Month: January 2019

Instructions

We all encounter services every day, but we rarely stop and really observe the service. The purpose of this assignment is to get you “out in the wild” and observing a service in detail and thinking about “what are the trade-offs and decisions that service managers face?”

The Task

·         Observe a service carefully for at least one hour.

·         Submit a 2-4 page written summary

Selecting a Service to Observe

·         Here are some criteria and suggestions for selecting a service to observe:

·         It must be a largely “visible” service in that you can see customers moving in and out of the service, and preferably during the service.

·         Go when you will be able to observe many customers over the course of an hour.

·         Here are some suggested services:

o    A fast-food or quick-serve restaurant such as McDonald’s, Chipotle, Panera, Starbucks, Burgerville, mall food court, etc.

o    Food trucks (watch more than one)

o    Airport: Both ticketing/check-in and security screening

o    Department of Motor Vehicles service center

o    Post Office

o    Emergency department or urgent care center

o    Retail stores such as grocery, drug store, discount, big box, department, etc.

o    Barber shop such as GreatClips, SportClips, SuperCuts, TheBarbers, etc.

·         Feel free to use this Service Observation Grading Sheet to get you started in your observation.

Things to Look for and Consider

·         In general, you want to “reverse engineer” the Service Design Framework of the company. In other words, you want to try to figure out what decisions and tradeoffs managers have made in designing the service and why might they have made these.

·         Try to consider both the company and the customer perspectives.

·         Here are some specific things you might look for:

o    Customer arrivals:

§  Are they scheduled? Random? Predictable? Individuals or batches? How often? (Take a stopwatch and collect some data. e.g., for each customer, record arrival time, departure time, etc.)

·         Customer variation:

o    Are customers all the same in their needs and desires?

o    If not, how do they differ?

o    Do customers ever leave before being served? Why?

·         Service process:

o    How involved is the customer in the creation of the service?

o    Is the service the same for each customer?

o    How long does the service take, and does this vary from customer to customer?

o    How flexible is the service process, in terms of capacity and variety?

o    In what ways does the physical facility help or hinder the service?

·         Funding Mechanism:

o    When and how does the customer pay?

·         Overall:

o    Are there any glaring problems? Are they easily fixed or difficult?

o    Are there any aspects of the service that you think are particularly challenging?

o    Are there aspects of the service design that are novel or innovative?

The Written Report

·         2-4 pages is a guideline. You may go a little longer if need be.

·         Include pictures, drawings, data tables, whatever helps convey what you saw. (These do not count as part of the page count.)

·         The format does not need to be terribly formal or verbose. It can be similar to this document in that it is a combination of full paragraphs and bullet points. That said, don’t be sloppy. Check your grammar and spelling, and proof-read to make sure that you are conveying complete thoughts.

Pick a side (for better or worse).

If you needed to persuade your audience to sign a petition supporting your chosen side, which Background Variables (demographics, media, socio-economics, etc ) might you need to consider? Which subjective norms and/ perceived behavioral control might you need to think about? What about direct experience and/or vested interest?

Examine at LEAST four of the above attitude/relationship components in your response.

To prepare for the Calculations, review the sections of Chapter 6 (“The Time Value of Money”) from your Financial Management of Health Care Organizations: An Introduction to Fundamental Tools, Concepts, and Applications textbook that explain how to use an Excel spreadsheet to calculate monetary values. (The pertinent section of Chapter 6 to review for each type of Calculation is identified in the below list of Calculations, under the respective listing for that particular Calculation.) Then, read through the financial scenarios provided below, which contain the information that you will use to populate and perform the Calculations.

To complete the Calculations, use the Financial Formula functions in Microsoft Excel to perform five monetary value Calculations, which you will complete using information from the provided financial scenarios. Submit your completed Calculations in an Excel spreadsheet with five tabs—one tab for each of the following monetary value Calculations and with that particular tab reflecting only the result of that particular Calculation:

Calculation 1—The future value of a single monetary amount invested today (i.e., what a lump-sum amount invested today will be worth at a given time in the future using the compound interest method)

Scenario

An uninsured patient who underwent emergency surgery at Memorial Hospital owes $10,000 for the services that he received. Because he will be unable to work during his recovery, the patient has requested that the hospital not pursue collecting the $10,000 for a period of 1 year, after which time he will pay the hospital in full in a single lump sum. Memorial Hospital has a strong cash position and, given the patient’s medical and financial situation, it would prefer to avoid putting his account into collections. As such, the hospital is actively considering the patient’s request. In order to determine what amount the patient would need to pay in 1 year’s time so that the hospital would not be losing any money on the delayed payment, Memorial Hospital’s billing unit has calculated the future value of the $10,000 that the patient owes. Their calculation is based on an interest rate of 6%, which reflects an average of the current rates on the market that the hospital could expect to earn were it to have the $10,000 available to invest today, rather than having to wait for the patient to make the payment in 1 year’s time. What did the hospital’s billing unit determine the future value of the $10,000 owed would be?

