As a short-term business Consultant, I have been hired by Alton Towers PLC to find out information about the magical theme park, and produce a report.

There is a recruitment program at Alton Towers, which is:

• The Human Resource Centre gets told that there is a vacancy in one of the departments, a job description is wrote and placed out on the internet or in a job Centre in a 25 mile radius of the park.
• The candidates interested send in letters and CV’s showing their interest to the vacant position, short and long lists are drawn up as the CV’s are searched. Those who are selected are sent an application form and receive details about an interview.
• Those who were not accepted receive a letter of rejection, for those who are considered their application forms are checked over and an interview is conducted.
• When the most suitable candidate is chosen they are offered the job placement.

Another type of recruitment is a called internal recruitment. This is when there is a job offer opened and somebody from the park already applies. This has an advantage for the company, as the staff already knows the business including routines and procedures. When potential candidates are being chosen Alton Towers have to closely consider each of the following acts:

• The disability Discrimination Act (1996),
• The sex Discrimination Act (1975),
• The Race Relations Act (1976)

When the new staff members are employed at Alton Towers they need to be trained. The Human Resource Department deals with the training and, development and promotion of each employee. Even the people employed for permanent and temporary work are trained.

• There are two types of training, on the job and off the job. Alton Towers manly uses on the job training. This is when existing members of staff who are fully trained up, show and help develop the skills of the new members of staff. This way is cheap and focus’s on the needs of the organisation.
• The second way is called off the job training. These approaches to train up the new employees. This is an expensive method but the business could benefit from the new ideas and the employees take in more information as they learn at their own pace. The staffs are all taught to give Alton Towers customers magic and continue with the magical atmosphere which helps carry out an aim.

The Health and Safety of employees and visitors is very important to the theme park. Alton Towers must respect the heath and safety laws and regulations. There have been several kinds of Acts set, which include Acts of Parliament, and codes of practice. There is specific code of practice the Alton Towers must abide by due to it being for the leisure industry. This is HS(G)81 ‘’Fair grounds and amusement parks’’. The regulations included are about: their operation, maintenance and how emergencies will be dealt with. There has been almost 30 security staff hired by the Human Resource department who constantly is there to make sure that people are following the law.

Alton Towers find that in all the eleven departments deserve to receive good health and safety along with the respect they deserve. There is a health and safety Act, 1974, which states that the employer must provide safe conditions if this doesn’t happen then the employee can take legal action. Alton Towers tries to provide good conditions to work in. It asks its staff to look out for each other and the visitors to the theme park. The employees have been told that they have to communicate correctly, have a positive image, and have knowledge the products and services, also to be able to deal with customer complaints in the correct manner. If the guests or visitors feel the need to complain, then customer Services will deal with them.

2) The finance department

Alton Towers has lots of different departments; each one is essential to the running of the business. One of the departments is the finance Department. This consists of the below:

• Accounts
• Sales Ledger
• Purchase Ledger
• Budgets
• Forecasting
• Wages and Salaries
• Paying bills
• Cash Flow
• Fixed Costs
• Profit and Loss
• Balance Sheets

Accounts – Alton Towers have to, by law keep records everyday of transactions called accounts. These have to be kept by Alton Towers for a total of 6 years. If these accounts are kept on computer then they are ledger accounts. All financial information is stored in the accounts. The data can be revised to find out financial information including bank statements. Information is then available to the managers of the theme park. Members of the public and competitors of Alton Towers can have access to the financial information because Alton Towers is a PLC.

Sales Ledger – 12,000 invoices were produced on Alton Towers sales Ledger System in 1997. There are thousands of visitors to Alton Towers each year. There are a large number of these people that come in groups and so they pay through accounts. There are also people who book days out through accounts; invoices requesting payment are raised through a Sales Ledger System. This generates the original invoice and tracks it until it has been paid.

Purchase Ledger – 24,000 invoices were dealt with in 1997 using the Alton Towers Purchase Ledger System. This system records an invoice as it’s received and its progress is followed until its authorized and as a payment a cheque is sent. The invoice must include a corresponding purchase order number a signature of someone with the right authorization level before it can be processed through.

Budgets – Alton Towers as a business has to pay out lots of money. Some of these costs could include bills and staff wages. The finance department will issue a document called a budget. The budget will outline the financial targets for Alton Towers but will also set a budget for each of the other departments.

Forecasting – Businesses need to put timers next to their cash flow statements, these are then called a forecast. Alton Towers need a forecast, as it will include information from over the entire past year allowing Alton Towers to how many tickets the theme park must sell before their break even and profit point is reached. The break-even point is when the production of a product and revenue made are the same.

Fixed costs – The total costs of a business can be divided into two areas – fixed costs and Variable costs. The reason for this division is so that a break-even point can be calculated. Fixed costs at Alton Towers would be permanent staff wages and insurance. These costs may vary but it would be over a period of time. Alton Towers uses its fixed costs to work out its break-even point. The fixed costs are also known as overheads, the costs are unrelated to production of the product. The fixed costs also include telephone bills and electricity.

Cash flow – Alton Towers needs to know about money that’s coming into and out of the business. They use a cash flow forecast to find out if they have enough cash to pay off due debts. Costs that have to be allowed are:

Variable costs and fixed costs, variable costs are the costs that change with outputs. These costs include raw materials and wages. The fixed costs are known as overheads and include electrical bills and telephone bills. Timings must be placed against their cash flow statements these are called forecasts. When specials evens are held at Alton Towers including Halloween Spooktacular and the Fireworks and laser Spectacular then each of the costs need to be reviewed.  The costs for the themed nights would include extra staff, security, stage equipment, fireworks and lighting etc.

Wages and salaries – Another thing that the finance department deals with is the staff wages. A system has been set up so that staff at Alton Towers to ensure that each member of staff is paid correctly. Each of the employees is each given a clock in card. On this card is a photograph of the member of staff, a contract number and on the reverse of the card is the Alton Towers mission statement. The contract number that is o the card is a personal number; each employee is given a different number. This corresponds with the employee’s time, payroll and attendance reference number. The staff swipes this card every time that they are to begin work and when they finish. This records the number if hours worked and so for every department a report is made at the end of the week. This tells the Human Resource department that about how many hours the have been worked during the week, the report is then amended by the managers. After checking over all the information it is transferred onto a payroll system and the employee can them be paid. A BACS system is then used so that the money is paid into the staff’s bank on the same day as it goes in.

Paying bills – As well as money coming into Alton Towers, money will be leaving the business; these are in the form bills. For Alton Towers to pay for these outgoing costs the business sells goods and a service. It is the role of the finance department to ensure that the bills are paid on the correct and agreed days along with the correct amount of money. This will keep suppliers happy and wanting to continue providing to Alton Towers, also the business can continue running. The business costs can be divided into two parts: start up casts and running costs. The startup costs need to be paid before Alton Towers begins to provide a service or produce its goods. Startup costs may need paying if a new ride is opened or a new stall. The running costs involve the every day bills that will need to be paid before they can continue. These include the following:

• Staff wages
• Ride maintenance
• Market research
• Advertising and promotion
• Ride development
• Electricity and power costs
• Insurance
• Phone bills
• Equipment
• Raw materials
• Rent
• Stock
• Costs of producing merchandise  
• Staff training and development
• Agency fees

In order for Alton Towers to be able to pay for all of these outgoings, an income must be coming in. The money that Alton Towers has coming in is called revenue. If Alton Towers revenue is more money being paid out as bills then they will be making a profit. Most of the money that comes into Alton Towers is made from the ticket sales. Other money includes:

• The merchandise that has all been branded with the Alton Towers name and logo. This is sold all over the park; this can include Air key rings, Oblivion t-shirts and Nemesis pens.
• Restaurants, which can be found all over the park. Some of the food outlets include Mc Donald’s, KFC and pizza places.
• Sponsorship, recently Cadbury invested a lot of money into Alton Towers. They receive things in return in the form of advertisement including Cadbury branded que-line entertainment and a pick and mix area where all the chocolate to choose id Cadburys.

Profit and loss- All businesses including Alton Towers provide goods or a service. The two terms profit and loss can be defined as:

• Goods are material items and an example is clothes and food.
• A service is a thing that other people do for you for example photographs are taken on the rides at the theme park.

There is lots of money spent at the Alton Towers on things such as ride maintenance, staff and equipment. To be able to pay for each of these, money must be coming into the business. This money being put into the business is called income or revenue. This is how Alton Towers is able to find if it has made a profit or loss. If the incoming costs are more than in outgoing costs then the money made to pay for the outgoing casts then it is known as a loss. If Alton Towers was to continuously make a loss then the business will be forced to close down.

3) The Marketing Department

Marketing is what companies go through when they want to identify who potential and existing customers are and also what their wants and needs are. The aim of a marketing department is to ensure that potential customers are told about a certain good or service that your business provides. There are two main types of research. The can be defined as market research and promotion. These can be divided into other areas as shown below:

1) Market research

This is used to obtain information about what potential and existing customers need and want out of a business. This will include researching into things such as likely demand for the product or service, what people will want to see and likely advertising methods. This is all essential to Alton Towers. There are two types of research – primary and secondary.

