Assignment 2: Required Assignment 2—BPR Case Study: APA standards to citation of sources:5 scholarly sources 2011-2016 : RA 1 4 -6 page paper attached

Operations Management Strategies

Business organizations benefit a great deal from operations management and strategy. Operations management is part of organizational management whose concern is to oversee, design, and control the process of production. Also, it focuses on redesigning the business activities in the production of various goods and services. Operations management has the responsibility of ensuring that the business activities are effective in meeting the customer requirement and uses the available resources in the most effective way. The great interest in operations management and strategy has prompted many studies in this area of business management.

Operations management and strategy is concerned with the management of the processes that converts the inputs into the outputs. The inputs include the raw materials, energy, and labor while the outputs are the goods and services. According to Van Mieghem (2011), strategy and operations in an organization have an intricate connection. While a strategy is the plan to reach the set objective, operations define the means of getting to the objective. The scholar identifies that operations management planning and coordinating work. The management strategically engages in long-term planning and structuring of the business activities (Van Mieghem, 2011). He outlines that operations strategy designs the business operating system, which is the combination of the processes and the resources to align with the expected business competitive position. The operations management uses the operating system to provide the best interaction between supply and demand (Van Mieghem, 2011).

In a study conducted by Zhao (2014), excellent strategy leads to remarkable success in the operations management. The success of an organization is heavily dependent on the operational efficiency and the operational skill in the organization. The author has used Tesco as an organization that has benefited from an efficient operational management and strategy. The organization has established a range of operations strategies that are aimed at satisfying customer needs, reducing costs, improving delivery system, introducing innovation to the supply chain system, and controlling the inventory holding (Zhao, 2014). Besides, the company skillfully integrates the functional strategy, corporate strategy, and the business unit strategy through effective operations management and creative operations design.

According to Zhao (2014), the primary concept at Tesco is a strong customer focus. It has introduced the use of technology to its customers to maintain customer loyalty. Tesco is realizing customer loyalty as a result of its club card and the online grocery shopping. The strategy is effective because the company is realizing many frequent customers who are card holders. The online grocery shopping has increased the convenience of doing shopping leading to higher levels of loyalty. Technology is thus an important component of operations management and strategy. Also, it analyses its customers by applying various technologies that help the company to know the customer attitude, habit, and demand (Zhao, 2014).

Issues such as distribution form critical part of operations management because the products have to reach the customers. The researcher identifies that the use of suppliers can be an effective strategy of ensuring that the products reach the intended customers compared to when an organization supplies its own products through its fleet of trucks (Zhao, 2014). The challenge that may an organization such as Tesco may face is the use of strategies that are generated on the basis of the domestic context even after expanding overseas. The operating strategy may not be suitable for every new market and the supply chain system is not well developed in some international markets (Zhao, 2014).

Other studies find that operations management should focus on the systematic direction of the activities in the sourcing for inputs, the production, and the delivery of products (Castle & Jacobs, 2011). The management demands for a holistic view of the processes that have significant effect on the costs that are necessary for operating the firm. In this aspect, it is assumed that the technical parts of the operations, especially the engineering parts are handled by specialists (Castle & Jacobs, 2011). In the current market, there are several issues in operations management including globalization and information technology. Considering the various perspectives such as human resources, economic, accounting, financial, marketing, and cultural perspectives, there have been new challenges to the operations management. This occurs as business organizations extend their trading activities across the national boundaries to interact with customers and suppliers around the world (Castle & Jacobs, 2011). On the other hand, IT has been changing fast and it provides new and improved ways that facilitate the planning and control of an organization’s operations.

Operations strategy plays a leading role in understanding and achieving the capacity to continuously provide goods and services that meets the customer needs and the objectives of the business (Castle & Jacobs, 2011). The objectives of operations strategy always focus on the areas of cost, quality, speed, and flexibility. It should correspond to the general organizational strategy particularly when it comes to meeting customer needs, as well as, the market direction of input procurement, production, and supply of the products. The operations strategy has to be consistent with the functional strategies laid by the organization including the finance and marketing strategies (Castle & Jacobs, 2011).

