Hess Corporation Purchase Order Process

Hess Corporation Purchase Order Process Improvement Survey

The Hess Corporation needs to develop a plan and organizational module that is highly efficient in order to maximize accounts payable purchase orders to be processed efficiently and in a timely manner. This strategic plan may include perhaps the making of a structured eform where individuals can fill out all the information needed to process a pre-requisite and should include full quotes from vendors. A structured form needs to be made available along with an approval system in the workflow process to move pre-requisites along for purchase order (PO) creations which in turn will be communicated to the vendor so that our orders will be fulfilled and received within 48 hours of submission of pre-requisites.

Survey Proposal:

The proposed survey here is designed to determine how Hess may best improve its vending processing system. By engaging the vendors who process their purchase order systems through Hess, we hope to determine what experiences have characterized the process for them. Specifically, the survey instrument has been designed in order to quality and quantify in a variety of ways this experience.

For instance, the categorical survey questions offered here are intended to measure the perceptions of the businesses surveyed on the relationship between their operations and the process of ordering.

With nominal questions, respondents have been asked to circle the number (1-4) identified with the category that best describes business operations in subjects relating to type of sales made and types of clientele sought. With the ordinal questions, a Likert scale has been used, asking respondents to identify levels of agreement by number associating with statements regarding the purchase order processing needs of the business. This should serve to illuminate for decision-makers at Hess the profile or the clientele which would be effected by the changes prompting the survey research.

In consideration of quantitative data, a set of interval questions are asked of respondents relating to the percentages of clients which account for various online ordering factors and a set of ratio questions are asked of respondents relating to financial figures both overall and relating to online purchase order processes. These should help to illuminate the economic scale of client needs for decision-makers with Hess.

The survey questions appropriately request of respondents information that formulates an umbrella set of terms such as economic scale, client behaviors and client expectations. This helps to establish the basis for an analytical assessment of the vendors impacted by Hess findings and subsequent decisions. Others, such as those which inquire as to current levels of usage and optimization of electronic purchase orderings, should help to appropriately guide findings toward process improvements that are directly attendant to vendor concerns.

The survey questions here respond to the primary ethical demands of the process, which require a focus on the research objective without inappropriate deviation into subjects of irrelevance or impropriety. Namely, this survey attempts not to deter from the path of proper behavior between company and clientele, with the surveyed vendors representing a population inherently entitled to privacy and protection from the exploitation of private information. The privileges between the two parties must remain intact through the research process, ensuring that the information used here is not employed to exploit specific accounts or to transfer the findings to other parties. Instead, all survey purposes relating to the interests of product improvement must be conveyed at the initiation of the survey process.

Survey:

Nominal:

1. For what type of business are you processing orders?

1. Service 2. Retail 3. Public 4. Non-Profit

2. What types of orders are you processing?

1. Service Agreement 2. Retail Item 3. Contribution

4. Membership Dues

3. What is your primary target market?

1. Private Users 2. Consumers 3. Donors

4. Corporations

4. How do you process the majority of your orders?

1. In person 2. By Mail 3. Electronically 4. Phone

Ordinal:

Most customers are either repeat customers or will be repeat customers.

There are technical reasons why our ordering process has delays.