Serial No. 1 2 Details Analysis of the findings Volume of operation
LIST OF FIGURES
Serial No. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Details Service Blueprint Components Number of branches each year Employees each year Business Volume Income from shipments Sales forecast for next 5 years Income from operations
DECLARATION
I Vivekananda Mahato declare that this project is my own work and has not been submitted in any form for another degree or diploma at any university or other institute. This project is being submitted in partial fulfillment for the award of the Masters Degree in Business Administration of Netaji Subhash Institute of Business and Management. Information derived from the published and unpublished work of others has been acknowledged in the text and references are given in the References.
Vivekananda Mahato (10MBA210023109)
CERTIFICATE
This is to certify that Mr. Vivekananda Mahato, student of NSIBM, Pokhari has successfully completed his Summer Internship Project for First Flight Couriers.
Student Name Vivekananda Mahato ______________ (Signature)
CERTIFICATE
This is to certify that Mr. Vivekananda Mahato, student of NSIBM, Pokhari has successfully completed his Summer Internship Project under the guidance of Mr. Rahul.
Student Name Vivekananda Mahato ______________ (Signature) Ms. ____________ (Project Supervisor)
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
It took a long time to come up with an appropriate research project for quality improvement in the service industry using service blueprinting. I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for their support in different forms towards my project.
I hardly know where to start saying thanks to all those who have helped me with this assignment.
It was the great experience working on this project. I express my gratitude to those who lend me with their help to complete this system. I would like to begin with thanking Mr. Rahul, our faculty for his special support and help towards me as no project ever can be executed proficiently and efficiently without the technical expertise, veteran support of an experienced person. So Mr. Rahul gave me the right pathway to move ahead. She has always inspired and guided me for the right track to be followed for all the possible portions of this project. Next I would like to thank my college NSIBM which has provided me the perfect environment and guidance to get involved in the assigned project enthusiastically. Next I would like to thank my friends for motivating me and keeping my spirits high whenever I was down and felt like I could not go further. Also I would like to thank my parents for supporting me always and showing faith in me.
Vivekananda Mahato 10MBA210023109
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The service industry is a complex collection of service providing businesses that spread from advertising, entertainment, healthcare to travel and tourism etc. It is an important part of any economy and contributes to a large part of the economic spectrum. Therefore improvements in the services is the need of the hour if the service industry is to maintain its current growth and satisfy future customers expectations. One of the core businesses in the service industry is the courier and logistics industry. They move goods, parcels from one place to another. The customers are highly critical of the delivery timings and payload collection. The customer base is ever increasing and so are their expectations. In such a competitive scenario it is important for the businesses to re-invent and reinnovate themselves and their products and services. Service quality is the most important aspect of the courier and logistics industry. Through formation of a structured framework for the business and its operations, the researcher developed a service blueprint for a reference courier company which will help it improve the service quality and meet heuristic customer expectations.
INTRODUCTION
The Service Industry and its innovation The Service industry involves the provision of rendering services to businesses as well as final consumers. There are no goods produced in the service industry. The service industry includes multitudes of industries such as health, travel and tourism, information technology, logistics and courier etc. Service industries are among the fastest growing sectors in world economy. The geography of services is no longer of local or national significance: it now embraces the international stage. Service industries have enabled, and themselves become participants in, world trade. What is Service? When we use the term service or services we are referring to service offerings provided for and/or co-created with customers such as professional services, retail, financial,
telecommunication, healthcare, and many others. It also includes service(s) that are offered in conjunction with goods such as training and network support services in a technology company and even service that is derived from a tangible product such as the service embedded within an onboard GPS system in a car. In recent years, the global service sector has experienced significant growth. Global exports of services grew by 18.1% to 3.3 trillion USD in 2007 (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, 2008). Service exports also account for more than 70% of GDP in developed economies, and between 45% and 55% of GDP in lower income countries (de Prabit, 2006; World Trade Organization, 2008). Given the significance of this sector, it is increasingly crucial for service marketers to understand the optimal ways to effectively market their services to international consumers (Bang et al., 2005). The services sector has drawn huge competition in every domain and to stay afloat in this cutthroat competition businesses and industries need to constantly invent new models or innovate in the existing models. A completely new model involves a lot of resources including time and money. An innovative model evades these losses and allows businesses to focus on existing 9|Page Netaji Subhash Institute of Business Management
Improving Service quality using service Blue Print Summer Internship Project customers and services. Service innovation has a catalytic role in shaping new markets and creating new business opportunities. Service innovation is not limited to the uniqueness or newness of the service, but it
also encompasses newness in other characteristics of the service system (Gallouj and Weinstein, 1997), such as innovating the delivery processes, customer
interfaces, and the seller-buyer relationship (de Jong and Vermeulen, 2003). For example, many times there is a need to extend the perspective and also look beyond the pilot launch to ensure successful sales and delivery of the new services and solutions (Kindstrom and Kowalkowski, 2009).
Service Innovation
Services are believed to be characterized by intangibility, heterogeneity, inseparability and perishability (Zeithaml, Parasuraman and Berry, 1985), and sometimes by their information or knowledge intensity (Miles, 2004). Service innovation is more incremental and less radical than traditional product innovation (Johne and Storey, 1998). It is also suggested to be less driven by technology (Cooper and de Brentani, 1991) and to a lesser extent be based on R&D (Brouwer, 1997). De Brentani has suggested that service innovations are easier to copy and more difficult to protect (De Brentani, 1991). Some of these suggestions are also confirmed by empirical studies of service innovations (Tether, 2004). Tether (2003) suggests the following hypotheses on service innovations. Most of these hypotheses are also, at least partially, supported by empirical findings: It is more difficult to separate product, process and organizational innovations for services. Service innovations are more often organizational innovations Service innovations do more often have qualitative and less easily measurable effects