The study conducted by Hurwitz, Heaslip, & Moore (2012) outlines that the need to maximize the use of the limited funding, transport agencies across the nation are considering low cost strategies as a way of addressing the many transport challenges. The scholars categorize most of the strategies under the Transportation System Management and Operations (TSMO) strategies. From the study, it has been a challenge to conduct a quantifiable assessment of the TSMO performance (Hurwitz, Heaslip, & Moore, 2012). This is attributed to the limited availability and the quality of performance measure information for individual strategies, inconsistencies between the performance measures in individual TSMO strategies, and the absence of consensus about performance measures that are most appropriate to particular policy objective.

Many business managers believe that the current e-commerce operations call for a critical review of the business strategy. According to Cao & Schniederjans (2004), operations strategy research to an electronic-commerce environment should be substantiated. Considering the both the operations strategy and the information systems strategy, the scholars proposes a framework that integrates the two strategy models and apply the new framework to an e-commerce environment. The researchers have found that the business environment has significant impact on the strategic options in options. Also, the alignment of the business environment, operations strategy, and the information systems strategic inclination determines the business performance success in e-commerce (Cao & Schniederjans, 2004). The finding of the study indicates that the low-performing and the high-performing businesses apply different information systems strategies to facilitate the operations strategy.

Training is a fundamental component of organizational activities. However, many businesses recruit personnel with the required knowledge and skills. In the same way business organizations have different strategies, learning and training institutions use different types of strategies to ensure that the learners comprehend the needed skills and knowledge (Mukherjee, 2002). The article by Mukherjee (2002) explores the use of the rolling reinforcement strategy in improving student understanding of various techniques in operations management studied. It investigates techniques such as critical path analysis, statistical process, and multiproduct break even analysis.

Strategy is becoming the domain for every person. According to Angwin, Paroutis & Mitson (2009), the senior functional organizational leaders are now having titles that identify with the word strategy. For instance, there is the senior vice president of strategic marketing, the senior vice president of global strategic human resource, the global strategic operator director, and the head of strategic IT. The proliferation of strategists in organizations indicates the rising pressure on businesses to respond to the environmental changes through product and service revisions, as well as, through realignment of the strategy, processes, and structure (Angwin, Paroutis & Mitson, 2009). It requires that every aspect of business to have more strategic outlook. For instance, the strategic use of information technology has made many business organizations to gain competitive advantage over their competitors. This happens when firm identifies and uses information technology to promote its products, reduce costs, increase efficiency, and improve productivity.

References

Angwin, D., Paroutis, S., & Mitson, S. (2009). Connecting up strategy: are senior strategy directors a missing link? California Management Review, 51(3), 74-94.

Cao, Q., & Schniederjans, M. J. (2004). Empirical study of the relationship between operations strategy and information systems strategic orientation in an e-commerce environment. International Journal of Production Research, 42(15), 2915-2939.

Castle, D., & Jacobs, F. R. (2011). Operations Management Body of Knowledge Framework. APICS: The Association for Operations Management, 1-82.

Hurwitz, D., Heaslip, K., & Moore, D. (2012). Relating Transportation Systems Management and Operations Strategies to Policy Goals: A Framework for Quantitative Decision Making. Engineering Management Journal, 24(3), 32-42.

Mukherjee, A. (2002). Improving student understanding of operations management techniques through a rolling reinforcement strategy. Journal of Education for Business, 77(6), 308-312.

Van Mieghem, J. A. (2011). Operations Management Strategy. Palgrave. Retrieved from http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/faculty/vanmieghem/htm/pubs/Operations%20Management%20and%20Strategy_Palgrave_VanMieghem_24May2011.pdf

Zhao, S. (2014). Analyzing and Evaluating Critically Tesco’s Current Operations Management. Journal of Management and Sustainability, 4(4), p184.