Discuss about the case study Operations Management for Strategic Operations Management.
In today’s world, with the increase in completion and advancement in technology, the rate of corruption is also increasing. So the management should manage the operations in such a way that will support the firm to survive in the competitive environment throughout the world without involving any corruption. In other words, the operations management should be turned into strategic operations management. The world is becoming so advanced that it demands continuous innovation to sustain in the competitive era including the markets and industries (Brown, et al, 2013).
In the following discussion, we are going to discuss about some of the important sections of the strategic operations management which includes the following sections:
Definition
Understanding or making a strategy is not as easy as making a strategy requires a lot of analysis as well as practice. Therefore strategy can be defined in many ways. Some of them are:
All the definitions and indications about the strategy are related to the operations management in many different ways. From all the above it can be concluded that a strategy is the way to help the company to increase the performance which always includes formation and set up of goals and plans action for achieving those goals.
Mission
The missions should not be so dramatic or lengthy, but it should have some meaning which totally depends upon the capacity of the firms. Operations strategy’s success is not dependent on the length of the strategy or on how sweetly it is articulated. It is dependent how much the plan is concentrated on capacity of the operations’ effort. The capabilities of the firm should make the firm capable of competing with other firms in this highly competitive world. Along with the main motive of the strategy, there are also some small motives which include making all the employees to participate in each and every part of the strategy (Child, et al, 2005).
Connecting the above two sections, it can be stated that if a company’s mission is to make others know about what the firm is, then the purpose of strategy is to take care of how the mission can be achieved. To make a suitable and strong strategy the senior strategists should analyse and keep the knowledge about the operation capability of the company. It should not give extreme independence or limit the performances of the employees (Okoye, 2006).
Figure 1: Basic Strategy Model
Manufacturing strategy is the main part of the operational strategy and manufacturing strategy is introduced as a core topic of the operational management system by the U.S academics. Manufacturing strategy consists of the structural/infrastructure parts which also include capability of quality, manufacturing, skills audits, inventory management, innovation and requirements of investment (Ahmed, Abdalla., 2000: 3677-3709). Manufacturing strategy can also be stated as the combination of resource management and achievement of business demands.
One of the most important features of the operation managers is that the managers are aware of the competitive environment revolving around the company so they are able to deal with the competitors by putting on a strategy. Formation of a strategy for operations that constitutes a share of the overall strategy formed for the business can also play an important role in uniting the whole organization. Despite of all the disturbances in the markets, a strong and efficient strategy can perform an important role in the success of the firm. In a firm the formation of strategy is very important because without that the short term and the long term goals will get mixed up and messed up (Atsiaya., 2013). Manufacturing is a very important part of the performance of the company in terms of market share, profits and growth. Manufacturing have the capacity to be a competitive weapon in the strategy of the firm if it is utilized properly (Ward, et al., 1996: 597-626). Both the operational strategy as well as the business strategy gets contribution from the manufacturing strategy. Its influencing areas are as follows:
The external competitive environment has a huge effect on the operations and performance of the company. Therefore it is essential to involve the operation strategy in formulation and implementation of the strategy in the business.
The operation strategy should match with the requirements of the market in three areas:
Commonly, operational strategy is important in two ways in the order to contribute in the achievement of the business goals and advancing in the competitive environment.
First the operational strategy can be the centre for the implementation of the business strategy. According to this approach, operation will help in fitting the strategy properly so as to focus in the efforts and resources, so that the designed strategy will work properly.
Secondly, in this approach the operational competences are viewed as the prior skill, which are to be used properly so as to form new chances in new spaces. Here the contribution of the operations would be extending to the planning sections.
The strategic management deals with paying attention to the analysis of the business environments and framing the strategies related to the changes in business environment. Strategic management is related to the concept of strategic planning as well as strategic thinking. Strategic planning is an analytical method which refers to the framing procedures for the production of data and its analysis is used for strategic thinking, which after synthesis results in the formation of strategy. Mostly strategic management includes two processes:
Formation of a competitive strategy includes mostly four elements: strength and weakness of the company, personal values, and expectations of society. The environmental analysis includes the following elements:
Decisions about strategy: This is based on the environmental assessment vision and responses of the strategy.
