...Analysis Content: Manzana Insurance is a property insurance company that operates through a network of branch offices. It does not deal directly with the public but with independent agents who in return deal with the customers. Agents require Low turnaround time and fast renewal rates. Initial analysis of the second quarter performance figures of Fruitvale branch at Manzana Insurance indicates declining profits, poor operating performance and advancement of competitor Golden Gates. Further analysis was conducted to get to the core of the problem the management is facing and consequently, provide recommendations on how to go about these issues. Issues: * Low and declining Profits: During the first quarter of 1991, there was profit loss of ($ 174,000) which declined even further in the second quarter to ($121,000) (Exhibit 1). Reasons may include: * Due to high turnaround times (TAT) * Calculate by management to be 8.2 days * Causes agents to refer clients to other companies * Causes congestion and increased accumulation of policies * Due to reduced number of renewals (low renewal rates) because of increased volumes of late renewals * Due to focus on new policies only * Due to late policies * Late RERUNs amount to 99.67% of total late requests processed in 1991 which means it has a big impact on total late requests processed. * Poor performance and efficiency ...
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...| Syndicate Assignment | Manzana Insurance Fruitvale Branch | Operations | | | 01 June, 2016 | | | Manzana’s Position in the Insurance Industry Manzana has a history of seeing opportunity and seizing it. Manzana has grown through acquisition. Manzana's main competition is Golden Gate Casualty. They beat Manzana on both price and performance. Golden Gate tied with Manzana for first place in the property insurance market in 1988. By 1991, Golden Gate announced they could guarantee turnaround time (TAT) of one day. If they fail to reach that benchmark, they offer a 10% premium discount. Manzana must at least match that promise to stay competitive in this market. The current TAT for request processing has bloated to five or more days at a time. This report will recommend a number of strategies to improve the system in operational efficiencies, measurement and service. Manzana has an opportunity to increase their business through decreasing their TAT, adjusting staff incentives and delighting their customers. The acquisition of Manzana by Banque du Soleil has helped. There was a restructure that resulted in a leaner company. Underwriting standards have tightened, operating expense has reduced and this has resulted in a regain of market share. After the restructure, they are now better geared toward the property liability insurance market. Manzana now specialise in commercial insurance rather than personal insurance. That has pitted them against Golden Gate...
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...evaluate Manzana's operations strategy Manzana has an operations strategy focusing on autonomy among branch offices that shows in the case operational inefficiencies, and it considers each branch as a separate profit and loss center with the space to underwrite insurance, collect premiums and settle claims within territory. Manzana has generally 3 territories of operations, where the company does not deal directly with public, instead of that it operates through 200 independent agents whom are working with other companies, but in case of Manzana the agents are dealing with 4 departments that cooperate with them from within to process the policies whom in order based on the policy process: Distribution, Underwriting, Rating and Policy Writing. The major areas of concern includes: high Turnaround time (TAT), the turnaround time is the total time taken to process a request. At present Manzana’s TAT is around six days compared to one day TAT of its major competitor Golden Gate Insurance firm. The inappropriate work force distribution at Manzana makes some workers to be idle and others being stretched to work, making the system inefficient. There is significant proportion of policies which are being renewed late, this is primarily because the policies which are required to be renewed (RERUN) are being intimated to the customer only in the last day which results in loss of business. The various departments in Manzana have different priorities resulting in backlog of policies 2. What determines...