Very few studies have been conducted focusing methodologies, tools and techniques in new service development and service innovation.
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Improving Service quality using service Blue Print Summer Internship Project Service Blueprinting The compelling need for service innovation in the worlds economies and the current focus of many businesses on creating value through customer experiences suggest a need for innovative methods, techniques, and R&D practices for service(s). We shall discuss here one such techniqueservice blueprintinga customer-focused approach for service innovation and service improvement. While the rudiments of service blueprinting were introduced two decades ago, the method has evolved significantly as a useful approach for addressing many of the challenges in services design and innovation and is particularly amenable to customer experience design. In comparison to other process-oriented design techniques and tools, service blueprints are first and foremost customer-focused, allowing firms to visualize the service processes, points of customer contact, and the physical evidence associated with their services from their customers perspective. Blueprints also illuminate and connect the underlying support processes throughout the organization that drive and support customer-focused service execution. Service blueprinting is a highly effective and very adaptable technique for service innovation, quality improvement, customer experience design, and strategic change focused around customers. Blueprints can be used strategically or at a very micro-implementation level, managers at all levels find it very useful. In addition to its direct applications to business practice, service blueprinting suggests avenues for cross-disciplinary research within academics and in academic-business partnerships.
Service Innovation Challenges There are a number of service characteristics and related management challenges that underlie the need for an innovation technique like service blueprinting. Understanding how customers evaluate the service process, and how those judgments evolve, is very critical. Some research suggests that it is the summation of all the steps, or service encounters, within a service process that is evaluated by the customer and not just individual interactions with service providers. Other research examines the distinct events (i.e., service encounters) associated with a service process that are evaluated along unique attribute dimensions. Still others propose that the character of the process itself may play a greater role than the actual outcome in determining 11 | P a g e Netaji Subhash Institute of Business Management
Improving Service quality using service Blue Print Summer Internship Project overall evaluations. Developing a deeper understanding of the way customers experience and evaluate service processes is but one of many challenges faced by firms that undertake the design, delivery, and documentation of a service offering. Service blueprinting is a flexible approach that helps managers with the challenges of service process design and analysis. It is a powerful technique that can be used to depict a service at multiple levels of analysis. That is, service blueprinting can facilitate the detailed refinement of a single step in the customer process as well as the creation of a comprehensive, visual overview of an entire service process.
Services as Customer Experiences In recent years the business world and trade press have become enamored of the notion of the customer experience. Joseph Pine and James Gilmore advanced the idea that we are in an experience economy, in which the orchestration of memorable, even transformational events for customers is the key to differentiating ones offering from those of competitors and escaping commoditization in an increasingly crowded competitive marketplace. Although the terms customer experience, and service experience are frequently mentioned in the business press without explicit definitions, a Harvard Business Review article defines a customer experience as the internal and subjective response customers have to any direct or indirect contact with a company. Others have conceptualized a service experience as the cognitive, affective, and behavioral reactions associated with a specific service event. This definition implies a timebounded progression of related interactions involving the customer and other people and/or technology in the production and consumption of a service. According to Lewis Carbone, a pioneer in customer experience engineering, customers cannot help but have experiences and all services create experiences. A main issue for managers is whether the company has the capability to systematically manage that experience, or whether it is simply left to chance. Effectively designing and managing the customer experience requires presenting a series of clues that function holistically to meet or exceed customer expectations. The total customer experience as influenced by these clues evokes perceptions of service quality and ultimately value along with perceptions of the overall brand itself, which in turn, influence 12 | P a g e Netaji Subhash Institute of Business Management
Improving Service quality using service Blue Print Summer Internship Project preferences and loyalty. Delivering customer value through distinctive, memorable service experiences requires a cross-functional perspective. All parts of the organization should be focused on the common goal of creating an integrated, memorable, and favorable customer experience. Those companies that approach customer experience management with a clear vision of the design and development process are more likely to achieve improved customer and organizational outcomes. Service blueprints allow all members of the organization to visualize an entire service and its underlying support processes, providing common ground from which critical points of customer contact, physical evidence, and other key functional and emotional experience clues can be orchestrated.
Service Development and Design Organizations that are most successful in providing new services keep their service development processes from being ad hoc. In other words, they prepare and move systematically (and often iteratively) through a set of planned stages from the establishment of clear objectives, to idea generation, to concept development, service design, prototyping, service launch, and customer feedback. Service design requires an understanding of the customer outcome and customer process, the way the customer experience unfolds over time through interactions at many different touchpoints. A well designed service that is pleasing to experience can provide the firm with a key point of differentiation from competitors. A smoothly delivered service with a positive outcome is more likely to result in favorable service quality and brand image evaluations, which both have influence on customer loyalty. Recurrent service quality problems are often the result of poor design. Because services are intangible, variable, and delivered over time and space, people frequently resort to using words alone to specify them, resulting in oversimplification and incompleteness. Further, there are often biases present in both the specification and interpretation of the service concept. In fact, the early stages of new product development often referred to as the fuzzy front end are particularly problematic for service innovation because they typically involve imprecise processes and impromptu decision-making. These stages are often characterized as having low levels of formalization, yet they are critical for what follows. What is needed is a means of 13 | P a g e Netaji Subhash Institute of Business Management
