Marketing of Services Case Study 1: Faculty School of Business Submitted by Sachin Mohan Nitin Kumar Back Ground The

case discusses on How to improve the Quality of FSB. The Faculty has always been in the top five rankings but of late the ranking is going down. Prof. Joy, Dean of FSB, Prof. Raman and Prof. Vardhan were discussing how to improve the quality in FSB, fluctuation in ranking and a mechanism to deal with the problem. Prof. Vardhan was given the task to gather information from students, what are there expectations as far as quality is concerned. Some of the aspects that students defined are Good Placement, Good Faculty, Higher Salary, Good Learning and Business Environment, Faculty Quality, Faculty Effectiveness, Quality of Placement, Quality of Infrastructure, Learning through high quality interaction with Peers, Professors, Industry Experts etc, and Development opportunity. This is a small list about how students see quality. Another territory of a typical business school is employers. Prof. Raman was given the task to find out what quality means to the companies, who visit faculty for recruitment. His findings were- The companies are looking for content, temperament and ability to think out of box, communication skills and previous relevant work experience, hard work, consistent, ethical, attitude, culturally fit etc to name few. Dean then also called a student and understood how Business magazines do the rating. The student explained Admission policy, faculty, quality of placement, teaching methodology, infrastructure and reputation Size of the programmes, teaching style, cost, location and career opportunity Intellectual Interface, Management development programs, alumni network, curriculum and pedagogy, infrastructure, placement, student S-59 S-90

quality or admission, faculty performance and income and expenditure These are a few attributes on which ranking are done by the ranking agencies.

Key Issues
1. To improve the quality of FSB, so that it should be ranked high in the

ranking. 2. Discover connections what is done and should be done to the students during their tenure at FSB so that they perceive high quality of services provided by FSB. 3. Once point 2 is achieved, it will drive quality perception among the recruiting agency and attract the quality of companies visiting the Faculty. 4. Where to start, what to culminate so that quality initiative are concrete and results are also measurable. Analysis We will study this case in light of GAP Model. Gap analysis generally refers to the activity of studying the differences between standards and the delivery of those standards. The differences could be used to explain satisfaction and to document areas in need of improvement. However, in the process of identifying the gap, a before-and-after analysis must occur. This can take several forms. For example, in lean management we perform a Value Stream Map of the current process. Then we create a Value Stream Map of the desired state. The differences between the two define the "gap". Once the gap is defined, a game plan can be developed that will move the organization from its current state toward its desired future state. Another tool for identifying the gap is a step chart. With the step chart, various "classes" of performance are identified including world-class status. Then, current state and desired future state are noted on the chart. Once again, the difference between the two defines the "gap". The issue of service quality can be used as an example to illustrate gaps. For this example, there are several gaps that are important to measure. From a service quality perspective, these include:

(1) Service quality gap (2) Management understanding gap (3) Service design gap (4) Service delivery gap (5) Communication gap.

Service quality gap occurs when customer perception of delivered service is at variance from the expected service. The biggest expectation of a B-school is good placement, good networking, development of professional skills, a lot of learning practical application of teamwork etc. But the most important aspect is the placements. Here B-School is providing service to their hiring companies (customer).Different companies have different expectations like FMCG company requires strong subject knowledge, high communication skills, initiative and creativity. So it is the responsibility of school to fulfill all the needs of hiring companies so that a service quality gap will not be created. Management understanding gap is generally the discrepancy between management perceptions of consumer expectations and service quality specifications here the management is the faculty. Faculty is the most important factor their knowledge, experience, qualification and interpersonal skills are crucial. Faculty should understand the service quality specifications

and understand tasks should be standardized so as to maintain a delivery of good quality service. Communication Gap is the discrepancy between delivered service and what is communicated about the service to consumers. Some B-Schools are promoting more about their service offering like good placements, good faculty, good learning, good infrastructure but actually delivers low service this lack of horizontal communication creates a gap between School and companies. Conclusion:In order to minimize the Gap they need to discover connections between what to do or should do for students during the course of their stay at the campus. What this means is that universities and colleges should focus on providing excellent foundation for education. In this era of specialization and focus, clear expectation setting and delivering on the respective promises are extremely important to build a quality talent pool for the country.