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...LVN Texas Board of Nursing 333 Guadalupe, Ste. 3-460, Austin, TX 78701-3944 Phone: 512-305-7400 -- Web Site: www.bon.texas.gov For Office Use Only: Amount Date Rec’d Timely License Renewal Form This form may be used during the 60 days prior to the license expiration. Please refer to the enclosed General Instructions, checklist and statistical code sheet to assist in completing this form. Answer all questions, sign, date, and return both pages. Processing time is within ten (10) business days once all requirements are met. The Rules pertaining to the maintenance of your license and your eligibility to renew are located at 22 Texas Administrative Code (TAC) chapter 216 and §§213.27, 213.28, 213.29, 213.33, 217.6 and 217.7. Make your check or money order payable to the Texas Board of Nursing. Fees are non-refundable. The application and payment are valid for one year from the date of receipt in the Board’s office and all licensure requirements must be met within that timeframe. [ ] TIMELY LVN RENEWAL ONLY (prior to expiration date) Fee: $45.00 [ ] LVN RETIRED LICENSE Fee: $10.00 Must be requested prior to license expiring and meet requirements of 22 TAC §217.9 [ ] LVN INACTIVE STATUS No Fee Required Must be requested prior to license expiring and meet requirements of 22 TAC §217.9 Name(Last): Legal documentation is required for a name change (see 22 TAC §217.7) (First): Social Security Number: (City) (M): - LVN License Number: (Address) ...
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...databases and processing capacity before it could even begin to offer tracking services.1 At about the same time, Delta Air Lines began focusing essentially all its information-technology spending on rebuilding its airport systems and infrastructure, in part to address Y2K concerns. But shortly after Jan. 1, 2000, in what the CIO described as a “land rush,” line managers submitted requests for IT investments that totaled almost three times what Delta could allocate. Each request presented a business case that promised significant positive returns on investment. But combined, they far exceeded the ability of the IT unit to deliver.2 Such experiences are not unusual. In the last 15 years, a tidal wave of ITenabled initiatives, from business-process reengineering to enterpriseresource planning, has elevated the importance of investing strategically in IT. Jeanne W. Ross is principal research scientist at the Center for Information Systems Research at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Cynthia M. Beath is a professor of management systems and information systems at the University of Texas at Austin. Contact the authors at jross@mit.edu and cbeath@mail.utexas.edu. Illustration: ©Shakirov/SIS WINTER 2002 MIT SLOAN MANAGEMENT REVIEW 51 The Internet alone has created...
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...in Letisha’s defense against the enforcement of the automatic renewal clause? According to definitions.us.legal.com, some state and local laws do not enforce automatic renewal clauses are. Without knowing what state or locality she lives in, it would be hard to tell for sure if this fact would help her or not. It is important to not only read the full contract before signing it, but also consult state and local laws. In an article found on www.kirchenbaumesq.com[->0], sometimes a renewal clause that shocks the court might not be enforced. This might be something that works in Letisha’s favor because part of Sudson’s renewal clause is that the lease will renew for three terms of five years each, which seems a bit outrageous. The same website says that some states also require companies to send out a notice advising customers of the provision for automatic lease renewal. It does look like Letisha may have a couple of ways that she might be able to get out of paying Sudson’s for another fifteen years. What legal arguments could be raised by Sudson in support of the enforcement of the automatic renewal clause against Letisha? The only argument I can find is that Letisha did not read the entire contract. As the phone representative said it was her responsibility to read the entire contract, front and back, large and fine print. What ethical issues are raised, if any, by Sudson’s practice of using the automatic renewal clause in their lease agreements? Ethically, Sudson’s should...
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...poorly for Property Insurance. Golden Gates, a competitor of Manzana, numbers are estimated to outperform Manzana Fruitvale branch as well. There are several problems that are leading to the poor performance at this branch. This past quarter turnaround time increased again reaching 6 days, where Golden Gate is sitting at 2 days. Also the system is running very close to efficiency, which can cause a problem down the road with changes we recommend. A big problem with what is going on has to deal with the RUNs and RAINs being of higher priority than the RERUNs for the senior underwriters. The senior underwriters are simply accepting the RUNs and RAINs first because those are more profitable for them, but this is hurting the company as our renewal loss rate hit an all-time high at 47%. Something must be done about these problems if we are going to compete with Golden Gate in this territory and below are these problems in more detail along with recommendations on how we feel these problems can be resolved. Findings TAT The calculation of TAT was made by multiplying the number of each type of request at each desk by a standard completion time (SCT). The 95% SCT is the time during which 95% of the requests should be taken care of. The company assumes that the variability of the processing time has the normal distribution, which has the characteristic that with a mean of processing time (µ), and a deviation (σ), 95% of the requests should be finished within (µ+2σ) approximately. In...