Improving Service quality using service Blue Print Summer Internship Project presenting the activities, relationships, and interdependencies of a service process in an objective and precise manner such that it is methodologically structured, but flexible enough to allow creativity to flow. As the new service development process progresses toward actual design and implementation, the initial service idea must be made more concrete so that it can be presented as a developed concept, or even rough prototype, to customers and employees. Roles and responsibilities of customers and service providers must be clarified. Required are detailed descriptions of the service process with respect to equipment, quality, and cost factors. It is at this stage that differing opinions as to just how the idea should be translated into an actual service often emerge. A key to success at this point is the ability to describe service process characteristics and depict them so that employees, customers, and managers alike can know in concrete terms what the service involves and understand their respective roles in its delivery or co-creation. Because service blueprinting results in a visual rendering of the service process and underlying organizational structure that everyone can see, it is highly useful in the concept development stage of service development. During the final service design stages, the service concept is likely to be refined over a series of iterations to the point at which a final, comprehensive blueprint can be produced. All relevant parties should be involved in this process, including in many cases customers or clients. The ultimate task is for each functional area involved in delivering the service to translate the final blueprint into detailed implementation plans to support their activities within the blueprint. Departmental sub-processes can be magnified, rendered in fine detail, and blueprinted on their own as sub-documents of the main blueprint. The main blueprint forms a common point of reference for all parties concerned with achieving a successful launch of the service. It also serves as a focal point for later refinements or last-minute changes.
Blueprinting Evolution and Components Evolution of Service Blueprinting Service blueprinting was initially introduced as a process control technique for services that offered several advantages: it was more precise than verbal definitions; it could help solve problems preemptively; and it was able to identify failure points in a service operation. Just as 14 | P a g e Netaji Subhash Institute of Business Management
Improving Service quality using service Blue Print Summer Internship Project firms have evolved to become more customer-focused, so has service blueprinting. One early adaptation was the clarification of service blueprinting as a process for plotting the customer process against organizational structure. Service blueprinting was further developed to distinguish between onstage and backstage activities. These key components still form the basis of the technique and its most important feature, that of illuminating the customers role in the service process. In addition, it provides an overview so that employees and internal units can relate what they do to the entire, integrated service system. Blueprints also help to reinforce a customer-orientation among employees as well as clarify interfaces across departmental lines. Service blueprinting shares similarities with other process modeling approaches in that it 1) is a visual notation for depicting business processes via symbols that represent actors and activities, 2) can be used to represent high-level overviews of conceptual processes or details of particular support or sub-processes, and 3) will accommodate links to parallel and sub-process documents and diagrams via other more internally-focused process modeling tools and languages such as BPMN (Business Process Modeling Notation) and UML (Unified Modeling Language). However, service blueprinting is not as complex or as formal as some business process modeling tools such as UML. Service blueprints are relatively simple and their graphical representations are easy for all stakeholders involved customers, managers, front-line employees to learn, use, and even modify to meet a particular innovations requirements. Service blueprinting upholds the focus of a service innovation on the human-to-human and human-to-technology interfaces at the firm boundaries, rather than at the software engine level, allowing service designers to drill down into the firm without losing the connection to customer actions and process. Components of Service Blueprints There are five components of a typical service blueprint (See Figure 1 for a diagram of key components): Customer Actions, Onstage/Visible Contact Employee Actions, Backstage/Invisible Contact Employee Actions, Support Processes and Physical Evidence. 15 | P a g e Netaji Subhash Institute of Business Management
Improving Service quality using service Blue Print Summer Internship Project Customer actions include all of the steps that customers take as part of the service delivery process. Customer actions are depicted chronologically across the top of the blueprint. What makes blueprinting different from other flowcharting approaches is that the actions of the customer are central to the creation of the blueprint, and as such they are typically laid out first so that all other activities can be seen as supporting the value proposition offered to or co-created with the customer. The next critical component is the onstage/visible contact employee actions, separated from the customer by the line of interaction. Those actions of frontline contact employees that occur as part of a face-to-face encounter are depicted as onstage contact employee actions. Every time the line of interaction is crossed via a link from the customer to a contact employee (or company self-service technology, etc.), a moment of truth has occurred. The next significant component of the blueprint is the backstage/invisible contact employee actions, separated from the onstage actions by the very important line of visibility. Everything that appears above the line of visibility is seen by the customer, while everything below it is invisible. Below the line of visibility, all of the other contact employee actions are described, both those that involve nonvisible interaction with customers (e.g., telephone calls) as well as any other activities that contact employees do in order to prepare to serve customers or that are part of their role responsibilities. The fourth critical component of the blueprint is support processes separated from contact employees by the internal line of interaction. These are all of the activities carried out by individuals and units within the company who are not contact employees but that need to happen in order for the service to be delivered. Vertical lines from the support area connecting with other areas of the blueprint show the inter-functional connections and support that are essential to delivering the service to the final customer. Finally, for each customer action, and every moment of truth, the physical evidence that customers come in contact with is described at the very top of the blueprint. These are all the tangibles that customers are exposed to that can influence their quality perceptions.
