Full description of the 5 main functional areas in Thorpe park (Marketing, Human Resources, Customer services, Health and Safety
Introduction
Welcome to our Thorpe park guide!!
In this guide I will be discussing the different functional areas within Thorpe park. Functional areas are different departments within a business that help the business to achieve their aims and objectives. e.g. all the tasks that have to be carried out by the business: Human Resources, Finance, Marketing etc.
Furthermore, within this guide I will also include a full description of the 5 main functional areas in Thorpe park (Marketing, Human Resources, Customer services, Health and Safety and I.C.T) and how they all linked together help the business to strive to success. The guide will also include how the different functional areas communicate within a business and how this can affect the future of the business and how well the business does.
Functional Areas
Marketing:
The marketing department are a small group which work with Thorpe park and has the responsibility for the marketing debt to ensure that the brand identity is maintained in all communication both on and of the park. They are able to do this through identifying the brand identity, target market, and visual representation of the brand. (brand logo) For Thorpe park the marketing group target families with children over the age of 12.
Every year the marketing group produces a plan which covers the following areas:
Product: In this case the product is what Thorpe park provides for the product, rides. The marketing department every year with almost out exception they launch a new attraction ( ride) for the public. In this case Thorpe park also have to provide places to eat, games, photography, and the good atmosphere so that the family can fully enjoy the day at Thorpe park and get real value for their money.
Pricing: When deciding the price the marketing department have to put inn consideration the cost of producing the product, the prices charged by rival competitions and what the costumers themselves are willing to pay. Marketing review the pricing every year along with the finance department to look at how the budgeted targets can be achieved through the pricing matrix. They also have to reconsider how the tickets are purchased as tickets purchased through the internet are further discounted as it is a more efficient way to produce the tickets and it also minimizes the queues at the booking office.
Promotion: Promotion is very important as this is the way that a business makes their costumers aware of their new products. Promotion of the park happens via a number of different communication methods:
Advertising: They can generally do this through television, radio and press. Although television is the most expensive method, advertising a product on Saturday at 7.00pm could reach as much as 10 million people at once whilst through the press and radio it is opposite.
Promotions: Promotions are very important as they generally reach the public quicker than other methods. The incentive is usually either buy one get one free or a discount of the full adult or child price. Thorpe park runs promotions in conjunction with the Tussauds group. Promotions can also be run with a wide variety of retail and media partners, newspapers, or via direct mail campaigns surrounding homes.
Public Relations They all have to make sure that they get a positive exposure in the media, TV, radio and press.( usually achieved through issuing press releases and conducting interviews ...
This is a preview of the whole essay
Promotions: Promotions are very important as they generally reach the public quicker than other methods. The incentive is usually either buy one get one free or a discount of the full adult or child price. Thorpe park runs promotions in conjunction with the Tussauds group. Promotions can also be run with a wide variety of retail and media partners, newspapers, or via direct mail campaigns surrounding homes.
Public Relations They all have to make sure that they get a positive exposure in the media, TV, radio and press.( usually achieved through issuing press releases and conducting interviews with journalists.
Health and safety:
Yearly Thorpe park employ approximately 700 cast members. The health and safety of all the visitors that visit Thorpe park put their lives in the hands of the cast members which efficiently make sure that the park is good and safe for visitors every day.
Policy Statement: The company aims to provide and maintain the highest practical standards of safe working conditions throughout is operations together with compliance with legislation on order to protect the health and safety of its employees and visitors to its site, so far as they may be affected. I is the duty of management at all levels to ensure that everything reasonable and practical is done to protect employees and visitors from personal injuries and hazards to health. To this end their shall be readily available for employees a copy of the group health and safety policy together with the more detailed site specific information contained within the sites health and safety policy and manual. It is equally the duty of employee to co-operate with management in its pursuance of these aims.
Safety of Rides: All of the rides should display written information and instructions to the costumers to how they should safely use the ride and in case of any emergencies how to follow emergency procedures. All this information is also included in the park map and at the entrance to the park. Every day each ride must pass a safety check to see if it is fully operational within the law. These procedures are all undertaken by the engineering department early in the morning before the park is opened to all of its visitors. Before the rides can be started the ride operators all make sure that all safety bars are well placed and fully operational .At the end of each year the rides are stripped down and all safety critical components are tested.
General Health and Safety: All cast members are trained with the emergency procedures such as fires. Only certain authorised vehicles are allowed inside the park in certain locations and at specific speed limits. there is a medical centre leaded by a qualified first aider.
Security: The security is important for everyone and how the park is run. For the park to be fully operational all safety measures need to be taken and all security measures must be introduced as the safety of the costumers comes first . The park is fully equipped with CCTV cameras to make sure that nothing out of the original happens before, during or after opening hours.
Human Resources:
The human resources department staff all specialise in dealing with the people who work in the business. They handle such things as recruitment, training, retirement, redundancies and working conditions.