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...The Concord Bookshop and Strategic Renewal and Strategic Renewal Kathryn Wagner HCS/587 March 25, 2013 Pamela Young Hobbs The Concord Bookshop and Strategic Renewal The Concord Bookshop has a 64-year history of providing patrons with quality customer service and a more personal atmosphere than modern bookstores and online markets. Employees have remained loyal giving over 73 combined years of service. Board president Morgan “Kim” Smith represents the three families that own the store. Smith made a “surprise announcement” stating a new general manager was to be hired (Spector, 2010, p. 2). According to Smith, the store’s “dire financial situation” and an inadequately functioning “three-way management” were the reasons behind this decision (Spector, 2010, p. 2). When outraged employees and management voiced their concerns, they were told, “If you don’t like it, each of you will have to make up your own mind as to how to proceed” (Spector, 2010, p. 2). As a result, many employees have chosen to resign. Authors and loyal store patrons who view the bookstore as a “community resource and not just a bookstore” are also upset by the conflicts and changes (Spector, 2010, p. 3). Phases of Organizational Change The businesses of today face many challenges such as “rapid and dramatic change,” keeping pace with the demands of new technologies, predicting consumer expectations, and “shifts in workplace demographics and values” (Spector, 2010, p. 3). Recognizing that these...
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...Organizational Change Process Madeleine Aquilo HCS/587 March 28, 2013 Robert Batiste, PhD Organizational Change Process Organizational change process requires a lengthy process of planning. It is important that diverse approaches are used and staff is involved in planning for a change. Change is always aimed for improvement and betterment but oftentimes met with resistance, particularly if the dynamics are not analyzed carefully. When a company’s financial aspect is considered, it is even harder to create a change without affecting the staff. Strategic Renewal Strategic renewal is a modification of plan or approach to recover and adapt to current changes in a today’s competitive environment. Altering a strategy entails changes in the organization, whether it pertains to services or product, or building a new plan for improved competencies and management. Using a business model is one way an organization creates changes for a more profitable outcome. There are challenges, though, as an organization create a new business model because changing a present model does not always mean success. Sometimes...
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...Renewal The concept of renewal often brings to mind thoughts of occasional life-changing events that must bear some great significance to the renewed individual. Renewal, however, can be found present within even the most small and ordinary aspects of life that occur frequently. The internal cycle of hunger, for example, is a continuous cycle of renewal. Hunger is the brain’s perception of an empty stomach that leads to the physiological desire to consume food to satisfy the body’s nutritional needs. The feeling of hunger can produce mood swings and an overall unpleasant sensation until the body consumes food. This painful experience of emptiness and relative unhappiness vanishes when the body ingests food, renewing the body’s store of energy and the removal of any unhappy emotions. Hunger, which the brain perceives to be a very tangible feeling, is only the variation of two hormones in the body. In simple terms, hunger is the absence of the hormone leptin. With the aid of food, the levels of leptin in the body are restored and a sense of filling is achieved. The simple fluctuation of one substance has amazing implications on the human life. Avoiding hunger is one of the most important goal of all humanity. Food, the aid that renews us both physically and mentally, is therefore essential to every human being because only food can satisfy the craving of fulfillment that the body requires. When food enters the body, leptin levels increase which rids the physical and...
