Decision Making and Greyhound

Greyhound Lines is a bus transportation company that had problems with operating costs and customer service. It did not have union in solving vital problems, more concretely, while Greyhound’s executive faced with these issues by reorganizing such as massive cuts in personnel, routes’ and service, along with computerization, middle managers in computer programming, human resource and terminal managers considered that executive’s solution was inappropriate. As a result, it was impossible for them to handle, did the number of passengers not only plunged dramatically but rivals also had been picking off Greyhound’s customers. To understand more deeply about what is going on in Greyhound Lines, we turn to discuss about the way executive managers made decision and analyze what was not satisfactory. 1. Was the decision facing Greyhound executives, programmed or non-programmed? From the case study, we can obviously identify with certainty that Greyhound’s executives were facing with non-programmed decision. Let remind a bit more about non-programmed decisions, that apply specific solutions crafted for a unique problem.[1] It was the first time facing with being unaffordable to dispatch nearly empty vehicles or have buses and drives on call to meet surges in demand. They did bring two solutions to reduce operating costs and improve customer services. For examples of non-programmed decision, first, Greyhound’s top managers introduced Trips through computerization of everything from passenger reservations to fleet scheduling. Modern technology helps work out automatically, quickly and effectively that may bring Greyhound for competitive advantages. They seemed to be lucid decisions because applying technology leads both saving labor cost and time. However, is technology always good or it also come long with various conditions? The second example of non-programmed decision was cutting labor force, routes, and services. It may be a suitable way to