• Primary research

Alton Towers uses primary research to gather information about what it is that the customers want. It can be carried out in many different forms. Ways that Alton Towers use includes:

• Questionnaires
• Focus groups and observation
• Telephone interviews
• Postal surveys
• Personal surveys

Questionnaires, these are used by Alton Towers as customer satisfaction questionnaires. Information is gathers by the marketing department by leaving questionnaires on car window screens and they are also left in the bedrooms of the Alton Towers Hotel. The information that is gathered includes all of the below:

The questionnaires left on car window screens includes:

• “Favorite rides/attractions (rated out of 10)
• What food was eaten and where
• Whether the food was thought to be reasonably priced/value for money
• Whether queues were shorter/longer than expected
• How clear directional signs were at the park
• Where quests stay when they visit the park
• How clean the facilities (i.e. toilets) were found to be”

The hotel questionnaire included:

• “ Have you ever stayed at the Alton Towers hotel before the visit
• How did you hear about the Alton Towers hotel
• Friendliness/efficiency of hotel staff (rated out of 10)
• Cleanness of the room and furnishings
• Awareness of on-park sponsorship “

All of the above information is gathered together and analysed. From the results changes will be made according to demand for example through conducting research in 1997, branded food chains were brought to Alton Towers which include Mc Donald’s and KFC. The way that the questionnaire works is, the market research department print off questionnaires and they are placed on car window screens or in the hotel. Once the questionnaires have been completed they are returned to the market research department. An Optical Character Recognition is used. It identifies which answers have been chosen, a graph can then be used to show trends when analysed.

Questionnaires are also used to gain information in other ways such as Postal Surveys, Telephone Surveys, Observation and Focus Groups.

Postal surveys, these are questionnaires being sent through the post to people’s houses. The questionnaire are filled in and sent back to the theme park. They are sent to people who have visited the park before.

Telephone surveys, these are questionnaires that are completed over the telephone. Someone from Alton Towers would phone a past guest of the theme park and questions. Each answer given is wrote down and recorded.

Personal surveys, these involve people hired from Alton Towers walking around the theme park and choosing specific people to ask questions to and the questionnaire is completed face to face.

Focus groups and observation, this involves a trained market researcher from Alton Towers walking around the theme park or being placed somewhere and they will watch how different people react to certain products, rides and services.

• Secondary research

Secondary research is the collection of old and past information, which is why it is known as desk research. It has two main advantages as it costs less than primary research and it is quicker to obtain. The main disadvantage is that it can go out of date very fast. It can be in the form of competitor’s old accounts and information. There are only a few methods of collecting secondary information. There is through established companies such as Mintel and Key Notes or though marketing journals. Once the secondary research is collected it can be very useful as you will be able to get a clearer understanding about Alton Towers completion. It can give them an understanding about where they are going about where they are going well and where they are failing. It can help to improve the park and continue to be better than its competitors.

2) Promotion

The marketing department also deals with the promotion of Alton Towers. Promotion can also be divided into two different areas that are advertisement and sponsorship.

• Advertisement

Through Alton Towers promoting itself it will be able to create a demand for the theme park. It will make potential customers aware and it will inform them of special events and promotional offers. Alton Towers uses a number of ways to advertises, these include the below:

• Magazine promotions
• Newspaper promotions
• Consumer promotions
• Direct mail of special offers
• Fun club which involves special offers of 4-13 year olds
• There is advertising through the media, which includes television, press, poster and cinema.

There was a promotional campaign called “tease and reveal”. This campaign included things such as television adverts, icons on campus television and on the Internet. There are promotions such as BOGOF “buy one get one free”, Tower two and Oblivion X-RT.

Sponsorship

Sponsorship can be defined as an organization or business that invests money into your business and receives advertisement and promotion in return. At Alton Towers Cadbury invested capital in the new ride Air. This was to promote their product Cadbury Hero’s. Cadbury received a range of things for this investment including entertainment for the que line all of which was Cadbury branded, so that visitors were aware of the association integrated branding was on the back, branded signage, a Cadbury video wall and a Cadbury only pick and mix area. This was a television advertise which featured Cadbury, promotional literature and a website featuring the sponsor, another part of the theme park that was sponsored was the Rehydrator.  This was a half subterranean Coca-Cola unit.

4) The Alton Towers Hotel

During March in 1996 the Alton Towers first hotel was opened. It was opened due to the fact that the theme park had now grown too big to experience the magic of the entire place in only one day.  It cost 20 million pounds to build and it is unique with themed areas. There are 175 rooms, which can allow a total of 650 guests staying at the hotel. There are plenty of special things on offer inside the hotel that include conferences, family fun weeks, Christmas parties, corporate events and weddings. Some interesting details about the hotel include that the cleaning staff at the hotel vacuums over four miles of carpet, changes around 600 sheets, 1,400 pillowcases and 1.350 towels. Due to the success of the first hotel and the growth of the Alton Towers theme park, a new second hotel is in progress. It is set to open in the new season in 2003.

 

5) The Information Technology Department

It is very important to Alton Towers that IT controls systems are used to operate rides at the theme park. There are two main systems, which are programmable logic controllers and photocells. These systems are all directed by a series of proximity switches. As the train follows the track path these act as sensors. If the ride is operating as usual then the distance between these sensors will take a certain amount of time to be reaches. If the time taken to pass the first switch to the second switch does not match the set time then the ride will shut down and the train will stop on the track safely. The ride Oblivion is fitted with two programmable logic controllers that mirror each other. If they fail to match each other then the ride will; perform a shut down, this system is connected to a pc. Information that has been registered from a ride can be accessed through the pc and the fault can be easily found and fixed. The second system type is photocells. These are beams that are positioned from one side of the track to the other. As the ride passes through, the beam is broken and the train’s position is detected. This system can stop two trains from colliding.

There are regular checks to ensure that the rides operating correctly. The system controls the issue of spare parts; through recording the spare parts being used you are able to get a history of the rides for the future. The information technology department ensures that all the computer equipment works efficiently.

6) The Health and Safety department

Health and safety is a vital issue to Alton Towers. It is important that all of the employees and the guests are kept safe. They also have the law to take into account to comply with legislations that affect the employees and the guests’ health and safety. Alton Towers has to carefully follow acts of parliament, the regulations made under those acts of code and practice. There is a specific code of practice that the theme park must obey, HS(G)81 “fair grounds and amusement parks”. The regulations that are included are:

Their operation, maintenance and how emergencies will be dealt with.

There is many staff that has been hired to ensure that everybody in the theme park is kept safe. There is around 30 security staff that is always monitoring the park during the day and night. They ensure that everybody is following the law and that everyone is safe.

Height restrictions have been placed on rides to ensure that people are safe on the rides. A few of the restrictions include:        

• Corkscrew – 1.2 metres
• Enterprise – 1.1 metres unless accompanied by an adult.

This means that any one under these height restrictions in unable to go on the specific ride.

7) The Security department

Around 30 staff has been employed at the Alton Towers security department. The theme park is under close monitoring which is every day and every all year round. The security department has quite a few numbers of responsibilities including the movement of traffic to ensure that there are no accidents, to warn and encourage people to be careful with their cash and belongings, if there is a loss then they help to deal with it. They assist civil police when required, and they look after the lost and found property.  

Police are in all of the following areas:

• 500 acres of land
• Catering units
• Restaurants
• Rides
• Shops
• Family entertainment centres

The biggest job for the security department is to make sure that Alton Towers is a safe environment and to prevent fire, theft and wastage.

8) The Rides Department

Altogether there are around 125 rides at Alton Towers. Each ride is designed specifically for different ages for example there are thrill rides which are designed more for people who are teenagers and young adults and who want to experience the ultimate thrill. These rides include Nemesis and Oblivion. There are also rides for younger children and families, which includes Toyland Tours and Runaway mine, train. The Alton Towers rides department looks after all of the rides. There are regular maintenance checks set up daily, monthly, weekly and annually. The rides departments are also in charge of checking the popularity of the rides to see if a ride is still attracting guests to the park. This is done through monitoring the size of ques and also through monitoring the amount of people who go on the ride. This is done as every time a person is clicked into a ride using a hand held device. Using this they are able to see how many people are visiting the ride each hour.

9) The Shows Department

The shows department is responsible for the everyday running of shows. They also need to look after the customers who visit each of the shows. Live shows are provided at Alton Towers so the shows department are responsible for the details that are involved in putting on the live performances including characters, costumes, street entertainment and other details that the shows departments are involved in are to design and maintain the shows, the uniforms and costumes but also the theme park must be kept clean.

10) The Technical Services Department

The technical services department is an important area to Alton Towers. It is involved in the maintenance of rides, electrical equipment and machines. It is used to maintain rides at the Theme park. Regular maintenance checks are set up daily, weekly, monthly and annually, these are to check how the machinery is working. These checks also monitor and control the purchasing of new spare parts and the tracking of spare parts issued to rides. Through doing these maintenance checks the park is able to build up a ride history that will be useful in the future.

