Simulation Reflection – Ecotripp
Intro
Ecotripp is a sustainable travel website that helps people book hotel and resort stays
while leaving a positive impact on the environment. We started out as a search engine offering
customers a sortable travel list at special rates. As the company progressed its model shifted,
where gathering data and predicting customer movements emerged as our primary business
model. I am on the leadership team since the beginning and we are determined to provide our
customers he best value while rising to be the major player in the travel segment. Thus, all my
decisions revolved around this aim and I will explain each round individually and the rationale
and thought processes behind the resolution offered to fulfill that goal.
Round One
Challenges:
The company faced obstacles when the number of employees grew from 5 to 50 and the
burden that this brought in their first big growth. Employees were unclear of their responsibilities
leading to reduced focus which led to more mistakes as they had to wear multiple hats at work.
After understanding the situation and analyzing the metrics it was apparent that the company
needed to change its organizational structure and move to a functional, departmentalized model.
Decision Factors:
For this round, I focused on the change of structure and created departments based on the
functions. The organization had grown enough for the employees to enhance their knowledge
and sharpen their specific skillsets to reduce errors and improve efficiency. Also, the employees
had to be cross-trained to prepare them for different tasks as the need arises. I wanted the
organization to be mid-high centralized as employees were starting to develop and improving
their cross-functioning. The strategic and product decisions were handled by top management
and supervisors as these were essential in the grand scheme of things. I included supervisors in
this decision-making process as they had a better understanding of the products and services
which customers appreciated which are both essential to map out long-term plans. I entrusted
supervisors and individual representatives to the undertake the implementation plans to serve the
customers. The supervisors understand the day to day operations and representatives
Hiren Daiya
This study source was downloaded by 100000862489280 from CourseHero.com on 04-23-2023 12:50:08 GMT -05:00
https://www.coursehero.com/file/113390019/Ecotripp-Simulation-Reflection-Paperpdf/
Simulation Reflection – Ecotripp
communicate with customers directly to understand their needs and offer solutions which is
essential and thus both their insights would be helpful at this level.
The next step involved on how to utilize the employees. Since the organization is
following a functional structure where different departments assumed different responsibilities,
the employees were expected to deepen their knowledge and improve their skills in their specific
job function to better serve the customers. Since, we started as a small fluid organization with
little-to-no structure initially, employees assumed varied responsibilities, and were unclear on
their specific roles. Also, as we were growing, the employees were cross-trained to further
enhance their skillset and prepare them for different challenges as the need arises. The managers
were put in charge of 6 individuals under them at each level of the organization, which enabled
them to supervise their employees efficiently thus avoiding multiple layers of supervision within
the organization.
Outcome:
The decisions made during this round helped shaping organization’s structure to a
functional model and improved a few metrics. The decision-making time, productivity, and
communication within the organization improved vastly. However, there were some hiccups
owing to the changes implemented. Speed to market remained neutral and below the industry
standard while collaboration and employee engagement did not show much change and remained
neutral.
Round Two
Challenges:
After contemplating the results from round one, I am a little bit disappointed to see a few
metrics not improving as I had envisioned. Therefore, I focused on making better management
decisions to ensure that the company grew at a rapid pace and improve their market share. There
were two main challenges in this round, first to provide better local deals and second was
increased competition with their ability to offer local insight. that were presented in this round
was offering the customers better local deals. Customers were looking for their trips to be tied to
the local cultures, lifestyles, and activities.
Hiren Daiya
This study source was downloaded by 100000862489280 from CourseHero.com on 04-23-2023 12:50:08 GMT -05:00
https://www.coursehero.com/file/113390019/Ecotripp-Simulation-Reflection-Paperpdf/
Simulation Reflection – Ecotripp
Decision Factors:
For this round I focused on improving collaboration, prioritizing goals, and restructuring
the organization to target growing geographical presence. The company showed significant
growth in a short span of 6 months. To further facilitate this growth, a restructuring based on
geographical locations became essential as the organization had a globalized presence now.
Since the company operations expanded to America, Europe and Asia further bifurcation of the
sales, marketing, and product departments based on their geography became vital to ensure
streamlining of operations and improved outcomes. By separating the departments based on their
location it improved our customer interactions as there is a vast difference depending on the
country and continent, we operated in. This further helped us in developing the right marketing
campaigns and sales strategy based on the location while presenting us with better product
development and implementation. The addition of regional managers ensured that the growth in
each region was well targeted and operations ran smoothly across different continents. The
geographical decisions were managed by Regional and Business unit heads with oversight from
the top management to ensure any bottlenecks were dealt with in an efficient manner, while
keeping the remaining structure unchanged.