Improving Service quality using service Blue Print Summer Internship Project Building a Blueprint When building a blueprint, the first step is to clearly articulate the service process or sub-process to be blueprinted. Because companies often modify service processes to fit the needs and wants of different target customers (e.g., check in process for an airline frequent flyer or first class passenger versus other passengers), it is important to specify which segment of customers is the focus of the blueprint. Once this has been decided, the actions of customers should be delineated first because this component serves as the foundation for all other elements of the blueprint. At times, this can be more challenging than anticipated. Questions such as When does the service start and stop from the customers point of view? tend to generate considerable discussion. After that has been established, the contact employee actions, both onstage and backstage, can be delineated, followed by support processes. At this point, links can be added that connect the customer to contact employee activities and to needed support functions. Physical evidence is typically the last component added to the blueprint. Blueprints are ideally developed by crossfunctional teams, possibly even involving customers.
Figure 1 Service Blueprint Components
17 | P a g e F r o Netaji Subhash Institute of Business Management Line of
Customer calls
Packaging the parcel
Weighting the parcel
Maintaining Records
Sending the parcel to the back office
Displaying the parcel to the center hub
Courier Service Blueprint
The Organization in Reference 18 | P a g e Netaji Subhash Institute of Business Management
Improving Service quality using service Blue Print Summer Internship Project First Flight Profile First Flight started their services in the year 1986 with three offices in place. Today it has grown to be Indias largest domestic courier company. It has 930 First Flight Offices across India 2208 Authorized Collection Centers 452 Franchisee Locations Serving over 5000 Pincode Destinations across India Dedicated Workforce of over 10000 plus employees Strategically located 8 own International Offices Serving over 220 countries globally
First Flight is in the process of setting up a large scale integrated Logistics Division to offer an entire gamut of Warehousing, Inventory Management, Supply Chain Services and Distribution Channels, thereby providing total end-to-end solutions to customers.
In keeping with times, First Flight is continuing to invest substantial effort in building a State-ofthe-Art Super Information Technology highway. Organization Profile Products Domestic International First Wheels First Wings Emotional Bond Flexi Pack Logistics 19 | P a g e Netaji Subhash Institute of Business Management
Improving Service quality using service Blue Print Summer Internship Project Services Provided Pickup request E mail tracking SMS tracking Line Hauls
The company registered a growth of 12.61% in the financial year 2009-10. Objectives of the Study The researchers are attempting to study the business processes used in the courier industry using one of the courier service providers as a reference. Then the researchers wish to analyze how the service can be improved using service blueprinting method.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
This entails discussion on how we gather data and information on the logistics domain.
Research Methodology The primary research methodology used for data gathering has been questionnaires. The Questionnaires consist of a set of questions that will provide data related to the operations of the courier service and the experience of the customers that use it. The data gathered would be analyzed to assess the service quality of the reference courier service provider. Sources of Data The data has been collected from First Flight Couriers Ltd. and businesses that use and experience the services provided by First Flight Couriers.
Sample Size A total of 100 different businesses were surveyed by the researchers.
Methods of Collection The researcher personally visited the offices of the courier service providers that were to be surveyed and the questionnaires were provided to them in their office itself. The questionnaires were completed by a senior staff at the office. For the businesses that were surveyed the questionnaires were completed by their respective owners.
Improving Service quality using service Blue Print Summer Internship Project Results & Interpretations There are a number of findings from this study. The results are as follows 1. The reference service provider has a structured business process that it uses to execute its operations. 2. Most customer organizations surveyed are presently satisfied with the services of the reference service provider. 3. A number of organizations have an increased demand for super-fast mode of parcel delivery which is not provided currently by the reference service provider. 4. The organizations cannot afford delayed delivery or delivery failures. 5. The background operations are more critical than the front-end operations. The handoffs must be smooth to avoid any unwanted delays. 6. Attention to customers and problem resolution are the two most parameters required at the front-end. 7. The service must not be affected by the volume of services to be provided.
Limitations of the study The study includes only one courier service provider as a reference which has been used to represent the entire courier service industry for the study. A single organization cannot provide enough and accurate data that can be used to present useful report in the context of service industry. Moreover the study has been performed for one service counter in a small town. Customer experiences are bound to vary from place to place. Thus the results produced might not coincide at every service point. The study does not include data from various demand segments in terms of the volume of services utilized.
ANALYSIS
The findings from the research conducted will be discussed here. The researcher will be analyzing the data collected through primary research with the help of pie-charts to represent the data visually. The method for analysis has been chosen as statistical as it represents numbers in a pictorial representation giving the reader easy method of analyzing their data.
Question
1) Office Type? ( ) Own Office ( ) Franchise Office If Other, Please Specify................................................................................
Concluded Result
Office Type
Own Office Franchise Office Others
Analysis
Most companies prefer franchise offices compared to own office. Opening own offices involve large investments. Franchise offices can be offered to anyone without keeping the load of opening offices and maintaining them. 2) Engaged field staff are on? ( ) Own Payroll ( ) Outsourcing If Other, Please Specify.........................................................................................
Question
Concluded Result
Engaged field staff are on