11) The Commercial Operations Department

The commercial operations department is in charge of:

• Merchandise
• Retail
• Retail games
• Food and beverages

Each are sold in the theme park. Every item that is sold at Alton Towers holds a barcode. The barcode is given by the manufacturer and includes a number. The umber represents the item number on the stock control system. Every thing sold at Alton Towers is identified. It can be used to find the price and description of the product, when a hand held scanner it goes onto the tills memory scans the barcode. The commercial operations department looks closely to keep track of the items that sell the most. At the end of the day information id collected from each of the tills and passed onto the commercial operations department. They analyse how many items have been sold in the park throughout the day. More is ordered depending on demand for the items and there is consideration for new items and upgrades of the existing ones. The top five best selling items at Alton Towers have been identified as

• Fuji films
• Cadbury branded pick and mix
• Air branded pens
• Air branded key chains
• Air branded mugs

Commercial operations also provide the park with the newest and latest video games and state-of-the art video simulators and family games. This provides fun in between rides. They offer a range of food and beverages including major restaurant chains such as Mc Donald’s and KFC. They ensure that there is a verity of hot and cold food and drinks to suit everybody’s tastes. Merchandises are dealt with which are branded items, themed items and souvenir products. This is at different places arranged all around the theme park. On selected rides there is ride photography to remind you of your magical visit to Alton Towers.

Each of the departments at Alton Towers work together in different ways to make sure that each of the aims are being forfilled. Each department works with different departments to make the theme park the popular and pleasant place that it is today. Below are examples of how the departments work together:

• The Human Resource department works with every other department to ensure that when a position needs to be filled, the right person is chosen. This helps Alton Towers with its mission statement because is the right person is chosen for a job then they will help create magic and keep Alton Towers the spectacular place that it is.
• The Information Technology department works together with the rides and shows departments to ensure that all the rides and shows are working appropriately. This is very important as it ensures the health and safety of the guests is under control. This all helps to create magic at the theme park being able to ride the rides and watch the shows.
• Security works with all of the other departments to ensure that the theme park is a safe and fun place to be. It helps make people to feel more relax when they know that they are in a safe enviroment and so the visitors will enjoy their time spent at the park.
• Finance works with all the other departments to set budgets and to keep a check on all incoming and outgoing money. Once each of the departments has been set budgets they can begin to work out how to spend the money their departments.

Chapter three-

Culture and Management Styles

The word culture is used to describe the personality, beliefs, procedures and the way in which a business organisation solves problems. One way that culture has been described is by Charles Handy “That’s the way we do things around here”. Each business has its own cultures. There are four main types of culture; these are power, role, task and person. Each of them is described below:

• Power culture – Is mainly found in small businesses and can be occasionally found in large ones as well. Power cultures structure can be best described as a web, with the centre of the wed indicating one or a few people. These people make all of the decisions that are reflected down the rest of the web. If the business is small then problems could arise because the business could take on too many activities than is necessary, this could also cause the web to brake. Due to one person being at the centre of the web decisions are made much faster and the business moves more quickly. This type of culture is autocratic which means that the business could suffer from lack of challenge.

• Role culture – is mainly found in large businesses. Its structure looks like The Temple of Apollo who was known as the Greek god of reason. Role culture is found in a business where the employees have all got a description of their job and have a role to carry out. This is known as bureaucracies. The business is split up into functions such as human resources and finance; it is then divided up into a hierarchical ordering of office areas that is based on levels of authority with management being at the top.

• Task culture - is when employees working together as part of a team is very important to a business. The business understands the importance of teamwork and the team members have the same values and beliefs. The employees are given lots of responsibility because they are encouraged to have more power and not to wait to be told what to de. When it comes to decision making their views and opinions are listened to and they have a say. Its structure is in a matrix.

• Person culture – is usually found in non-profitable businesses and organisation. These include charities and co-operatives. With person culture individuals are central and the organisations purpose is to cater fore within the business. An individual may leave the organisation at any time but the organisation can evict the employee. The individuals all have freedom and can do what they want.

Alton Towers uses three of the above cultures that are task role and person. Task culture is used at Alton Towers because it is a very team based organisation. The employees at the Towers are all encouraged to work together to achieve the objectives that are clearly set out in the mission statement. The business believes that their employees should work together to the best of their ability. As well as individuals working together different departments work together to continue the business running and also to achieve aims and objectives set by Alton Towers, an example of this is how the information technology department works together with the rides department to ensure that the rides and shows are running appropriately.

The second kind of culture that can be founds at Alton Towers is role culture. When Alton Towers has a job vacancy the human resource department is informed and a job description is wrote which included the job title, department that the job is and the purpose of the job. It is this job description that the employees use to know what to do. This means that every person at the theme park has a job role to carry out. Employees also have their own level of authority. This can be shown in the Alton Towers organisational structure chart as shown below:

Directors or owners

Senior management

Middle management

Junior managers

Support staff

The above chart is called a Hierarchical structure. It devices the functions and organises them into a hierarchical structure.

The final culture at Alton Towers is person culture. Alton Towers believes very strongly in their employees being an important part of the business. They also believe in developing their employee’s skills and qualifications at the park. The staff at Alton Towers each know how they are to act in front of the customers and each of them wears a uniform, this is to make the park into a more magical place along with making them stand out so they can be identified.  Below is an example of what new employees to the park are told:

• To behave professionally
• Wear the appropriate uniform
• Maintain standards of appearance

The theme park cares for its staff. Due to the work at Alton Towers being seasonal the Towers makes sure that all of its staff have work during the time they are not working at Alton Towers. The theme park likes to develop its staff by offering different training coaching and mentoring techniques. Another reason why Alton Towers uses person culture is because the theme park regularly donations to local charities.

Management style is the way in which someone behaves whilst in a management role after a length of time. There are four main types of management styles these include autocratic, democratic, consultative and laissez-fraire. Each of them are now explained below:

• Autocratic,

This style matches role culture. It exists when a business has functional areas. Each of the employees is told what to do and the manager is the only person who has a say with the decisions made. The employees are given no responsibility and they can easily become de-motivated. Autocratic management style is usually found higher up on the chain of demand. Due to all the decisions being made only by the management staff the communication is slow.

• Democratic,

With this leadership style the employees are all trained up and are therefore skilled. This then gives the employees a responsibility, this is called empowerment and this responsibility includes making decisions. This responsibility results in the employees having total job satisfaction and motivation. This type of management style applies to task and person culture.

• Consultative,

This management style consists with task and person culture. This type of management is where the manager always asks and consults the employees before decision-making. The employees are taken into consideration along with their ideas.

• Laissez-faire,

With this type of management style the employees all have to be skilled and specialized in the work that they do. There is no job role set, the employees are told or know what to do. The business allows its employees to work at its own pace. This type of business is not productive.

Alton Towers uses two types of management styles that are autocratic and democratic. Firstly Alton Towers uses autocratic management styles because Alton Towers is made up of functional areas including finance and the human resource department. Each of the employees at the theme park has been told what they are to do and they get on with their jobs. All of the employees at Alton Towers have each been given a job role that is a description of the role that they are to follow. This helps them to get on with their jobs knowing what they have to do. Secondly Alton Towers uses democratic management style. This is because the employees at Alton Towers are all trained up and is therefore skilled this then gives them responsibility. The responsibility includes making decisions. It is usually found higher up the chain of demand, lower down there is more team work s Alton Towers prefers their employees to work in teams. Due to this responsibility the staff all take ownership of any mistakes that may occur.

This is a Chain of Demand:

Departmental Manager

Team Leader

   Worker

Vertical Downwards communication                  Vertical Upwards communication

The way that peoples roles and positions are set up needs to be clear so that the employees can see where the level of authority is. An employee’s position can be clearly shown on a businesses organisation chart or diagram. The term ‘span of control’ can be used to determine an organisations structure. The term ‘span of control’ means the number of employees supervised directly by one person. There are usually less levels of authority when the span of control is broader and the business has a flat structure. For a company to have a tall structure it has a narrow span of control and there will be more levels of authority.  A hierarchical structure can show a business in terms of level of management. Alton Towers has a tall hierarchical structure, which means that there are any levels of authority. It shows the chain of demand within a business. The more levels there are effects how well the communication process works within a business. Matrix structures can be employed by a business or organisation. It uses project managers to manage specific projects. The project manager can help to plan a task and will then work with the team to ensure that the task is carried out. Through having a project manager they can ensure that there is a good level of communication and the activities done can be co-ordinated.  

A business can also be centralised and decentralised. For a business to be centralised means, that the business is concentrated on under one control. This could mean that the one of the manager could decide at head office or tasks and jobs.  For a business to be decentralised means for the business to be divided into different areas or sections, maybe with different management. This means that the jobs, decisions and tasks could be split up into different areas and sections. They could be being told what to do by different managers.

Structure

At Alton Towers it is important that all of its objectives are met. Through the theme park having a hierarchical structure, aims and objectives can be met. There are many layers of management and a narrow span of control at the bottom of the hierarchical structure. This means that the employees at the bottom of the structure are given more empowerment and responsibility. This added responsibility will help to motivate the staff and this will encourage them to have better standards with their work. All of this helps with fulfilling the objective “We will make Alton Towers a magical place to work by developing individual skills, personal responsibility and work that is fun and rewarding”. This also helps the business to perform well because the staff at the theme park will be more motivated and interested in the job that they are doing, this will encourage them to put more of an effort into their work and the job will get done more efficiently with a higher standard. This will benefit the performance of the park because if the staff are doing such a good job then visitors to the theme park will be more happy with their visit and will want to return again and to tell their friends how good everything was. Alton Towers strongly believes in training up their staff as the staff towards the lower end of the hierarchy structure are skilled for their department, this gives them more responsibility. Customer service is an essential part to any business being successful as the staffs are in contact with visitors to the theme park all the time and lasting impressions count. If the staff provides a good public image then it will help to build up the magical feeling which with the objective of “We will create magic for all our guests by exciting them and entertaining them with an experience which is unique and totally themed”.  If the staff at the theme park have been fully trained up for the position that they work in then it can help with the performance of the theme park. This will be because if the visitors to the theme park know that the staff are all fully trained up with qualifications then they will be impressed with the park and will believe that the park is of a high standard. If the guests know this then they will be happier with Alton Towers and they will want to return again and will tell people of this high standard. It also helps the performance of the park because it gives Alton Towers a repretation about their high quality an then it will attract more visitors.

