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We have come to Episode 12 of the Sun Tzu series, which brings us to Suzhou, China. James visits a company called Diploma which provides cleaning and logistics services (yes, it is a rather strange name to be associated with cleaning, as cleaning is generally a menial, blue-collar task which is not associated with educated graduates, but oh well). Diploma provides essential services to various industries and has a rather complex business model as it provides a myriad of services, of which cleaning and meal catering are but two of them.
Diploma is a 12-year old company which services about 100 clients, most of which are Fortune 500 companies which have set up operations in China. Diploma can be referred to as a “logistics outsourcing company”, and its main focus these days is on food as it has a major event coming up – the Shanghai Expo. This is a new market and represents a good opportunity for Diploma to showcase its talent; however to handle such a mega-event requires expertise and skilled personnel, both of which are somewhat lacking at the company.
The company is experience fast business growth but unfortunately there is no proper structured staff training and so there is no reflection on their growth path as so far no mistakes have been made and documented. They had a large plant with two sizeable buildings, hence there would be ample room for expansion. There is also a lot of empty office space which was originally reserved for expansion purposes. The central kitchen was built with funds gathered from 2007 and it generated 50% of Diploma’s total revenue in just the last 2 years.
Regarding their biggest contract at Shanghai Expo, the company is running a 300-seater café that can take 6,000 diners daily. They have developed a speedy and efficient system (though still untested) which will be used to support the logistics of the massive café and so far everything looks to run like clockwork. However, a point was made by James that the lack of staff training could be Diploma’s downfall, as the service staff were not good with food arrangement when James put them to the test. At Diploma’s training school, staff were rote-learning on how best to serve customers; but in a service industry where good and personalized service is paramount, this method of instruction may not be suitable at all. Even the HR manager mentioned that it was a daunting task involved in training all the staff properly. Read more...[caption id="attachment_4465" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Photo by kanegen"][/caption]
We have come to Episode 12 of the Sun Tzu series, which brings us to Suzhou, China. James visits a company called Diploma which provides cleaning and logistics services (yes, it is a rather strange name to be associated with cleaning, as cleaning is generally a menial, blue-collar task which is not associated with educated graduates, but oh well). Diploma provides essential services to various industries and has a rather complex business model as it provides a myriad of services, of which cleaning and meal catering are but two of them.
Diploma is a 12-year old company which services about 100 clients, most of which are Fortune 500 companies which have set up operations in China. Diploma can be referred to as a “logistics outsourcing company”, and its main focus these days is on food as it has a major event coming up – the Shanghai Expo. This is a new market and represents a good opportunity for Diploma to showcase its talent; however to handle such a mega-event requires expertise and skilled personnel, both of which are somewhat lacking at the company.
The company is experience fast business growth but unfortunately there is no proper structured staff training and so there is no reflection on their growth path as so far no mistakes have been made and documented. They had a large plant with two sizeable buildings, hence there would be ample room for expansion. There is also a lot of empty office space which was originally reserved for expansion purposes. The central kitchen was built with funds gathered from 2007 and it generated 50% of Diploma’s total revenue in just the last 2 years.
Regarding their biggest contract at Shanghai Expo, the company is running a 300-seater café that can take 6,000 diners daily. They have developed a speedy and efficient system (though still untested) which will be used to support the logistics of the massive café and so far everything looks to run like clockwork. However, a point was made by James that the lack of staff training could be Diploma’s downfall, as the service staff were not good with food arrangement when James put them to the test. At Diploma’s training school, staff were rote-learning on how best to serve customers; but in a service industry where good and personalized service is paramount, this method of instruction may not be suitable at all. Even the HR manager mentioned that it was a daunting task involved in training all the staff properly. Read more...
[/caption]
We have come to Episode 12 of the Sun Tzu series, which brings us to Suzhou, China. James visits a company called Diploma which provides cleaning and logistics services (yes, it is a rather strange name to be associated with cleaning, as cleaning is generally a menial, blue-collar task which is not associated with educated graduates, but oh well). Diploma provides essential services to various industries and has a rather complex business model as it provides a myriad of services, of which cleaning and meal catering are but two of them.
Diploma is a 12-year old company which services about 100 clients, most of which are Fortune 500 companies which have set up operations in China. Diploma can be referred to as a “logistics outsourcing company”, and its main focus these days is on food as it has a major event coming up – the Shanghai Expo. This is a new market and represents a good opportunity for Diploma to showcase its talent; however to handle such a mega-event requires expertise and skilled personnel, both of which are somewhat lacking at the company.
The company is experience fast business growth but unfortunately there is no proper structured staff training and so there is no reflection on their growth path as so far no mistakes have been made and documented. They had a large plant with two sizeable buildings, hence there would be ample room for expansion. There is also a lot of empty office space which was originally reserved for expansion purposes. The central kitchen was built with funds gathered from 2007 and it generated 50% of Diploma’s total revenue in just the last 2 years.
Regarding their biggest contract at Shanghai Expo, the company is running a 300-seater café that can take 6,000 diners daily. They have developed a speedy and efficient system (though still untested) which will be used to support the logistics of the massive café and so far everything looks to run like clockwork. However, a point was made by James that the lack of staff training could be Diploma’s downfall, as the service staff were not good with food arrangement when James put them to the test. At Diploma’s training school, staff were rote-learning on how best to serve customers; but in a service industry where good and personalized service is paramount, this method of instruction may not be suitable at all. Even the HR manager mentioned that it was a daunting task involved in training all the staff properly. Read more...