A crucial aspect to achieve the goals is ensuring that the employees are well trained and
communication between departments are improved. Departments are segregated according to the
region and specializations and each one assumes specific responsibilities. However, employees
should be cross-trained to promote collaboration between teams and departments to maximize
their efficiency. Assigning horizontal structure across geography helps to improve collaboration
and achieve the set goals without conflicts.
Outcome:
The decisions led to successfully moving the organization into a divisional structure
which was essential due to its global presence. This enables the company its customers based on
their location and caters to customized services and products. Speed to market went up and was
above industry average while productivity was enhanced, and decision-making time was
reduced. Furthermore, communication and collaboration saw significant improvement and
company’s profitability increased. There were still areas for improvements.
Hiren Daiya
This study source was downloaded by 100000862489280 from CourseHero.com on 04-23-2023 12:50:08 GMT -05:00
https://www.coursehero.com/file/113390019/Ecotripp-Simulation-Reflection-Paperpdf/
Simulation Reflection – Ecotripp
Round Three
Challenges:
Ecotripp has now become one of the main players in this industry. The main challenges
that lie ahead are to improve offered products and services which are appealing the customers.
We are currently facing some divisional issues while communicating and integrating efforts
across different regions.
Decision Factors:
One of our goals is to improve the products and services to our customers. Therefore, I
decided to add additional departments within the already created divisions. Customers highly
appreciated insights about and access to the best experiences and deals for airlines, gourmet food
tours, and unique accommodations. Thus, I added all three divisions which allows in finding and
creating the best deals and bundles for customers. This decision added another layer to the
decision-making process, I entrusted decisions pertaining to the product line with the regional
heads and area managers while retaining the previous levels of involvement like the previous
rounds. These were a few factors when deciding the chain of commands to ensure seamless
integration between different divisions and departments.
Outcome:
The results for this round were underwhelming. There were a few improvements in
metrics such as collaboration within departments, employee satisfaction, and communications.
However, decision-making time doubled, and productivity dropped from 81% to 62% which
impacted company’s revenues in a big way leading to dwindling profits. The changes made in
the chain of command during this round were inadequate and reduced autonomy to the decision
makers where many layers were involved took its toll and turnaround time was affected and so
was employee engagement. All these factors put together contributed towards the company
failing to achieve its desired goals and fell short of its potential.
Key Take Away & Recommendations
Reflecting upon the decisions I made through Ecotripp’s journey, I realized that they did
not align well with each other and I could have done a better job to help them achieve its full
Hiren Daiya
This study source was downloaded by 100000862489280 from CourseHero.com on 04-23-2023 12:50:08 GMT -05:00
https://www.coursehero.com/file/113390019/Ecotripp-Simulation-Reflection-Paperpdf/
Simulation Reflection – Ecotripp
potential. If I were to do this again, would have taken a few different decisions which would
improve the metrics across board and set the company to scale new heights. While going through
the reports and watching Professor Hanieyh’s video where she explains the strategies and
rationale behind them made me aware of the fact that every single decision you make has to
work seamlessly with the next one for a company to run like a well-oiled machine and achieve
its potential. If I had targeted specific responsibilities at each level of workforce and
management, it would have reduced multiple layers which are sometimes suffocating and slows
down the turnaround time thereby reducing autonomy and responsible decision-making. This in
turn would have improve employee accountability leading to enhanced communication and
better collaboration across board. I should have altered my centralization strategies set specific
responsibilities at mid-level thereby reducing the upper management constant approval. Some
examples of the specific decisions I could have done differently are:
Round 1: I was focused on employees improving their knowledge and skillsets to
reduce errors and enhance customer experience. I should have focused on turning them
into experts within their domain instead of cross-training them to prepare for future
needs.
Round 2: Improving my centralization strategies by entrusting specific responsibilities
across all levels of management without adding multiple layers was the key takeaway
from this round. This strategy was not fruitful as it reduced their work specialization
thereby reducing their efficiency and effectiveness. This could have been improved with
higher level of autonomy and decision-making authority which in turn would enhance
communications and collaborations between teams, departments, and divisions thereby
ensuring a smooth flow of operations.
Round 3: Coming to this round I was prepared to continue the flow which worked for
me. In hindsight, I should have strategized better and increased autonomy by reducing
multiple layers as that would have reduced decision-making time thereby increasing
productivity while achieving higher revenues and profitability. During the final matrix, I
could have reduced the complexity of organization by avoiding the diagonal line of
responsibilities and entrusting specific roles under business unit heads which was the
smartest route.
Hiren Daiya
This study source was downloaded by 100000862489280 from CourseHero.com on 04-23-2023 12:50:08 GMT -05:00
https://www.coursehero.com/file/113390019/Ecotripp-Simulation-Reflection-Paperpdf/
Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)
