Williams-Sonoma successfully market goods through all three major channels __ retail stores, catalogs, and the Internet. We take into account the people, customer focus and operational excellence. In order to provide excellent service at a minimal cost, Williams-Sonoma needs to comply with the service level agreements.
Business continuity is like any other service that a supplier provides to a consumer. The main components include:
• a clear understanding of the supplier’s capacity to provide a service
• a clear understanding of the consumer’s expectations of this service
• a clear understanding of the limitation of each
• a clear agreement that addresses all of these
• ongoing management of the relationship based on that agreement (Smith, 1995)
Williams-Sonoma needs to solve the service level agreement problem otherwise the organization will lose customers due to failure of accomplishing the promised delivery date. There are several resolutions that will help solve this problem. Tracking the service level daily, weekly, and quarterly will track the timeliness of delivery. In addition, by involving its employees and let them understand the importance of their job. This process can be done by incorporating and employing associate opinions survey, quarterly state of the site meetings, as well as other factors such as employee recognition. Williams-Sonoma would like to address the problem and set realistic goals that are attainable. Once the problem is completely evaluated and analyze, a positive return on investment will be beneficial.
The adoption of service level agreements (SLA) will definitely contribute to achieving total quality management (TQM) goals of our organization, especially as regards to the two key aspects of the SLA process which are the following:
• assisting suppliers in gaining a better understanding of their customer’s needs;
• providing objective measures of performance, to serve as the basis for future improvement (Parish, 1997).