Own Payroll Outsourcing Others
Analysis
Outsourcing in the courier business can be a risky and dangerous endeavor as timely delivery and pickups are the most important aspects.
Question 3) Number of Employee engaged in Office? ....................................................................................................................... .......................................................................................................................
Concluded Result Analysis
An average of 1000 employees work for each courier company.
All companies have almost equal number of employees spread across their various offices. 4) Which mode company is using for carrying load? ( ( ( ( ) OTC ) Co-Loader ) Lease ) Break Van
Question
If Other, Please Specify......................................................................................... Concluded Result
Company Mode used for carrying load

OTC Co-Loader Lease Break Van Others
Analysis Question
All the above services are provided by each of the service provider 5) Average incoming in a day from this office? ....................................................................................................................... .......................................................................................................................
An average of 1000 documents
This is a large number of documents that the offices receive for delivery..
Question 6) Average outgoing in a day from this office? ....................................................................................................................... ....................................................................................................................... Concluded Result Analysis Question Stock of documents keeps on increasing in case they are not dispatched on the same day. 7) Average sales revenue in a month from this office? ....................................................................................................................... ....................................................................................................................... An average of 800 documents
18 Lakhs
The sales numbers are good and improving on this will be a difficult task for any service provider. 8) Immediate hub of the courier station? ....................................................................................................................... .......................................................................................................................
Question
Baharagora
All service providers have a common hold for closest station hub. The largest point that dissects all directions have been chosen as the next station hub.
Question 9) Do you have tracking facility of parcel / documents? ( ) Yes ( ) No If Other, Please Specify......................................................................................... Concluded Result
Tracking facility of parcel / documents

