MARA ANITA E.

ESAGA BSA II-A

1. In what ways are Hazel’s customers most likely to judge the quality of her lawn care
services?
The services of Hazel can be judged in the appearance of the lawn where she did her
services in which her customers will rate their satisfaction in the service done. Also customers
will also judge her service whether she followed the instructions given to her. The feedbacks of
her previous services will also affect the judgment of the customers to her services.

2. Hazel is the operations manager of her business. Among her responsibilities are
forecasting, inventory management, scheduling, quality assurance, and maintenance.

a. What kinds of things would likely require forecasts?

 Weather- in her kind of business in which her services are basically done outside she
should always check the everyday forecast of the weather. It is because it is not good to
do the mowing when the weather is not good especially when it is raining or worse
when there is a storm.
 Demand- she should do some forecasting for the demand of her business of how many
customers will acquire to her services so that she will be able to do some scheduling of
the her work and the maintenance of the equipments.

b. What inventory items does Hazel probably have? Name one inventory
decision she has to make periodically.
Hazel's business is a lawn care business that has lawn mowers, grass cutters and other
gardening tools and she only has to do the periodic inventory decision of the maintenance of
her lawn mowers which plays an integral part in her business.

c. What scheduling must she do? What things might occur to disrupt schedules and cause Hazel
to reschedule?
To ensure more satisfaction from her customers she must do some scheduling of her
services: time of performing the services and how long will it take the services will be done. This
will help assess their customers regarding their schedule of services and will result to smooth
operations in her business. The weather and demand forecasting including the malfunction of
machines will greatly affect her scheduling.

d. How important is quality assurance to Hazel’s business? Explain.

Quality insurance is very much important to Hazel's business because it will help her
earn more. The higher the quality then more income will flow in. To do the quality insurance in
this kind of business, she should make sure that the demands of her customers will be met and
customers will be satisfied.

e. What kinds of maintenance must be performed?

 Hazel should do maintenance to her service quality and that would include the
maintenance of her equipments and also her laborers. In this her business would be safe from
loss or bankruptcy.

3. What are some of the trade-offs that Hazel probably considered relative to:

a. Working for a company instead of for herself?

Hazel should probably consider a trade-off on the salary where she should be able to
assess her earnings whether which alternative would give more value to her. However she must
consider the risks of leaving the company and the bankruptcy of her business if not well taken
care of. Nevertheless, whether Hazel personally wants to be supervised or be the supervisor
can become a considerable trade-off. Hazel should try to choose which option gives her more
opportunity to achieve personal growth, contentment, and security.

b. Expanding the business?

Trade-offs that exist on expanding a business lies on the weighing of benefits as to the
costs and additional profit. After careful analysis based on the present factors, if the costs of
expanding the business outweigh the additional income that might be earned, it is better for
Hazel not to undergo expansion, however, she can opt to just make improvements.

c. Launching a Web site?

If the current campaign methods are enough for Hazel's business in which she can maximize her
business capability and capacity, there is no need to launch a website. Nonetheless, launching a
website could also prove beneficial in reaching a wider range of customers and provide
information about Hazel's lawn care helping the customer decide remotely without Hazel
answering or attending the same queries every single time.

5. Hazel decided to offer the students who worked for her a bonus of $25 for ideas on how to
improve the business, and they provided several good ideas. One idea that she initially rejected
now appears to hold great promise. The student who proposed the idea has left, and is
currently working for a competitor. Should Hazel send that student a check for the idea? What
are the possible trade-offs?
Unluckily Hazel made a wrong decision in which she lost the chance of the student's
idea of what may the result it to. Checking of the student's idea is okay but she would incur
additional cost and might cause a problem, because there might be a possibility that the idea of
the student is already being run in the competitor's business.

7. Hazel is thinking of making some of her operations sustainable. What are some ideas she
might consider?
Aside from quality assurance, the other ideas that would help Hazel make some of her
operations sustainable include innovations that maximize profit and reduce costs, offering a
wider range of services, reaching new groups of customers, improving the service quality based
on insights from past customers, and investing on high quality tools and equipment.