Culture

Culture at Alton Towers is made up of role, task and person culture. Role culture at the theme park is used as it is typically found in a hierarchical structure, which Alton Towers has. This means that each of the employees have a job description and are trained up for their specific departments. Through training up their employees Alton Towers is giving their staff a feeling of responsibility which helps them to achieve the following objective, “ We will make Alton Towers a magical place to work by developing individual skills, personal responsibilities and work which is fun and rewarding”. Through training up its staff they manage to receive high quality for its staff and then Alton Towers repretation will be that it is a high standard theme park that believes strongly in its staff. This will help the business to perform because it invites more people into the park and having good reliable staff keeps the business running.

Task culture can also be found at Alton Towers towards the bottom of the hierarchical structure. It is when the employees work together in teams to help complete their work. Teamwork is important to Alton Towers, it helps to build up skills for the employees and their work is then fun. This helps to achieve the objective “We will make Alton Towers a magical place to work by developing individual skills, personal responsibility and work which is fun and rewarding”. This can also help the business to perform because it will make the staff happy in their work And this will pay off with the customers making their visit more fun and magical making the whole visit a lot better. If the visit is good then they will want to visit time and time again increasing the visitor rate at the theme park.

Person culture can be found at the theme park as well because Alton Towers strongly believes in treating their staff well. To ensure that the employees at the park are well looked after the theme park give the staff a uniform for all kinds of weather to keep them warm and dry, the customers also become reassured when the staff a wear a clean and neat uniform, this helps to create the magic. The park also believes in staff development and they train up their employees so that each one is skilled in different departments. Through training up their employees the staff get an extra feeling of responsibility that leads to job satisfaction. Free tickets are also given to the employees. This all helps to achieve the objective “We will make Alton Towers a magical place to work which is fun and rewarding”, also they help with the performance of the business because if the staff are kept happy then they will want to return to the theme park each season because they enjoy their work so much. This give the theme park a good repretation because visitors see that even the staff are enjoying working there so they should visit increasing the visitor rate.

Management

There are two different types of management styles at Alton Towers these are Autocratic and Democratic. Autocratic management styles are usually found at the top of the tall hierarchical structure and the objectives are set out in the mission statements. With autocratic management the employees are all allocated job roles and will be trained up so they are skilled for that job role. This helps with the objective of “We will make Alton Towers a magical place to work by developing individual skills, personal responsibility and work, which is fun and rewarding”. If the staff know what they are doing then they can work quicker and more efficiently then their work will get done quicker and with a good standard which helps the business to perform through the work being done so fast and well.  With autocratic management people are being told what to do and how to do it. This is important in departments such as Health and Safety and Security. These are important departments, as visitors to the theme park need to be kept safe. With democratic management people work together. Alton Towers believes in showing responsibility towards the community. The park likes to clean up the local area around the park and it gives the local community free tickets to visit. In return Alton Towers benefits through jobs being offered to people within a 20-mile radius. The management gives the employees a fun job and it’s a good place to work. This all helps to achieve the objective of “We will continue to develop a partnership with the local community to ensure that we both benefit”. This can help Alton Towers to perform due to helping the community they get staff for the theme park in return as the park hires people within a certain radius around the park. This means that the business can run due to having the staff. Through ensuring that each of the objectives has been completed, Alton Towers can accomplish one of its final objectives that is ”We will ensure a magical success and investing to strengthen our position as the UK’s number one theme park”.  

Through Alton Towers having a tall hierarchical structure there will be lots of good and bad points which will each have a different effect on the business. Strengths that having a hierarchical structure have on Alton Towers are:

• The aims and objectives of the business can be met through having many layers of management and a narrow span of control, this can effect Alton Towers because the employees will know who they are answering to and therefore they can get on with their work. If the staff are left to get on with their work then it will get done more quickly and efficiently then it is giving the employees a feeling of responsibility they will feel more confident and they will be left to get on with their own things to get the job done. It will make the staff happier will their work and if they are happy to come into work then it shows that the theme park is a magical place to be not only for its visitors but also for the employees which shows that aims and objectives are getting met.

• Employees towards the bottom of the structure are given responsibility, which will therefore motivate them. If the staff are encouraged to work to the best of their ability then the visitors to the theme park will be pleased with what they experience during their visit and will want to return again. The employees towards the bottom of the structure are each working off their job description, which is an out line of what is being done. Through them knowing what they are doing by the job description they will understand their job role and can be left to get on with their work and so they are therefore given responsibility. This responsibility will motivate them into doing high standard and high quality work. If the employees are putting their best efforts into making the business run well then it is help towards achieving the aims and objectives set.

• If the employees are performing to the best of their ability then they will be creating magic at the theme park which makes it achieve its aims and objectives but it also gives the theme park a good repretation. If people know that the employees at the theme park all love coming into work and really enjoy their job, they perform very well with a high standard and that the staff are fully trained and motivated then the park will collect a very good repretation which will contribute to it being the UK’s number one theme park.

As well as all the strengths the structure had weaknesses, these are as follows:

• Through there being lots of levels of authority, there is a lot and some times too much control towards the top of the hierarchical structure. This means that there is a lack of control towards the bottom causing the performance at the bottom of the structure not to be as good as it should be. It can mean that there is too much concentration at the top of the structure and not much attention about the bottom.  It can de-motivate the employees and then objectives and aims will not be met.

• If the staff towards the bottom of the structure was to not perform as well as it should be doing due to lack of attention then the theme park will gather a bad repretation. If this was to happen then people will stop visiting the park and it will no longer be one of the UK’s number one theme park.

• Due to there being so many layers and levels of authority employees may bot be meeting the objectives and aims because of misunderstanding and bad communication which has formed because of all the layers. Also if the communication is not doing very well then objectives could be getting met too soon and they may not be to a high enough standard to be acceptable. This could cause the park to have a bad repretation.

• If the structure is poorly arranged then it will lead the business into failure due to no objectives being met, which helps the business to run.

The culture at Alton Towers can also have strengths and weakness that have an effect in the business. Culture is separated into three different sections, which are role task and person. Each one of these plays a part on the business:

Good points about role culture involve:

• Each of the employees towards the bottom of the structure is each working off their job description, which is an out line of what is being done. Through them knowing what they are doing by the job description they will understand their job role and can be left to get on with their work and so they are therefore given responsibility. This responsibility will motivate them into doing high standard and high quality work. If the employees are putting their best efforts into making the business run well then it is a help towards achieving the aims and objectives set. Employees work off their job roles with role culture.

• All of the staff is fully trained up for their certain position which means that the job can be done well and the employee knows exactly what they are doing.  If the staff are each trained up this can motivate them and this means that they will put more effort into the work that they do and it will show in the work that is done. If the staff are all trained up then the theme park will gain a good repretation and it shows that Alton Towers treats its staff well.

The disadvantages of role culture is:

• Through the employees working off their job description then they are only trained up to work in the department that the job description is aimed for. This means that non of the staff at Alton Towers will be multi-skilled and trained for different departments, this means that if there is a vacancy in a different department then a member from a different department cant help out, some one else will have to be employed. This can affect the way that the business performs because they will be left in need of help and it will cost them time and money to find a replacement.

• Due to the staff working off their job descriptions only, they may misunderstand what they have to do and stop the business from achieving its objectives.  Also the job description needs to be correct and be specific for the function that it was written for. This means that if the job description is wrong or missing any information the employee will not do the job as required and it can stop the business from achieving its aims and objectives.

Task culture is where people work in teams and it is found towards the bottom of the hierarchical structure, the good points are that:

• Working in teams can be important to a business. Through people working together on their work then jobs will get done quicker with more then one persons effort, so the work should be of a high standard. This means that the employees can each learn off each other’s skills, the work can be done more quickly at Alton Towers and this helps the theme park as they have efficient workers.

• If the employees at the theme park are working in teams then the workers can combine their skills to get the best out of the work that they do. If there are lots of different people in a team then they may know lots of different things, which can be used together to complete the task.

• Each person in the group could work on a different task each so that all of the tasks get done even quicker which can Alton Towers time and money.

• The views and opinions are listened to when in part of a team; the employees at the theme park will each have an input with decisions to do with the business.

The disadvantages of having a task culture includes:

• If there is too many people working in a team then it could cause arguments due to too many people wanting their say at once, and the work will not get finished. This will cost the company money and time.

• Some of the workers may be given too much responsibility and in the end some people may try and take over with the results of the other members getting angry and arguments being started.