Evaluating the strategy of the organization and controlling its results are very essential. To achieve this goal, following activities are involved:
Jaguar Land Rover is a Britain based company which is the combination of two great cars and designs and manufactures in UK. It is taken over by the Indian company Tata Motors in 2008. It is a merger of two car companies Jaguar and Land Rover, having a combined strategy for their vehicles and innovations and also due to the merger they had a great success. The management consists of many experienced managers for manufacturing and quality sections who decided to relocated from UK to India so as to monitor the operations in different parts of world including Pakistan, Malaysia, Kenya and Turkey (Jaguarlandrover.com, 2016).
Corporate Strategy determines about the business the company should be in how to assign resources to the business and between different businesses. This is a management of top level, highly influenced by the stakeholders and keeps a goal of guiding strategically the decision making of the organization (Hitt, etal., 2009).
Next is the Business Strategy which totally is about the way an organization competes successfully in a decided market. It deals with the decision made in choice of the products, achieving the customer’s demands, leading the competitors and new opportunities creation etc.
Figure 2: Levels of Strategy
The last level is the Functional level of strategy is a level of individual functions which deals with how each and every function affects the strategy and what should be their strategic objectives.
The aim of the strategic operations management is to ensure that all the operations department of the company who has completed the operations strategy are linked to other strategies of the company
Jaguar Land Rover has a corporate strategy which is stated as “Transforming our products and our business operations through environmental innovation, investing in our people, advancing knowledge and supporting worldwide” (Duysters, et al., 2009: 325-349).
The two important strategies for sustenance adopted by Jaguar Land Rover and those are responsibility for environment and global social responsibility till 2020 (Aswathappa., 2009).
Environmental responsibility is termed as a long term goal for the growth of the sustainability, after the growth, turn comes for products and business operations which are derivative of the innovation to produce sustainable products and manufacturing solutions. All these will result in the growth and benefit of the company (Eniang., 2008).
To achieve the environmental goals some important objectives are set by the company like reduction of the emission of the CO2 gas, products which will not affect the life cycle and many more. In accordance to the achievement of goals for the sustainable business operations, leadership is introduced in the operations as well as supply chain management.
The main responsibility of the company is to generate opportunities by keeping an aim for new and talented skills for future communities all over the world. The objectives set are improvement in the performance and nature of talent, development of communities, supporting the global communities and so on (Yohannes., 2013).
The two main issues those influence the sustenance strategy to a height are the issues related to the stakeholders and how the company will give its best to the global trends and where its impact will be the highest.
Strategy
After so many successful years of acquiring JLR, Ford started struggling to make money in the market and its Premier Automobile Group started to be disbanded. To save the company from being bankrupt the management decided to sell the company and then it is taken over by the Tata Motors of India. the deal took a lot of time to be completed, as even after the announcement of the agreement it became difficult to get the regulatory approval as the company was inextricably linked with Ford. So to ease the offering of the deal, Ford keep on supplying powertrains and other components to the company and also the Blue Oval decided to keep on offering the R&D, back office and finance help to the company.
From the above discussion about JLR, it can be concluded that JLR is the world’s largest car manufacturer. Its high level of quality and luxury shows the advantage of its competition as its choice of the sustainability strategy is remarkable when it comes to the case of stakeholders and needs of the customers. The strategy is not only for the product but also for the passion as well as the responsibility for the environment and the society. In the name of brighter, beautiful and responsible future, the company acknowledges two paths, one for the environmental responsibility and the other for the social responsibility. With the help of the CSR program, the company invested a lot to produce well trained, educated employees with advanced innovative skills. The supply chain management have decided to use the renewable energy more and more so as to increase the efficiency of energy with less wastage of water which will also lead to the decrease in solid waste in a logistic way.