Yes No Others
Analysis Question
Customers can easily track down their shipments. 10) Nature of the business you have? ....................................................................................................................... .......................................................................................................................
Concluded Result Analysis Question
Transportation
Transport companies involve a lot of paperwork. 11) Do you require service provider for transportation of your goods? ....................................................................................................................... .......................................................................................................................
Yes
Transport companies involve a lot of paperwork about the load that they deliver. These documents are exchanged via courier. Swift delivery is the most important requirement of the transport companies.
Question 12) Which type of service provider do you require? ( ( ( ( ) Courier ) Cargo ) Logistic ) Transport
Type of Service Provider you require

Courier Cargo Logistic Transport Others
Analysis
Question
All of the above surveyed companies require cargo services. A small number also requires logistics services. On time delivery is the important criteria for choosing service providers. 13) How often do you use these services? ( ( ( ( ) Daily ) Weekly ) Monthly ) Others
Frequency of services used

Daily Weekly Monthly Others
Analysis
Most shipments are made on a daily basis. There are a couple of shipments on weekly and monthly basis.
Question 14) Which area / sector / destination do you require services mostly? ................................................................................................................. ................................................................................................................. Concluded Result Analysis Question The most popular destination is the north zone of India. 15) What are your priorities for selecting your service provider? ( ( ( ( ) Quality services ) Price ) Safety ) Time Limit All the four zones of India. Mostly north zone.
Priorities for selecting service provider

