Case: Managed by Q

Operations Management
MBA 703
FEU-Cainta

Submitted by:
🗹 Reporting Group ⬜ Reacting Group

1 | Page
 I. Case Background
Managed by Q, or “Q” is a cleaning company which was a startup idea by
Dan Teran and Saman Rahmanian in 2014 when they first met at a
development firm where they both have had dissatisfied experience with
maintenance services.

The company offers cleaning, maintenance and office-supply services.

The employees are called “operators” where the cleaners are called “field
operators” and they have undergone a rigorous hiring and training process
to standardize into Q’s culture which values transparency and outstanding
customer service as it is the company’s strategy to make customers love
the service on their first experience that they do not look for any other
company and keep coming back. Workers’ remuneration are higher than
the market’s standard and they also provide flexible working hours,
in-house training and career growth which resulted in low turnover rates,
committed employees that gave amazing outputs and satisfied customers
all feeding into Q’s culture of transparency, problem-solving, cleaning
experience, integrity and work ethics.

II. Statement of the Problem

What strategies the Company should implement to ensure steady growth

while maintaining customer satisfaction
What strategies the Company should implement to ensure steady growth
while maintaining customer satisfacti

III. Assumptions
The company did not put enough time into research before expanding
into other cities and have only found out of the challenges once they have
already opened and established their business in the location.

2 | Page
 IV. Areas of Consideration

a. Human Resource and Development

invest in training…./ hiring

rewards & recognition/ compensation & benefits

b. Operations

direct hire / not contractual…

see the evolution of Q’s model page 4

c. Finance

At the closing of its Series A in June 2015, Q had raised a total of $17.4 million
since its launch. In August 2014, it had raised $775,000 in an angel round. One of
the investors, Scott Belsky, was also an early investor in Uber. In November 2014,
Q raised another $1.65 million from four investors, including the VCs Homebrew
and RRE Ventures, both of which went on to invest in the Series A.

exhibit 7

page 10

d. Marketing

Teran and Rahmanian initially approached co-op boards with their startup idea but
quickly found office managers a better target customer. “Office managers have

3 | Page
decision-making authority,” Teran pointed out. “They want less confusion, fewer
logistics and vendors to worry about ... We pitched our idea to 25 or 30 office
managers and 15 or 20 of them signed up on the spot for service before we had
built anything. That was convincing enough for us to build the software and the
supply back- end.”

USP wallmounted ipad dashboard ****

App to provide a customized task list and to communicate with office managers
page 2

e. IT / R & D Business Development etc.

possible app development page 12

V. Framework (e.g. SWOT, Porter’s etc)

SWOT
Strengths Weakness
Technologically driven Long hiring procedure
Lengthy and multifold hiring
procedures.
Has a digital quality assurance program Spend more money for training

effective technology in ensuring quality

service
Very transparent of the job Only available in 3 business districts -
New York, Chicago, San Francisco

4 | Page
Keeps customers updated quickly
Employees are competitively compensated
and well trained
Open communication management
Standardization of procedure of “Q
knowledge”
Unable to expand as quickly due to
the time spent training new
employees (rephrase)

Opportunities Threats
expand more services Customers might not be tech-savvy
expand more market Have to maintain a relationship with
vendors
On-demand service that can quickly meet
demands of the customers
Increase in industry value due to low Other emerging copycat cleaning
competitors companies

Needs to refer to other vendors for services high rival companies in the US
like installing security Janitorial Services

integrated app for suppliers low market knowledge in new market

possible to supply operators to other in
demand companies/ “manpower supply”

VI. Alternative Courses of Action (at least 4)

Expand new market

Advantages: increase revenue

Disadvantages: unfamiliar to both customer and labor markets

5 | Page
 Expand service
Advantages: existing technology & build customer satisfaction reputation
in the market

Disadvantages: additional service … do not create an additional revenue

stream.

Franchise
Advantages: faster growth in revenue; more market ; limit/offset
copycats; less cost capital; fund increase

Disadvantages: unfamiliar to franchise business model, uncontrolled

quality control; unfamiliar with patent, trademarks or copyrights

Merger to other in-demand services either related

Advantages: Subject Matter expert… strength its capabilities/ less the
competition/ ex merge with IT support
Disadvantages: upgrading the software

VII. Action Plans

Activity Responsible Person/s, or Timeline
Department/s, Team/s, etc
Feasibility study to be Marketing/ Human Resource Immediate
conducted in Boston,
Atlanta and Washington
DC ( includes survey/
interviews etc…)
Business Plan Marketing/HR/ Finance after Feasib
Decision to accept or reject

6 | Page
Implementation - Accept
Further study - Reject

VIII. Recommendation
Expand new market & services .. pick up the idea from opportunity
and advantages.

IX. Conclusion

No matter which decision is taken by the founders of the Q company,

eventually it has to be done without compromising the business
model, services, quality, and work culture.

7 | Page