Conclusion
From the above discussion we came to know about the strategy, manufacturing strategy and how it is related to the operational management and the strategic operation management. After that we came to know about the strategic operational management of Jaguar Land Rover. From all the above four definitions it can be concluded that a strategy is the way to help the company to increase the performance which always includes formation and set up of goals and plans action for achieving those goals. The capabilities of the firm should make the firm capable of competing with other firms in this highly competitive world. Along with the main motive of the strategy, there are also some small motives which include making all the employees to participate in each and every part of the strategy. Manufacturing strategy consists of the structural/infrastructure parts which also include capability of quality, manufacturing, skills audits, inventory management, innovation and requirements of investment. Formation of a strategy for operations that constitutes a share of the overall strategy formed for the business can also play an important role in uniting the whole organization. Strategic planning is an analytical method which refers to the framing procedures for the production of data and its analysis is used for strategic thinking, which after synthesis results in the formation of strategy.
After so many merits there are also some limitations:
It is known that the strategies of all the sections are focused on the development of the company, setting goals, accomplishing it and guiding for the environmental issues, but there are also some issues which the strategies cannot touch. The strategies are formed by keeping the wellbeing of time but it may occur that initially it keeps matching but later don’t. Therefore it can be stated that a managerial strategic plan can fail in dynamic situation. One more demerit is that the strategies of a company have limited scope, so the objective pursued by organizations has limited scope. If proper guidance is not given then this may affect the performance of the company as it will restrict the working capability of the employees by its rules and regulations.
References
Ahmed, A.M. and Abdalla, H.S., 2000. Beyond competition: A framework for the 21st century. International journal of production research, 38(15), pp.3677-3709.
Atsiaya, S.A., 2013. Operations strategy and firm-level competitiveness among savings and credit co-operative societies in Nairobi County, Kenya (Doctoral dissertation, University of Nairobi).
Aswathappa, K., 2009. Essentials of business environment. Himalaya Publishing House.
Brown, S., Bessant, J.R. and Lamming, R., 2013. Strategic operations management. Routledge.
Cantamessa, M. and Montagna, F., 2016. The Many Approaches to Innovation Strategy. In Management of Innovation and Product Development (pp. 87-114). Springer London.
Child, J., Faulkner, D. and Tallman, S.B., 2005. Cooperative strategy. Oxford University Press, USA
Duysters, G., Jacob, J., Lemmens, C. and Jintian, Y., 2009. Internationalization and technological catching up of emerging multinationals: a comparative case study of China’s Haier group. Industrial and corporate change, 18(2), pp.325-349.
.Eniang, E.A., 2008. Emerging trends and threats of climate change—implications and amelioration strategies for sustainable protected areas management in Western Africa?. Section 1: Climate change and the energy crisis.
Hooley, G.J., Saunders, J.A. and Piercy, N., 2004. Marketing strategy and competitive positioning. Pearson Education.
Jaguarlandrover.com. (2016). English | Jaguar Land Rover Corporate Website. [online] Available at: https://www.jaguarlandrover.com/gl/en/ [Accessed 14 Jul. 2016].
Hitt, M.A., Ireland, R.D. and Hoskisson, R.E., 2009. Competitiveness and Globalization.
Okoye, H.N., 2016. Impact of Corporate Policy and Strategic Planning on the Performance of Nigerian Commercial Banks (Doctoral dissertation).
Porter, M.E., 2008. Competitive strategy: Techniques for analyzing industries and competitors. Simon and Schuster.
Steiner, G.A., 2010. Strategic planning. Simon and Schuster.
Ward, P.T., Bickford, D.J. and Leong, G.K., 1996. Configurations of manufacturing strategy, business strategy, environment and structure. Journal of management, 22(4), pp.597-626.
Yohannes, M., Comparison and analysis of corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports of the top five companies ranked on the 2013 CSR RepTrak.
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