Quality services Price Safety Time Limit Others
Analysis
Time limit is the most important requirement for most companies surveyed. Quality of services is also considered as the most important parameter for service provider selection.
Question 16) Which is your existing service provider? ( ( ( ( ( ) First Flight Couriers Ltd. ) Blue dart ) Overnite ) Blazeflash ) DTDC
Existing service provider

First Flight Couriers Ltd. Blue Dart Overnite Blazeflash DTDC
Analysis
First Flight and Blazeflash are the most popular choice of service provider for courier services. They have high points on the reputation scale. 17) What is strength and weakness of your existing service provider? ...........................................................................................
Question
The front-end office representatives do not possess good communication and inter-personal skills. It negatively hampers customer interaction and is an important reason for losing customers. 18) What is your next option, in case of fail of existing service provider? .........................................................................................................
Question
Popular choices were First Flight and DTDC.
They provide good service and hold a high reputation in the courier business.
Question 19) Do they satisfy with their services? How you rate? : ( ( ( ( ) Excellent ) Good ) Satisfactory ) Average
Rate services
Excellent Good Satisfactory Average Others
Analysis
Most companies are satisfied with the services they receive. However it is not possible to fulfill all their demands.
Table 1 Analysis of the findings
Improving Service quality using service Blue Print Summer Internship Project Below is a comparison of the courier market and the present state of the reference courier service provider First Flight.
SIZE AND TYPE OF MARKETS First Flight branches increasing year wise
First Flight Branches

900 800 700 600 500 400 300 200 100 0 2003-2004 2004-2005 2005-2006 2006-2007 2007-2008 First Flight Branches
Fig 2 Number of branches each year
Improving Service quality using service Blue Print Summer Internship Project First Flight Employees increasing year wise
First Flight Employees

12000 10000 8000 6000 First Flight Employees 4000 2000 0 2003-2004 2004-2005 2005-2006 2006-2007 2007-2008
Fig 3 Employees each year
COMPETITIVE CHARACTERISTICS, TYPE AND SIZE OF COMPETITION Name of the company First Flight Blaze flash DHL Overnite TNT Table 2 Volume of operation 1000 Total incoming (daily) 800 Total outgoing (daily) Revenue
Improving Service quality using service Blue Print Summer Internship Project COMPANYS BUSINESS VOLUME AND MARKET SHARE
Growth in crores
450 400 350 300 250 200 150 100 50 0 2005-2006 2006-2007 2007-2008 2008-2009 2009-2010 Growth in Crores
Fig 4 Business Volume Financial growth in the last 5 years
Income from Shipments

120 100 80 60 Income from Shipments 40 20 0 2005-2006 2006-2007 2007-2008 2008-2009 2009-2010
Fig 5 Income from shipments 34 | P a g e Netaji Subhash Institute of Business Management
Improving Service quality using service Blue Print Summer Internship Project Sales forecast for next 5 year
Sales forecast for next five years

1000 900 800 700 600 500 400 300 200 100 0 2010-2011 2011-2012 2012-2013 2013-2014 2014-2015 Sales forecast for next five years
Fig 6 Sales forecast for next 5 years Income from operations of First Flight Year wise
Income from operations