Person Culture is found at Alton Towers, It is when the theme park strongly believes in treating its staff well. The advantages of this are:

• Through treating their staff well Alton Towers can create magic ensure that their staff are fully enjoying working for them. Through giving the employees everything that is needed to complete the job they get a feeling of responsibility and they become more motivated. This helps the park to complete its tasks. Questionnaires that have been completed at the park prove that the staff are working to the best of their ability.

• With person culture the staff are trained up to deal with different situations and they become skilled. This can help Alton Towers because the staff are all qualified, which makes the business, look better and it can gain a good repretation of having well trained staff. Also through training the employees you are giving them a sense of responsibility and they all become more motivated.

The disadvantages of having person culture are:

• Through having to train up all of its employees, Alton Towers could loose money and time depending on whether or not the training was on the job or off the job.

• Too much time can be spent on how the employees are being treated and the business can stop achieving its objectives as it is only concentrating on its staff.  

The management styles that are found at Alton Towers is Autocratic and democratic. The advantages of the management styles are:

• With this type of management the aims and objectives are clearly set out in the Alton Towers mission statement. This helps the business to achieve these aims and objectives because every one in the business knows what the aims are, so they can contribute to making them happen.

• Usually the managers higher up the hierarchical structure pass down position power, which gives the employees lower down responsibility. This can motive the staff and it results in more efficient work with a high quality standard.

• Through the staff being more motivated and having responsibility it can lead to job satisfaction which means that the staff are more motivated and have more respect for the business. This can led to objectives being met.

The disadvantages include:

• If power is being passed down the hierarchical structure then the employees can get too much responsibility and begin to do the work their way, which means that objectives don’t get met.

• With the added responsibility and empowerment the employees may begin to think they are better for the position that they work in and tasks wont end up getting completed. This means that objectives don’t get met.

Chapter four-

Communication

All businesses are made up of lots of different groups and people. For the business to run as wanted there must be good communication between each of these groups and people. Communication must be effective for the reaction or response that you would like. Communication usually works in through a communication process, which involves four main elements that are a sender, a message, a median and a receiver. They can be show in the following chart below:

Sender

Message

Feed back                Medium                  face to face

Receiver

Noise

 

Noise

Communication can easily be interrupted or disturbed due to noise. It can disrupt the communication process in the following ways:

• Language barriers could stop communication being effective, if two different companies needed to talk to each other but each spoke a different language then there would be no communication. The best way to get around this problem is to hire an interpreter.
• Communication can be disturbed by the person who you are communicating with has an unclear voice and therefore you cannot understand what is being said.
• Background noise can get in the way of communication because if you are on the phone and there is a lot of noise in the background then it may take over the person who is speaking voice. This could cause people to interpret words as another or loss of words.
• If there is a bad phone connection then the person who is speaking could become very unclear and the receiver of the phone call may not be able to hear what is being said.
• If there is too much information being told to someone then this person may have heard too much information and start to forget things or the information can become unclear, this is called an information overload.

Internal and External communication

Every business uses communication, as it is very important for it to be successful.  To communicate means to swap ideas and knowledge using words, symbols, signs etc. Communication takes place with people from inside and out side of a business; this is called internal and external communication. Internal communication can be described as communication that takes place inside the different levels of a business. Messages are passed on through the different levels of a business for example the management will send messages down to the employees to tell them of any meetings or job changes. If this didn’t happen then the business would not be successful. External communication is when the business communicates with people that are outside of the business. This can also be very important to how successful a business is. An example of how a business communicates with an outside party is how shareholders will receive information about the organisations accounts and financial situations. Alton Towers has both internal and external communication. The internal communication includes instructions being passed down the levels of employment at the theme park. The external communication will be the stakeholders getting information about the financial accounts of Alton Towers.  External communication also takes place between Alton Towers and its customers during their visit to the theme park, but it also has to communicate with suppliers about the stock for Alton Towers.

There are three main types of communication, which can be internal, and external, these are:

• Verbal
• Written
• Information technology

• Verbal

Verbal communication is a very important and the oldest way to communicate. In a business there are lots of different methods of verbal communication, these are listed and described below:

• Face to face
• Interviews
• Focus groups
• Telephone
• Mobile
• Two way radios
• Meetings

• Face to face

This is method is internal and is one of the main ways that people communicate.  It involves instructions or messages given and passed on face to face. There are many ways of using face to face communication in meetings, interviews and many more This have many advantages, there include the person who is sending out the information knows that it has been told to who it was aimed for also it is quick and efficient and it is a good way to swap ideas. There are disadvantages, these are that once ideas have been swapped they might not have been recorded and they may become lost, there is also a chance of information overload.

• Interviews

An interview could take place with a person from outside of the business so it is external. An interview is a form of communication that could take place for recruitment, advertisement or promotion purposes. If it was for a job interview purpose then it would have the advantage of finding out exactly what you want to by asking desired questions, you can also give feedback at the time and place of the interview. The disadvantages are that it takes up time and money of the business.

• Focus groups

This is where a small group of people gets together in a room and discus a certain product or service. There is usually a leader who introduces topics and key points for discussion. The people who attend the focus group can be people from inside the business or members of the public so it is internal or external. It is a good way to find out peoples views and opinions. Another advantage is that it is cheap to conduct. There are also disadvantages of this method. It can sometimes be difficult to organise and it can take up a lot of the companies’ time.

• Telephone

The telephone is used as internal and external types of communication. It is a very fast and easy way to get information across to who ever you want to receive it. The telephone can be used in a number of ways, which include surveys and interviews. The surveys that are conducted over the telephone can be used to phone up past visitors to a business to find out there views on the business or they could use random sampling. This is the same with interviews. Advantages of using the telephone is that it is extremely fast and reliable but the advantages are that members of the public are becoming tired of businesses or advertisers ring their homes. Also the information that is received could be untrue

• Mobiles

Mobile telephones are a great way of communicating; this is because the communication can take place anywhere not just from an office or at home. It means that ideas or other things can be passed on as soon as you come across the information. Mobile phones are external as people can contact the business using the mobile phones from outside of the business. A disadvantage of this is that the calls can be quite expensive.

•  Meetings

Meetings involve using face-to-face communication. The meetings involve internal communication. Meetings can involve meetings between different levels of the business. It could be that management want to discuss new ideas with the employees before putting them into action. During the meeting there is usually an agenda, this can sometimes be written out and passed out before the beginning of the meeting. One type of meeting is an AGM (Annual General Meeting, this is where the directors of a business outline the plans to the shareholders. Advantages of meetings are that ideas can be expressed. A disadvantage is that they can be very time consuming.

There are many advantages and disadvantages of using verbal communication. The advantages are that it is the most common form of communication. You are able to pass on messages and talk either face to face or over the telephone. There are many disadvantages of using verbal communication, as these are that most of the time the verbal information needs to backed up onto paper. An other reason is that background noise can stop you from hearing what has been said, there may be language barriers stopping the person from understanding what is being said and there could be an information overload, this will cause people to forget important points and facts.

• Written

Written communication is essential for businesses. It is much slower than spoken communication. There are lots of ways of communicating internally and externally with written communication. The forms that I will be looking at are:

                             

• Minutes of meeting
• Questionnaire
• Letters
• Memos
• Notices
• Advertising
• Reports
• Flyers
• Brochures
• Fax

• Minutes of meeting

 Meetings involve using face-to-face communication, the meetings involve internal communication. Meetings can involve meetings between different levels of the business. It could be that management want to discuss new ideas with the employees before putting them into action. During the meeting there is usually an agenda, this can sometimes be written out and passed out before the beginning of the meeting. Minute’s meetings are where there is nothing recorded during the meeting. This could cause problems, as sometimes people may not remember what was said and points may not have been understood. Advantages of meetings are that ideas can be expressed. A disadvantage is that they are very time consuming.

• Letters

Letters are the oldest way of communicating externally and they are sometimes used internally. Business letters are sent through the post to people such as shareholders with details about the financial information, arrangements about meetings will be sent, confirmations will also be sent, post will always be used as parcels and packets will need to be sent this way. Internal letters will be sent between different levels of the business. Letters will also be sent internally to employees with warnings, promotions and newsletters.

• Memos

These are informal letters that are commonly sent around to different people, which includes a brief note or instruction on it. These are fast and easy to pass around and send instruction. These are an internal form of communication.

• Notices

Notices are an internal way of communicating. It involves a piece of paper with information on being places in places wherever one can see it. It is a good way of letting people knows the latest news and announcements. They are short and are usually about one subject.

• Advertising

Advertising is an internal and external way of communicating. You are able to let people over a wide spread area know about special offers, deals and other events that are going on. You are also able to let people know all about your business to make people want to visit your business.

• Reports

Reports is an internal way communicating. It is usually like a memo but it is used to give an employee feedback about a certain task that has been completed. There are four main features that reports usually contain which are an introduction, findings, conclusion, and recommendations.

• Flyers

Flyers are handed out externally.  They are a way of advertising a business or offers and events that are occurring. Flyers are a way of advertising and they can be handed out to you in the street, posted through your door and even picked up from different places.

• Brochures

These are an external form of communication. They can include information all about your business or service and is seen by people outside of the business such as the public. It can tell people all about the different features of a business and why you should visit there.

• Fax

A fax machine is capable of sending written letters. They send the information electronically through telephone lines. This is a fast and easy way to send important letters to people outside of the business; the only disadvantage is that it can take a long time to receive long documents. Fax machines are an external form of communication.

