Case Study - ABC College

Imagine you work as the Chief Operations Officer at ABC College (ABC), a registered training organisation located in Sydney CBD. You report directly to the College owner (Ann Smith) and the Chief Executive Officer, Mark Adams.

The existing College campus has state-of-the-art facilities, however the equipment for teaching and learning is archaic and needs to be replaced. The 10 classrooms, 2 libraries, 6 staff offices and student lounges are fully furnished. The campus can accommodate 300 students at any given time. The College recently invested approximately 1 million the refurbishment of the campus.

There are 210 students enrolled at the College at present (100 students enrolled in Business courses at the Department of Business; 10 students enrolled in Childcare within the Childcare Department; 80 students enrolled in Nursing at the Department of Nursing and 20 students enrolled in Aged Care at the Aged Care Department. The classes currently run from 9am- 3pm on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

The ABC Business Plan indicates that the management intends to acquire a second campus to accommodate 500 additional students within 6 months. The potential lease costs of the second campus will be approximately $200,000 per year. The Business Plan also has a budget of $100,000 for technology upgrades, though the upgrade may require $300,000. You have identified that one computer (and all relevant software) will cost $2000 per station. To get 210 computer stations, the College would need to spend more than $400,000. However, you need to think of more efficient ways of managing resources.

Due to recent global events, there has been a significant decline in student enrolments across all private colleges in Australia. The ABC business plan projects 20% annual increase in revenue over the next three years. However, this forecast seems unrealistic.

The students currently enrolled at the College are quite happy with the services and support provided by the staff. There are currently 10 trainers and 10 administration full-time staff working at the College. Each teaching department exclusively uses two full-time administration staff. There are two trainers for each department, for example two Business trainers, two Childcare trainers etc. The 20 staff have been working at the College for over three years when the College had over 750 students. The average cost per trainer is $80,000 per year. The average cost per Administration staff ids $60,000 per year. Student numbers have declined, however the same number of full-time staff have remained in place.

According to ABC financial policy, any expenditure above $10,000 must be approved in writing by the CEO and owner.

Topic: allocate resources

1. what process I will use to identify and adhere to organisational policies and procedures for resource allocation?
2. How do I manage the physical and human resource allocation according to business unit objectives and the number of enrolled students in each department?
3. Which process I will use to negotiate and obtain resources within required timeframe according to business objectives?
4. How do I develop and implement systems for monitoring resource usage?
5. How do I develop procedures to review resource allocation against business objectives?
6. How I will implement the resource allocation?
7. which improvements should I suggest to work practices for the efficient use of resources?
8. Which procedures I will use to monitor compliance with program and project budgets and take corrective action where necessary?

Scenario continued...

Imagine that six months have gone by. You managed to procure 60 new computer stations for the College. The student enrolments increased to 430. The resource plan you put in place worked effectively for the first two months. However, since then, students started complaining about not have enough trainers available for help. They also complained about the computers not being available as there were too many students playing games on the computers all day. The Department head trainers gradually started hiring additional casual staff to help them with administrative tasks. They did not seek your permission to hire casual staff. The human resource costs went way above the budget.

9. How do I prepare a report that indicates the level of performance achieved (based on additional scenario information above) and any action taken to adjust or rectify procedures in meeting service and product delivery standards?