Each year Thorpe park approximately advertises , with the help of the marketing department, 2,000 seasonal jobs. These adverts appear in the local press to advertise two open days when prospective cast members can visit .Once suitable candidates have returned their application forms they will be interviewed, those which are successful are then offered a position. These new staff members then have to endure two induction days of training.
Thorpe park normally employees about 1,100 seasonal cast and approximately employ 250 permanent cast, many of whom will then work in both Thorpe park and
Chessington.
These two days of training include the Tussauds group park structure, health and safety issues, guest care, standards of behaviour, videos of fire safety, emergency procedures, uniforms and appearance, rules and regulations and role plays to test their attention at the end of the first induction day.
On the second day of training they will have department specific training with tills and admissions, games, catering, cast facilities and rides which they have to pass a verbal and written test on ride safety.
Within the human resources department has a variety of functions that include cast welfare, cast development, training of the cast, recruitment, administration and accommodation.
The human resources provides all of this training to the new and current cast members because they want to make sure that the cast members are able to offer quality services to the public by showing that their training was really efficient and that they fully understood it. Therefore it is important for Thorpe park to ensure that the cast members feel valued in the jobs that they have. For this reason , cast incentives, which should appeal to everyone are in place. They offer their cast a dream ticket which allows for a predetermined number of free entries to both parks. At the end of every year a seasonal progress review is put into action and takes formal assessment that identifies performances and provides motivation.
As in any work place , their needs to be a course of action that is followed when company policy is not followed. The disciplinary procedure can be applied only to cast members who have completed their probationary period. The stages of disciplinary action taken towards cast members is as follows: verbal warning, written warning, final written warning, suspension, and finally dismissal.
I.C.T
Information technology is installed in the most operational areas of Thorpe park so that all staff members can have all of the appropriate equipment to be able to work efficiently and provide good quality services to the public. Through communication, design, analyses and implementation, we aim to make sure our company is more efficient.
Information technology is vital in the running of some functional areas within Thorpe park. Information technology affects five main areas within Thorpe park, they are:
* Electronic Booking
* Communication and information handling, office and business systems
* Till/Merchandising
* Security (CCTV)
* Rides Control.
To establish a firm background for all these systems an efficient network had to be installed in order to ensure a fast and comprehensive method of linking all those users.
Thorpe park uses FDDI network on token ring topology is used as our backbone.
(FDDI stands for Fibre-distributed data interference.)
Through information technology Thorpe park uses several methods of communication including E-mails. These increasingly help to cut down on memos, forms, notice board information and bulky reports. Therefore Thorpe park are able to save paper, ink and printing costs and conserves environmental resources. E-mails go directly to the Tussauds group head office where they then take care of transporting the information.
All cast members are issued with a radio and some even carry mobile phones so that they can be contacted. The radio that the staff carries has up to 8 channels. The radio is normally used to pass information to the control room about hoe the park is running and if any problem suddenly occurs all staff members around the park can be aware of the problem via a radio message.
Sophisticated till systems are used in merchandising shops and food outlets. EPOS (Electronic Point Of Sale) is used with the products with a barcode. This is linked to the central stock control to monitor the movement of all our merchandise and food items from both our warehouse. This is therefore important for maintaining sell-by dates and to forecast sales accurately.
Through out the whole business is fitted with information technology to make the jobs of the staff members easier and to make the park environmentally friendly as safe for all visitors to the parks attractions. Apart from the above information technology is also fitted in many rides to make sure that they start and finish at the right point. This is also fitted in other major functional areas such as finance which need information technology to make sure that their numbers are correct and up to date. In some areas of the park it is possible to customise their own databases.
Guest Services / Customer Services
The guest services team is mainly responsible for dealing with guest comments. These guest comments can vary in content and in the way in which they can be resolved. All departments keep the guest services team up to date through-out the day of any information that can affect the guests day out. (delays)
The guest services also work on first impressions. They make sure that the first impressions that the customers get is very positive and has a good effect on them. They make up a set of guide lines to make sure that they are always well presented by setting 5 main areas; dress, personality, attitude, behaviour and personal hygiene.
The guest services also need to make sure that they train the cast members with lessons about politeness, awareness of special needs and strategies to use for different situations. They need to train them within these areas because every year they receive customers who speak different languages and people from all sorts of age groups, in which they need to be able to interact with in the appropriate manor. The guest service team simply take their appearance and image standards very seriously, because through them they are able to cast forward to the public their high standards.
Methods of communication
Throughout Thorpe park their exists many methods of communication between the main functional areas. Especially within the I.C.T department which has the use of information technology we can discover many methods of communication. Every department in Thorpe park in some way has something to do with information technology and methods of communication within information technology. Through in formation technology al department are able to keep in touch with one another as they can send e-mails instead of memos and instead of sending a messenger. Also the respective leaders of each department also meet up to discuss many issues about the business using oral communication.
Ruben Lima Goncalves