Written communication also has lots of advantages and disadvantages. These include that it is a quick and easy way of passing on information and tasks to different people. There are lots of ways that the written information can be passed to each other including through the post. The written information can be placed on small peoples of paper such as a memo and so it is easy to get around. The disadvantages include that the paper can be very easily lost or damage, the receiver may not understand what has been wrote and may not follow out the task. The papers may also become mixed up. Another way of written communication is through sending an email; this can be sent to the wrong email address or not contains enough information.

• Information technology

Electronic communication is essential to any business. It is taking over most of the other forms of communication. Electronic communication is sent internally and externally with a business. It is a very quick way of communicating with people. The types of electronic communication that I will be looking at includes:

• Websites
• Email
• Mobile phones
• Telephones
• Two way radio
• Fax
• Video conferencing
• Automated telephone system

• Websites

Websites are an external way of communicating. A website is a page all about the company which is on the Internet and anybody can have access to it. It can have updates and information about the business. It is one the fastest growing electronic forms of communication.

• Emails

Email is short for electronic mail and it is an external form of communication.  It is when you can write a letter and send it through using your computer. The person who is sending the letter has an email address and you send the email to that address. You also will have an email address and can therefore receive emails back. It is extremely fast and an easy way to communicate. Emails are the sending of electronic messages within an organisation or to anywhere around the world. Alton Towers uses emails to send information between the different departments, they could include what needs to be done but also emails could include information about staff events and newsletters. It is a quick way to inform its customers about the special offers and events these could include BOGOFF “buy one and get one for free”. Emails have many advantages as they are an ever-growing form of communicating, they can be restricted which means only specific people can view it, they are very fast and deliver almost immediately, almost any file from your computer can be attached to an email, they are very cheap to send, records can be saved automatically if you request them to be, emails can be received anywhere around the world as long as there is a computer, they are reliable and can be sent at any time of the day and night. The few disadvantages are that a computer and hardware is needed to receive them, junk mail can be sent regularly and there is always a risk of getting a virus from an email.

• Mobiles

Mobile telephones are a great way of communicating; this is because the communication can take place anywhere in the world and not just from an office or at home as long as there is a signal. It means that ideas or other things can be passed on as soon as you come across the information, Text messages can be sent when people are unavailable and also voice mails can be recorded if someone is not answering their phone.  Mobile phones are external as people can contact the business using the mobile phones from outside of the business. A disadvantage of this is that the calls can be quite expensive and there are certain health worries about the radiation that they give off.

• Telephones

The telephone is used as internal and external types of communication. It is a very fast and easy way to get information across to who ever you want. to receive it the telephone can be used in a number of ways that include surveys and interviews. The surveys that are conducted over the telephone can be used to phone up past visitors to a business to find out there views on the business or they could use random sampling. This is the same with interviews. Advantages of using the telephone is that it is extremely fast and reliable but the advantages are that members of the public are becoming tired of businesses or advertisers ring their homes. Also the information that is received could be untrue.

• Advertising

Advertising is an internal and external way of communicating. You are able to let people over a wide spread area know about special offers, deals and other events that are going on. You are also able to let people know all about your business to make people want to visit your business.

• Fax

A fax machine is capable of sending written letters. They send the information electronically through telephone lines. This is a fast and easy way to send important letters to people outside of the business. Fax machines are an external form of communication.

• Video conferencing

Video conferencing is a very expensive form of communicating. It is where a business can hold a meeting with a business from any where around the world without leaving their own company. This can happen through using telephone links. These links allow you to have pictures and sound so the meeting would feel as if it was face–to–face. This method is an external way of communicating and it had disadvantages and advantages. The disadvantages are that it is very expensive to set up but the advantages are that it works out cheaper to what the cost of sending an employee away to the meeting, accommodation, flight and travel.

Technical communication is the fastest growing form of communication and there are lots of advantages and disadvantages. These can include that it is extremely fast and can be important to how we communicate in this day of age. It is reliable and messages can be sent to any place around the world very fast. Other advantages include that it is cheap and that even business meetings can take place between two different countries without leaving where you are. The disadvantages are that the technology that you are using such as a computer can be broken or crash and also there could be a bad connection.

Alton Towers uses both internal and external forms of communication. These are shown below:

• Pagers
• Mobile phones
• Radios
• Questionnaires
• Emails
• Video conferencing
• Through the post
• Letters
• Fax
• Internet – website.

• Pagers are used in Alton Towers, as it is a way that the employees can be told what to, the security staff could contact each other if a problem occurs. Messages can be passed this way from management to the team leaders and the different departments. Messages can be sent to customer’s pagers telling them about special offers and events.

• Mobile phones can be used in the same way, to find out tasks and different departments can communicate through this way. It is a fast way to find where some one is and to find out what is going on. Text messages can be sent to their customer’s mobile phones letting them know about special offers and events. These methods are each ways that Alton Towers communicates with is internal customers.

The following methods are each ways that Alton Towers communicates with its external customers. Questionnaires are for the employees at the park to communicate with visitors to the park. Questionnaires are left on car window screens in the car parks and they are also left in hotel rooms at the Alton Towers Hotel. This is done so that Alton Towers are able to build up an image of what their guest’s needs and wants are. It is a good way to find out what rides are popular in the park and this way they are able to encourage people to return again.

• Emails are the sending of electronic messages within an organisation or to anywhere around the world. Alton Towers uses emails to send information between the different departments, they could include what needs to be done but also emails could include information about staff events and newsletters. It is a quick way to inform its customers about the special offers and events these could include BOGOFF “buy one and get one for free”. Emails have many advantages as they are an ever-growing form of communicating, they can be restricted which means only specific people can view it, they are very fast and deliver almost immediately, almost any file from your computer can be attached to an email, they are very cheap to send, records can be saved automatically if you request them to be, emails can be received anywhere around the world as long as there is a computer, they are reliable and can be sent at any time of the day and night. The few disadvantages are that a computer and hardware is needed to receive them, junk mail can be sent regularly and there is always a risk of getting a virus from an email.  

• Video conferencing is used to set up meeting with different businesses. It is a way of communicating with out having to leave the actual place that you are, it means that the employees don’t miss more time than is needed off, it gets rid of the charge of flights, hotels and travel.

• Letters are sent through the post to the customers and past visitors to the theme park. Plus they must be sent to suppliers and other people that are concerned in the business. An example of how letters are used are that share holders are sent financial information through the post letting them know how well the business and their shares are doing.

• Fax’s are also sent letting people know about offers and deals. They are also used to send letters to people involved with the business such as supplies.

Alton Towers uses ICT to communicate with external customers. An example of this is how Alton towers has its own website. The website is a way for people to check out information about Alton Towers, it includes information about the latest rides and events, there is also a part on the website for applying for a job at the theme park.

There are also other communication channels as well as internal and external channels. Other ways include formal and informal, upward and downwards, open and restricted.

Upward, downward, horizontal and diagonal

There are many different directions that communication can be sent. These directions include vertical upward communication, vertical downwards communication and horizontal communication. Old-fashioned companies use using downwards communication. It is where the manager sets all the rules, tasks and work programs. Communication was sent down the line through junior employees. Through using downwards communication the instructions are clear due to a clear line of command. This means that there are fewer mistakes made and therefore costs are cut. The senior managers are given responsibility because the4y are able to set objectives and tasks, they can also make sure that these are correctly followed out.  Upwards communication has been used more recently. It is where employees at the bottom of the line of command express their views and opinions about certain subjects.  Usually the employees who are at the bottom of the line of command have good ideas and this way they can have them heard. It is a way of generating feedback to the management about decisions that are to be made. Through asking the employees lower down to contribute to with the decision making then they enjoy their work a lot more and become more motivated. Horizontal communication is where there is communication between employees who are at the same level. Diagonal is where there is communication between people out of different departments.

Formal and Informal

When formal communication is present in a business it means that the business is following the entire correct and recognised channels that have been set.  Formal communication is usually vertical upward and downward communication. Examples of this include being part of regular meetings and getting a memo from management. Informal communication is the opposite of formal communication. It is where communication occurs but it is not through the correct and recognised channels. This type of communication usually takes place within a business that is voluntary and is horizontal communication.

Open and Restricted

Every business needs to communicate to run successfully. It is important that people are able to realise just who the message is there fore and why it is there. There are two main channels of communication that are called open and restricted. An open channel of communication is very common. It is when there is a message sent out that is for every one to see as it is aimed at all the employees of a business, this can involve the following forms of communication – posters, flyers and news letters etc. Restricted communication is the opposite of open communication. It involves information that is only to be seen by certain people. An example of this is where an email is sent to a few people involved in a business or a password may be need to access the emails and only specific members of the business will know this password. It is a good way of getting important information to each other quickly.

Advantages and disadvantages of ICT

ICT is growing very fast and is upgraded very regularly. No matter how much we try to avoid it ICT is used in almost every aspect of our lives, this means that there is going to be lots of strengths and weaknesses. At Alton Towers ICT is widely used in so many different areas and

• Before Alton Towers can purchase any more ICT equipment it needs to investigate if there is enough money in the budget to be able to afford to buy it. ICT equipment can be very expensive to buy and it is constantly being upgraded into a newer model so prices are increasing all the time as well. Through purchasing this high priced ICT equipment it adds values to the theme parks overall value. Also Alton Towers needs to use lots of specialist ICT equipment in the park that can cost lots of money but it is essential to the theme park. Examples of how Alton Towers needs ICT are with the safety of the rides, controlling and operating the rides. The rides themselves at Alton Towers can cost a lot of money but it is important that Alton Towers invests money into them to make sure that they are still impressing its customers and that they are still retuning year after year.

