INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE OF THE RED CROSS

International Committee of the Red Cross

International Committee of the Red Cross

Introduction

Management competences have long been considered important for effective ICRC management. Recognition that managers should have competence in their relevant functional area, particularly in relation to developing skills for performing tasks and taking decisions, has been emphasized in the literature. Indeed the development of ICRC management competences is seen to be the key to continual improvement in ICRC management performance. This is no less relevant in the context of service marketing ICRC management. It is argued here that the competence of service managers is of crucial importance, given the nature and characteristics of services. In particular, the intangible aspects of services and the fact that services entail simultaneous production and consumption creates different challenges for managers. These characteristics increase the importance of identifying the specific competences which are most appropriate to managing in a services context. (Kolb 2004:45)

Traditional focus of services marketing performance

Although the issue of improving quality in ICRC performance and activity has for a long time had prominence, the emphasis has traditionally been on:

creating formal standards, procedures, systems and techniques in an attempt to “control” the service delivery; and

measuring service quality performance in terms of customer perceptions and expectations.

These aspects of service quality performance improvement are considered briefly here.

Creating formal standards

Many service companies have relied heavily on formal service standards in order to ensure a certain level of service quality. Levitt (2006) described how service operations can be made more efficient by applying the logic and tactics of manufacturing. His recommendations included: the simplification of tasks, clear division of labour, substitution of equipment and systems for employees, and little decision-making discretion afforded to employees. For example, airlines and hotel chains use standards and procedures to ensure check-in waiting time, baggage labelling, cleaning of facilities and telephone answering all happen within a certain time period and to a pre-arranged standard. These are all duties which may have relied on intuitive behaviour on the part of services personnel in executing the tasks but, by stipulating rigid procedures and minimum performance standards, these companies have considerably improved their service offerings.

Service quality and performance

In addition to the focus on formal standards, the literature to date has focussed heavily on service quality performance and measurement. It is widely accepted that customers compare the service they expect with perceptions of the service they receive in evaluating service quality. Parasuraman et al.'s (2005) widely accepted four gaps model indicates that consumers' quality perceptions are influenced by a series of distinct gaps occurring on the marketers' side. These gaps include the customer expectation-ICRC management perception gap; the ICRC management perception-service quality specification gap; the service quality specification-service delivery gap and the service delivery-external communications gap. As a consequence of Parasuraman et al.'s (2008) study much of the research in services quality since then has focussed on devising methods to measure these performance gaps in delivering services.

The quality of ICRC management decision making has been ...