80 70 60 50 40 Income from operations 30 20 10 0 2003-2004 2004-2005 2005-2006 2006-2007 2007-2008
Fig 7 Income from operations 35 | P a g e Netaji Subhash Institute of Business Management
CONCLUSION
The research that was conducted provided me with an insight of how the courier service providers work and what are the expectations of the customers availing the services. Blueprinting is a popular technique for improvement in service quality. It can be utilized by organizations and businesses to create frameworks of their operations. Service blueprints allow organizations to have a clear view of how they execute their operations and the methods. First Flight couriers Ltd. can sustain growth using a framework that is flexible enough to include changes whenever required. They still have a lot of scope for growth and should look to innovate their service delivery.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Mary Jo Bitner, Amy L. Ostrom, Felicia N. Morgan , Service Blueprinting: A Practical Technique for Service Innovation N. Viswandham, The Indian Ligistics Industry
Patrick Davis, Vinh Nhat Lu, Roberta Veale, Importance of service quality across different services types
ANNEXURE
i. ii.
Questionnaires List of Contacts
NSIBM
SIP from 2010 - 2012 Company Name: . Contact Person: ... Contact Number: . Designation: Questionnaire 1) Office Type? a. Own Office 2) Engaged field Staff are on? a. Own Payroll Jamshedpur Date: .. S. No..
b. Franchise Office
b. Outsourcing
3) Number of Employee engaged in office? 4) Which mode company is using to carry load? a. OTC b. Co-Loader
c. Lease
d. Break Van
5) Average income in a day from office? 6) Average outgoing in a day from office? 7) Average sales revenue in a month from this office? 8) Immediate HUB of the Couriers station? 9) Do youve tracking facility of PARCEL / DOCUMENTS? a. YES b. NO
Surveyor Signature Date: ..
Surveyee Signature Date: ..
NSIBM
SIP from 2010 - 2012 Company Name: . Contact Person: ... Contact Number: . Designation: Questionnaire Jamshedpur Date: .. S. No..
1) Nature of your business? 2) Do you require service provider for transportation of your goods? 3) What type of service provider do you require? a. Courier b. Cargo 4) How often do you use these services? a. Daily b. Weekly
c. Logistic
d. Transport
c. Monthly
d. Others
5) Which sector / area / destination you require services mostly? 6) What are your priorities for selecting your service provider? a. Quality Services b. Price c. Safety 7) Which is your existing service provider? a. First Flight Couriers Ltd. b. Blue Dart d. Blazeflash e, DTDC
d. Time Limit
c. Overnite f. Others
8) What are strengths and weaknesses of existing service provider? 9) What is your next option; in case of failure of service provider? 10) Do they satisfy with their services How do your rate? a. Excellent b. Good c. Satisfactory d. Average Surveyor Signature Date: .. Surveyee Signature Date: ..
List of Contacts
Organization Front Line Associates Saizar Enterprises Pvt Ltd S.S. Enterprises CEAT Ltd. Good Year Indian Supply Chain ITW India Limited N.T.R.Trax Highway Transport Company Kanhaya Enterprise Amararaja Batteries Ltd Contact Person T. L. Murthy Chadrashekhar Ojha Amit Kejariwala Chandan Uttam Mandal S.K. Sarkar John Santosh kumar Amit Singh Ravi Sharma Contact Number 9334623635 9204784999 9431166830 9931901156 9199544654 9934358853 9934181362 9431117682 9234339157 9431329635

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Improving Service quality using service Blue Print Summer Internship Project

NETAJI SUBHAS INSTITUTE OF BUSINESS MANAGEMENT POKHARI, JAMSHEDPUR

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Vivekananda Mahato (10MBA210023109)

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Student Name Vivekananda Mahato ______________ (Signature)

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Vivekananda Mahato 10MBA210023109

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Figure 1 Service Blueprint Components

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Packaging the parcel

Weighting the parcel

Sending the parcel to the back office

Displaying the parcel to the center hub

Courier Service Blueprint

The Organization in Reference 18 | P a g e Netaji Subhash Institute of Business Management

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1) Office Type? ( ) Own Office ( ) Franchise Office If Other, Please Specify................................................................................

Engaged field staff are on

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Concluded Result Analysis

An average of 1000 employees work for each courier company.

If Other, Please Specify......................................................................................... Concluded Result

Company Mode used for carrying load

Concluded Result Analysis

An average of 1000 documents

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Concluded Result Analysis

Concluded Result Analysis

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Tracking facility of parcel / documents

Concluded Result Analysis Question

Concluded Result Analysis

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If Other, Please Specify......................................................................................... Concluded Result

Type of Service Provider you require

If Other, Please Specify......................................................................................... Concluded Result

Frequency of services used

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If Other, Please Specify......................................................................................... Concluded Result

Priorities for selecting service provider

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If Other, Please Specify......................................................................................... Concluded Result

Existing service provider

Concluded Result Analysis

Concluded Result Analysis

Popular choices were First Flight and DTDC.

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If Other, Please Specify......................................................................................... Concluded Result

Table 1 Analysis of the findings

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First Flight Branches

Fig 2 Number of branches each year

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