• The ICT that is bought by Alton Towers must have the capacity to retain and use information that is relevant to the theme park. This means that the ICT equipment used by Alton Towers must be big enough to store all of the information and be able to process it, as there is a lot of information that Alton Towers uses lots of it. The type of information stored at Alton Towers can range from information about the rides, staff, and suppliers and even about the rides safety and checks. If the ICT equipment is too small to deal with all of this then   this will cause large problems for the theme park. The ICT used at the theme park needs to be able to process large amounts of information at a time; lots of files need to be safely stored including files about past guests and suppliers. The systems also need to make sure that the files and documents are safe and that there is a low risk of virus on the computers.

• The ICT equipment must be easy to use, as it will cost Alton Towers lots of money to train up their staff to use it. There is lots of staff that need to be able to use and understand the ICT equipment so there should be manuals and instructions left for them. This will help to develop the staff skills through on the job training. Through this it keeps costs down through doing training to a minimum but Alton Towers strongly believes that training is vital to its employees. The equipment needs to all be set up correctly

• The ICT needs to be value for its money at the theme park. The equipment that Alton Towers buys needs to do the job that it ws intended for efficiently to ensure that it has been a value for money.  The ICT equipment that is bought by Alton Towers will have peen purchased for a specific reason and Alton Towers uses a lot of ICT so if all of the ICT works appropriately then Alton Towers can continue running and making a profit.   Also if all of the ICT is working to the correct purpose then it will add value to Alton Towers. If the ICT works well then it will reduce costs of having it replaced and maintenance costs.

• Due to technology constantly changing and being up graded the theme park will need to keep up with the new technology that is on offer. Due to the technology being upgraded it will increase in cost so the ICT equipment and Alton Towers will need to upgrade costing them lots of money.  The theme park needs to upgrade so that it can keep up with and beat its competition.

• Computers inside the offices at the theme park can be linked up together in a network that allows employees to work on the same file or piece of data at the same which means that less time is spent on files and more work is done. This can also lower costs because expensive printers can then be shared. This can also help communication between different people and there can be a tighter control over who has access to what.

Chapter five – production and quality

Production is a process that a business goes through to turn raw materials into a chosen product. The raw material would be known as an input, there is then a physical process and you then end up with an output that is the product that you later sell. The product is made to the needs and wants of the customers. This process can be found within any business, an example of how Alton Towers uses this process the way that the merchandise sold in the theme park is made. One type of merchandise that is sold at Alton Towers is T-shirts. The production process for this item would be:

Input        Cotton   Process        Turned into shirt   Output             T-shirt to be sold

This process can be changed regularly to meet the needs and wants of the customers. At Alton Towers products are made in batch. This means that there is lots of the product made at once and not just one at a time. The amount of products made in each batch depends upon the amount of demand for the product. The aim of making a product is to make it more desirable to people who want to buy it. One way of making a product appeal to buyers is through adding value to the product. The term adding value means to increase what something is worth perhaps by cost or appearance. Through adding value to a product it can decrease the production costs due to the higher amount of profit that has been made because of added value. The way that Alton Towers adds value to its merchandise at the theme park is to make it all branded which will make it feel themed. If the merchandise at the theme park is all branded for the particular area that it is sold in then it will encourage guests to buy them to remind visitors of their magical visit to the theme park. An example of how the park adds value to its products is through placing the ride name ‘Air’ to its pens sold in the ‘Air’ area. Adding value to products is through quality.

 

A way of identifying if a product has quality is through the way that it looks, feels, its features, if it is suitable for the place that it is being sold in, the size of the product, the after sales service, image and repretation of the company. An example of how each of these features helps to add quality to products sold at Alton Towers is:

• If the product looks good then it will attract people to it. This will help to sell the product as it will look the part and of a high quality.
• A way of adding or increasing quality to a product is through adding features to the product such as the Alton Towers logo and theme parks strap line “where the magic never ends”. This makes the product look more established and professional which all adds to the presentation and quality.
• The product being sold needs to be suitable for where it is being sold. At the theme park the way that they make the products suitable to where it is being sold is through including the Alton Towers logo and themeing it to the specific ride that it is being sold near.
• The size of the product helps add quality in Alton Towers because if the product is too large then people will not want to buy it, as they will be more suitable to the theme park.
• After sales service is important when you buy a product because if the product works well for a while and then suddenly brakes you will get a better feeling of quality if you can phone the company up and arrange to fix the product. This makes the company get a more established and respected repretation.
• The image and repretation of the company selling the product helps to add quality because if the company is known to be respectable and with high standards then you associate the product to be of high standard as well. Alton Towers is a well-known and respectable business; it has the repretation as the UK’s number one theme park. Due to this you get the feeling that the products are also of high standard.

Quality of products can determined whether or not a product is going to be sold. If a customer needs to decide between two products then they will chose the one that they considered to be the one with the highest quality. In the end a customer will chose the product that satisfies its needs and wants.  In the production process the workers need to check the quality of the products that are being made, the companies may use various quality systems that could include Quality Assurance, Quality Control.

• Quality assurance is a process that ensures that the product is being made in a correct way with high standards. It ensures that quality standards are set and that they are met through out the production process. The product is stamped at every stage of the process to determine whether the product is going to be passed or not. This process is reliable and can stop problems from arising earlier down the production process instead of at the end and it is the responsibility of the workers and not of the inspectors. This can stop the business from losing money and it also helps with the staff training and development skills. Through this process quality standards will be maintained.

• Quality control is a process that ensures quality standards are being met but at the end of the production process. The process involves the product being made but it is then not checked until at the end instead of being checked at every stage of the process that helps to remove products that fall beneath this standard. This can have big disadvantages such as if a problem occurs early on in the process then it will not be found till at the end when it will be too late to correct it. This means that the product is unable to be sold so time and money has then been wasted for the company.  

There are lots of different quality control and quality assurance systems, these can include:

• Total Quality Management  (TQM)
• Quality Circles
• ISO 9000
• Self-checking or inspection
• Benchmarking
• Training and development.

• Total quality management is used and is a more advanced than quality assurance. With this process the customers are central to everything that occurs. All of the employees of the business are each encouraged to think about the customers and giving the customers quality out of the product that are being made. Due to the needs and wants of the customers changing, the business needs to be able to keep up with the latest trends, fashion and materials that are wanted. In this process the staff are closely monitored to help add value to the products and to add quality through motivating their staff to want to please the customers. The way that this process works is it tries to get it right the first time and get it more right the second time. It is concerned with giving customers full satisfaction through receiving quality in the products that they are buying. Total quality management tries to gain full customer satisfaction; they do this by systems of tools, techniques and training. This all involves continuous improvement which all results in the outcome of high quality products and services. There are advantages and disadvantages of this process, the advantages include: The management is always trying to think of new ways to improve quality, it improves customer satisfaction and high standards will reduce costs such as inspection costs. Disadvantages include that the system may sometimes fail, quality control is not a thing that can easily be changed in culture, and employees may begin to feel that their management is trying to get more productivity out of them.

• Quality circles is where a group of employees from all different areas of the business meet during working hours and discuss possible solutions to problems and it is a way of brain storming new ideas that could benefit the company. All of the people that are involved from the different areas of the business get together issues. Whilst in the circle every single person takes on the same amount of empowerment. This means that everyone there becomes equal and they all gain the same amount of authority whilst in this circle. This has advantages and disadvantages which are there is lots of ideas and different approaches to problems thought of due to the people being involved being from different departments to each other, this gives a combination of knowledge and therefore problems should easily be solved. A disadvantage could be that due to every one having the same amount empowerment, too many people will want to have their say at the same time. Also if there are too many ides about how to solve a problem then the wrong approach may be chosen.

• ISO 9000- every business relies on a number of things to draw in customers, one of these things is its repretation and its quality. If a business has the repretation for having high quality then more people will want to visit it and more suppliers will want to supply the goods for your business. One way of getting the quality of your business recognised is with ISO 9000 (International Organisation for Standardisation). The word ISO is Greek for equal and same. ISO 9000 is one of the most popular and well-known standard in the world. It can apply to any business no matter of what its business sells as it could be a butchers or Market Research Company. Once the standard has been acquired it can be recognised anywhere in the world to show that your business has a high standard quality system. If your business wants to get ISO 9000 then you need to make your businesses quality system meet the standards of the ISO 9000 standards. Once you feel that this has been done then an internal audit comes into see how the business is doing and if it is meeting the standards. After that an accredited external auditor comes in and gives an evaluation and if you are meeting allowed the ISO 9000 standards, you are awarded an official certificate certifying that your business has an ISO 9000 quality system. This has advantages and disadvantages. The good points about this system is that you gain a world wide recognised quality system that can make your repretation even better, the fact that you have the ISO 9000 qualification can be printed on any letter heads, business cards and leaflets about the business to show people that you have a good quality system which shows people that your business believes in quality and improving your business.