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...How ‘little murders’ affect the sustainability of knowledge renewal Introduction (Reasoning) The idea of relation economics come up by Zuboff and Maxmin (2002) seems connected to S-D logic, because of its main idea that the power shifts to the customers. As a result, it interests me to explore whether the four forms of ‘little murders’ would be applicable for the practical issue of value co-creation. Because of the page limitation, I am going to focus on the knowledge renewal which is one of the enablers of value-creating activities according to Ballantyne and Varey (2006, p. 342) Knowledge renewal deals with the issues about how knowledge is created, applied and shared within firms,or with suppliers and customers (p. 340), which could be regarded as a self-sustaining mechanism. Although Brown and Duguid (2001, p.209) has mentioned stickiness and leakiness of knowledge from the aspects of internal divisions and external connections as potential problems when a company is coordinated around knowledge and applications . Personally, leakiness and stickiness are more about the demerits inherent in the nature of knowledge. By contrast, the barriers of applying relationship economics refers more about the economic or financial environment. The next section is to analyse how the ‘little murders’ affect knowledge. Zuboff and Maxmin (2002, p.194) introduced four deeds resulting in the destruction of relationship value. They are starvation, inflation, tyranny and mimicry. First...
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...quarters or the last 3 years, and we say that there has been an increase of 1.23% in the commission & other expenses over gross premiums, which is related to the policy as agents get 25 % instead of 7%. While new policies profit increased a 5.9%, the renewal policies decreased the same amount. However, this change has brought as result that of a total of 3900 (including processed within TAT, out TAT and loses) total Renew requests in the 2nd quarter of 1991, there were 926 loses, taking us to 23.74% loses and 23% processed after TAT. As the RUN and RAP method were being emphasized, there was loss of renewals according to the data provided. The RAPs are converted into RUNs in 10 days and then 3-5 days in getting completed. The SCT is less for RERUNs. So we can conclude that RERUNs also takes less time to get completed. Table 2: Volume 2nd Quarter Table 3: Commission Analysis The commission paid to agents for completing a RUN and RERUN is 25% and 7% respectively. They get more money if they complete RUNs and RAPs. This encourages them to prioritize their work by addressing RUNs and RAPs first, which just delays the RERUNs further. Even though renewals did not have the same initial value of new policies but losing renewals still...
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...beginning of 20th century, originally specialized in orchard and farm insurance. During the first half of the 20th century, they expanded their business throughout California by buying other insurance company. After the World War II, Manzana had become the second-largest home and commercial property insurer in California. However, the profit of Manzana has been decreasing over the past year. There are four major causes for the profit decreasing, the first one is due to the high turnaround time. Manzana has the turnaround time for six days, which the competitor, Golden Gate only take two days to process their tasks and this is the essence competition between these two companies. Secondly, a number of late renewals cause a rise in the renewal loss rate which result in losing lots of customers for the company. Thirdly, the agents recommend other carriers to customers when contract renewals were late. The last one is that the competition in the insurance business had increased sharply these days. Thus Manzana insurance lose the market share. According to Manzana’s operations flow system, the processing time and the number of requests are sources of variability in the system and Uneven workload for an...
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...Therefore, as the visionary instructional leader, I will incorporate all of my teachers in the curriculum renewal process. The text identifies ten essential steps for assessing the curriculum. I agree with the authors and would support this list at my school. The first step is studying conditions and trends in contemporary society as well as probable conditions and requirements. This requires educational leaders to not just see things as they are today but to envision a future that includes instructional innovations that provide students with a greater desire to learn. The second step is stressing a need for balance. Educational leaders must demonstrate the need for a balanced approach when changing the curriculum. School leaders cannot allow ideological bias against skill-based instructions to stop them from a balanced reading approach. The third step...
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...to be made to any current employee. This paper will show the organizational change processes that were not implemented at the Concord Bookshop, which led to the change failure. The phases in an organizational change process are strategic renewal and organization change, behavioral changes, and employee participation and resistance to change. According to Spector (2010), strategic renewal requires organizational change and demands “wide-scale invention, reinvention, and redesign of business processes and organizational structures” (p. 4). For strategic renewal to be successful, organizations need to create new business models. The business model is the organizations approach to generating revenue and making a profit. Changing an existing business model is more difficult than starting a new one because changing an existing model requires organizational changes. These changes usually affect behavior patterns of existing employees. The employees of the Concord Bookshop were resistant to changes. The managers stated that the finances were not as bad as the board of directors made it sound and why would they want to take the store in a different direction. For the organization to have effective strategic renewal the leaders needed to create changes in the employee’s patterns of behavior to support the...
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