Note: For detailed information on how to perform this type of Calculation, review the section “Using a Spreadsheet to Calculate Future Value” and Exhibit 6-5 “Using Excel to Calculate the Future Value for a Single Payment” on page 266 of the Financial Management of Health Care Organizations: An Introduction to Fundamental Tools, Concepts, and Applications textbook.

Calculation 2—The present value of a single monetary amount to be received in the future (i.e., the value today of a lump-sum payment to be received in the future, taking into account the cost of capital)

Scenario

After some additional discussions with the Memorial Hospital billing unit, the uninsured patient in the Scenario for Calculation 1—who underwent emergency surgery at the hospital, who owes $10,000 for the services that he received, and who requested that the hospital not pursue collecting the $10,000 for 1 year—has proposed that, at the end of the 1-year time period, he pay the hospital a lump sum of $10,700. In order to determine whether or not it would be financially advisable for it to accept the patient’s proposal, Memorial Hospital’s billing unit has calculated the present value of the $10,700 lump sum that the patient has offered to pay the hospital in 1 year’s time. As in Scenario 1, their calculation is based on an interest rate of 6%, which reflects an average of the current rates on the market. What did the hospital’s billing unit determine the present value of the future payment of $10,700 to be?

Note: For detailed information on how to perform this type of Calculation, review the section “Using a Spreadsheet to Calculate Present Value” and Exhibit 6-8 “Using Excel to Calculate the Present Value for a Single Payment” on page 269 of the Financial Management of Health Care Organizations: An Introduction to Fundamental Tools, Concepts, and Applications textbook.

Calculation 3—The future value of an ordinary annuity payment (I.e., what an equal series of payments will be worth at some future date using compound interest)

Scenario

The family of a former patient has decided to make a series of annual donations to Memorial Hospital for a period of 5 years, giving the hospital a single payment of $20,000 at the end of each year to be used for a planned expansion of the hospital’s Cancer Center. In order to determine the future value of this ongoing donation and to plan financially for its use in the expansion effort, the hospital is projecting that the series of donations will earn an average annual interest rate over the 5-year period of 8%. In light of this, what would the future value of the total donation to Memorial Hospital be at the end of the 5 years?

Note: For detailed information on how to perform this type of Calculation, review the section “Using a Spreadsheet to Calculate the Future Value of an Ordinary Annuity” and Exhibit 6-10 “Using Excel to Calculate the Future Value for an Ordinary Annuity Payment” on pages 271 and 272, respectively, of the Financial Management of Health Care Organizations: An Introduction to Fundamental Tools, Concepts, and Applications textbook.

Calculation 4—The present value of an ordinary annuity payment (i.e., what a series of equal payments in the future is worth today, taking into account the time value of money)

Scenario

Based on the Scenario for Calculation 3, Memorial Hospital also wishes to determine the present value of the 5-year series of end-of-year $20,000 donations that it will be receiving annually from the family of a former patient for the planned expansion of its Cancer Center. Still assuming that the donations will earn an average interest rate over the 5-year period of 8%, what would the present value of the total donation to Memorial Hospital be?

Note: For detailed information on how to perform this type of Calculation, review the section “Using a Spreadsheet to Calculate the Present Value of an Ordinary Annuity” and Exhibit 6-12 “Using Excel to Calculate the Present Value for an Ordinary Annuity Payment” on page 274 of the Financial Management of Health Care Organizations: An Introduction to Fundamental Tools, Concepts, and Applications textbook.

Calculation 5—The interest rate of a loan with fixed loan payments (i.e., a loan for which the payments will be equal over the life/length of the loan)

Scenario

To purchase a new piece of diagnostic imaging equipment for use in its expanded Cancer Center, Memorial Hospital is considering taking out a $100,000 loan that would require the organization to make an annual payment to the lender at the end of each year for a period of 6 years. If the amount of the annual payment that the hospital would be making at the end of each year is $21,000, what would the interest rate be for Memorial Hospital’s loan to finance the new equipment?