• Self-checking or inspection is when the staff and employees of a business help to continue or improve the quality standards. If the staff know what the standards are then they can help to keep to these standards and they no if things are going badly or well. With the staff being given the independence to keep to these standards they gain responsibility that helps to motivate them more and this also helps to meet the quality standards. Through the staff being given the added responsibility the business can benefit more from the staff then knowing the objectives of the business more and these to will be getting met.  An advantage of self-checking is that it is cheap, high standards are carried out, the staff are more motivated and therefore the business can benefit. A disadvantage is that the staff can take the extra amount of responsibility too far and forget what their job role is, the work is done wrong and problems occur because the staff don’t see the problems.

• Benchmarking is when a company looks at the performance and certain aspects of another business and compares it to their own, from this they can use the other business as a guideline to be the same as or better than it. At Alton Towers other theme parks such as Camelot and Thorpe Park and look how well certain rides are doing and Alton Towers can look how rides are doing there. They will try and match each other’s standards or they will try and be better than each other. Alton Towers uses lots of research to find out how its competitors are doing, this is so that it can measure itself on rides and the success of the other parks and it can be better than them to continue being the UK’s number one theme park. The research that the theme park does is published. Advantages of benchmarking is that you can find out how some of the best companies are performing so well and measure yourself against them to make sure that you become the best, you can set standards for your business to follow and the employees can keep up with these standards to improve the business. A disadvantage would be that it costs money to carry out and it is very time consuming, other companies can model themselves on your business and they may use to many of your designs and ideas.

• Training and development

Through putting employees through training you are able to gain on going quality off the staff. Through training up the staff they will be able to contribute more and they can be trained in different approaches to quality, these can include benchmarking and total quality management. As well as the employees being involved in the development of the business the organisation will need to being involved with the development of their staff. Advantages of training up staff is that it gives them responsibility and more knowledge about different quality systems such as benchmarking and total quality management. This means that the staff will help to bring more quality to the business. Disadvantages include that the staff could be given too much responsibility from the amount of training that they have been through, if the employees have to go through off the job training then it will cost the business money but if they go through on the job training then they will loose time and money.

Investors inn people is national standard that is recognised in most places that was developed in 1990 by the National Training Task Force, personnel, professional and employee businesses such as the Confederation of British Industry, Trade Union Congress and the Institute of Personnel and Development. It sets a level of practice that is used for the training and development of staff so that aims and objectives can be met in a business. There are four key points to standards that are set, these include:

• Commitment
• Planning
• Action
• Evaluating

Commitment is needed so the people are fully interested in what they are doing and this way the businesses aims and objectives can be met. Plans need to be made about which approach will be used to achieve skills; teams and individuals are to reach the goals of meeting the aims and objectives. Action is putting the skills and development into action and trying to achieve the objectives and aims.

Evaluating shows the strengths and weakness of how you went about reaching your goals and therefore improvements can be noted and used next time.

The benefits of having investors in people is that

Alton Towers is a big organisation and needs a good quality system. One of the ones used there is training and development. There is 1200 staff that is employed at the theme park for seasonal work and each one of them is used at Alton Towers to bring quality to the park and to help with the running of the business. To get the employees to work and perform to the high standards that are set at the theme park, they each need to be trained up and their development closely monitored. One of the objectives stated in the Alton Towers mission statement is “We will make Alton Towers a magical place to work by developing individual skills, personal responsibility and work which is fun and rewarding. This shows that the park is very interesting and dedicated in the process of training up its staff.

There is two main ways of training; these are on the job and off the job training. On the job training involves being trained for your job during working hours and whilst at work. You learn as you go along with your job. This can cause problems as you may not pick up all of the details about the training that you require and it can cost the business both money and time. It can also de-motivate the staff through their lack of responsibility at work. With off the job training you are usually sent to a place on a specific day and they will under go training that helps them to perform their jobs. Off the job training doesn’t waste the company anytime as the training sessions are arranged outside of working hours. At Alton Towers the staff are expected to continue to provide magic to the visitors. They need to train the staff up so that they can deal with this responsibility as long with many other aspects that their job might bring such as customer service, first aid and knowledge about the park. The theme park trains their staff up using on the job training so that they get a better feel for the work they will be doing. This way the staff are gaining their qualification and the company is losing no time and it is more convenient. Each of the employees will be trained up differently depending upon the area that they work in.

Alton Towers is very committed to their staff and they show this through training them up and giving them qualifications, also they are investing money into the employees. The theme park uses a mixture of training, coaching mentoring and secondments for staff training and development.  There is seasonal and permanent staff at the theme park and every one will have been trained for the purpose of each job description. One of the reasons why the guests are retuning to the theme park time and time again is because they enjoy their time at the park and the atmosphere is pleasant including the staff being very friendly and having good customer service skills. Through the staff having skills, the visitors to the park can see that the park has good quality and they will want to come time and time again. It makes the theme park look better with higher quality and standards. As well as the customers being happy the staff will be more satisfied and motivated in their job due to the qualifications and the extra feeling of responsibility that they will be taking on. It will also help them in the future if looking for a different job. There are four different stages that Alton Towers uses to monitor their staff:

23. They plan what they are going to do
24. They then decide how they are going to do it
25. They action on it with training
26. They investigate if they have achieved what they wanted to do and allocate things such as the amount of money on it.

If the employees are happy with their job then it will pay off in the work that they do because they will want to put more of an effort into what they do, they will want to work better and communicate better with each other and will generally be more motivated. This means that training their staff the employees, theme park and visitors are all happy. Investors in people are totally committed in supporting employees and developing the them in order to achieve its aims and objectives. The advantages of having Investors In People is that the staff become committed to the business, as they will want to keep up with the high standards. The organisation becomes committed to supporting the development of its staff. The staff become encouraged to improve their performance at work. It improves earnings through motivating the staff. Through the employees being skilled and motivated they will work harder increasing productivity and profit. On a whole there will be a positive impact.

• Alton Towers could benefit from achieving an ISO 9000 is if a business has the repretation for having high quality then more people will want to visit it and more suppliers will want to supply the goods for your business. One way of getting the quality of your business recognised is with ISO 9000 (International Organisation for Standardisation). The word ISO is Greek for equal and same. ISO 9000 is one of the most popular and well-known standard in the world. It can apply to any business no matter of what its business sells as it could be a butchers or Market Research Company. Once the standard has been acquired it can be recognised anywhere in the world to show that your business has a high standard quality system. If your business wants to get ISO 9000 then you need to make your businesses quality system meet the standards of the ISO 9000 standards. Once you feel that this has been done then an internal audit comes into see how the business is doing and if it is meeting the standards. After that an accredited external auditor comes in and gives an evaluation and if you are meeting allowed the ISO 9000 standards, you are awarded an official certificate certifying that your business has an ISO 9000 quality system. This has advantages and disadvantages. The good points about this system is that you gain a world wide recognised quality system that can make your repretation even better, the fact that you have the ISO 9000 qualification can be printed on any letter heads, business cards and leaflets about the business to show people that you have a good quality system which shows people that your business believes in quality and improving your business.

Alton Towers could benefit from gaining the ISO 9000 qualification in many ways these include that they would gain a worldwide quality recognition that would prove that the park is being successful and is of a high quality. They would be able to print the ISO 9000 logo on letterheads, business letters, memos, the mission statements and brochures to prove and to show people that they have this standard of quality at the theme park. Suppliers and other business related contacts would see how well the park is doing through having this standard and the word will spread. This will make more suppliers want to supply for the theme park and it will increase the good repretation of Alton Towers. This would benefit with the customers as well. They will see that the theme park is a good and well-respected, safe and popular place to go and the word will spread and visitors will see the high standards of the park. Also through having the standard the staff at the park will be able to have recognition for the hard work that they do at the park and it will mean that their skills and qualifications have been recognised, this will motivate the staff so they enjoy their work more. If the employees are happy with their jobs then they will put more of an effort in to get it done so they staff will help with the running of the park and to meet objectives. If the staff are happy then it will help to create magic at the theme park. This means that the visitors to the park will also benefit and will enjoy their time at the park more, which is what Alton Towers, wants.

If they were to have ISO 9000 then it would show that the business is reliable and well respected which should increase the amount of visitors to the park.  Having a repretation of having high standards is very important to a business as it shows that you are beating your competition, which is what it would do to Alton Towers. It will prove that they are the UK’s number one theme park.

All of the above would help the theme park to achieve its objectives because it motivates its staff through having ISO 9000. This is because the staff will be working for a business with high quality recognition standard which will look good for them. This means that the staff will have a better feeling of responsibility, this will make them happy with their job and they will be more motivated which will be seen in the work that they do. With the improved quality in their work they are helping Alton Towers by creating magic and developing individual skills. Through having ISO 9000 the staff will want to work harder so that they can keep up with the high quality standard which will help the theme park to work well and achieve its objectives. The staff will each be encouraged to improve on their performance, which will help the business to perform better due to the loyalty of the employees.

 

Bibliography

For me to be able to have completed my business at work assignment on Alton Towers and the way that it operates, I referred to the following information:

• Internet

• www.QMS.com

• Texts

• Marketing and business - By Malcolm Surridge
• Business Studies, an introduction – By David Dyer and Ian Chambers

• Presentation

• A presentation at Alton Towers employees on 10th October 2002

• Publication

• An Alton Towers information pack

Appendices