Management and Operations

This report will discuss about the role of leader and function of manager according to different situation within the organisation. Along with this, various approaches of operations management is studied which will help in reducing production wastage as a result, it will ultimately enhance productivity. Moreover, it also states about importance of operation management with different style of leadership. Lastly, it talks about various external environment factor which affect working environment of the business.

TASK 1

1. Introduction to organisation and its management structure

Marks and Spencer is world-wide recognised for providing qualitative product in the field of clothing, luxury food products and home products. Company serve worldwide and around 84,939 employees work for providing benefits to the organisation. Flat organisation structure is followed by Marks and Spencer in their working, under which limited control is shown by top level management and front line managers. In this structure there is less or no level of management between management and employees. It is beneficial for the respective company because it improve communication, low operation cost, motivate and satisfy employees. This was adopted by organisation so that employees get more involved in decision making and working of the firm.

Managers: Managers mainly perform five functions in an organisation such as planning, organising, staffing, directing and controlling and majorly all the activities are performed under this (Omansky and Kanner,2014). Managers are present on various levels of the organisation in order to manage working of various departments such as finance manager, general manager, marketing manager, project manager and many more types of manager is present.

Leaders: They are the one who guide team members so that work can be done and business objectives are achieved.  Leaders play an important role in motivating staff so that they can support business in achieving goals and targets. Main aim of leader is to inspire and influence employees in such a way that they make effective performance which directly increase business productivity.

2. Roles of manager in the Marks and Spencer are defined below

Planning: Manager plan the operation of business in such a way that it help in accomplishment of the business objective.

Resource allocator: It is duty of manger to allocate resources such as fund; machine and labour etc., properly to various department of the organisation so that employees related to particular division perform their work effectively and timely.

Characteristics which manager sinks in their personality and behaviour

Confident: Manager of marks and Spencer should be confident about their skills and thought process otherwise they are not able to motivate the leaders to follow their orders.

Patience: Manager of concerned business should be patient so that employees able to tell their problem easily which are affecting the work and overall business profitability (Brandon and Mullan,2013).

Roles of leader are mentioned below

Representation: Leader of Marks and Spencer should sit with concentration in meeting, conference and seminars as they have to represent the business to other people who can get influence and invest in business activities. If they do not know information correctly than it will put a false representation is done in the external world can which affect business’ profitability.

Merge personal goal with organisation goal: By the use of personal skills leader of respective concern able to merge personal goal with business goal. This type of merger motivates employees to work with full dedication as with organisation objective their personal aim is also achieving. For example: if an individual is passionate about developing applications of software than working in IT department will fulfil both personal as well organisational goals. So, here manager must look out for skills and knowledge in order to accomplish the same.  

Characteristics of leader

Positive attitude: In respect to this, leaders undertake activities with positive attitude which encourage employee to work with passion and spirit even in adverse situation. For example: even after loss in achieving certain objectives positive attitude of leaders of encouraging team members will definitely motivate them in performing their activities in a better manner.

Communication skills: Managers of Marks and Spencer leader should have good communication skill in them so that they are able to act as mediator between top level and employees of the team. For example: Superior assign a task to a team and it is prime role of leader that he/she communicate all the related information to its team members in an effective manner so that work can be done in a better way because if leader does not communicate properly than work can get affected.

3. Analyse differences of managerial functions and leadership roles by effectively applying a range of management theories and concepts.

Manager and leader sometimes uses interchangeably but their roles and responsibility are completely different in an organization (Wu and Pagell,2011). They both work for the achievement of business goal.

Manager and leader of concerned business react differently in the situation on the basis of their working in the enterprise .Let understand this with one situation

4. Examples of different situations in your organization and examine how the roles of a leader and functions of a manager apply in those situations.

A manager in an organization do very crucial job, they have to plan, coordinate, produce and market. The success of the company depend upon the caliber of a manager's skills in utilizing the resource in effective manner. A leader play numerous role in organisation some of them are:-

Risk taking: Risk is the first step towards the big success(Singhal and Singhal,2012) and skills of a manager. Leaders of a Marks and Spencer have tendency to take risk and are always willing to perform new things without making a thought of upcoming future and the growth. They know that through walking on the unknown path success can be achieved. Manager of the respective firm take steps to minimize the risk as they does not want to become responsible for the loss happen due to inventing new thing.

Conflict resolving: In an organisation like Marks and Spencer there is a possibility that employees who are working are from different culture which can give rise to conflicts within the organisation. To avoid it managers can conduct meetings on a regular basis so that issues and problems can be resolved and mutual understanding can be maintained. Whereas leaders in this situation can lookout for the reason for the rise of an issue so that it can be discussed with superiors and better outcomes or solutions can be found out. It must be skills of  a manager to maintain peaceful culture and avoid conflicts in the organization.

5. Different management and leadership theories to your chosen organization to support growth and sustainable performance

Leader generally use one leadership style in their working but great leaders adopt two three management style for leading their people on the basis of situation (Ageron,Gunasekaran and Spalanzani,2012). There are various kind of leadership style present in the external environment which leader of Marks and Spencer can adopt according to their requirement and skills, here is a description of most commonly used styles which can be applied by respective company :-

Situational leadership: It is a leadership style which leader adopt on the basis of skills and knowledge acquired by staff members whom they want to guide and control for the fulfillment of task. Due to this style manager and leader of Marks and Spencer make changes in their operation because all these are as per different situation. In the case of increment, situational leadership can plays an important role in overcoming with this situation. When leader adopt style according to the employee than firm enable themselves in earning large amount of profit as the workers perform major activity that are undertaken for getting maximum benefits.

Advantages:

• Simplicity of this approach makes it easy to apply in the respective
• By this a manager of Marks and Spencercreates relationship between manager and leader which is very necessary for the development of the organization.

Disadvantages:

• It focuses on the immediate need of the organization due to which long term goals of association get ignored.

System leadership: It is situation in which people at all levels of organization able to work with full potential. Under this leader communicate situation of business to employee and guide them to work according to it for the fulfillment of firm goals. If Marks and Spencer want to make changes in the operation of business related product than the employees have to find way through which they are able to make low cost qualitative product. Due to this, business does not have to incur big cost to make changes in their working.

Advantages:

• This approach focuses on individual as well as overall goals of the firm.

Disadvantages:

This system does not get change according to prevailing opportunity due to this benefits are missed which required modification in the whole system (Closs,Speier and Meacham,2011).

Contingency leadership: It is a leadership style under which leader make changes in his style and strategies according to sudden condition and challenges present in the external environment. Leader of marks and Spencer makes changes in their strategies according to prevailing situation in the market.  This theory say that there is no one way to lead people of organization, one theory is best for some business is not appropriate for another. Due to this no opportunity get missed and business able to survive for longer period in the outside world.

Advantages:

• Due to contingency style leader is able to adopt the new things in their working at the same time when it get occurred. This method helps business to earn competitive advantage over its rival firm.

Disadvantages:

Sometimes, changes are made in business to cope with the uncertain situation which can create loss to the business because it was adopted without making any analysis of the future outcome (DeHoratius and Rabinovich,2011).

Marks and Spencer should organize time to time training programs for their employees so that they are able to know the correct way of performing the task. They should fix the equipment which bring economies of scale means provide the product as a reasonable rate so that their customer base get increased.

Therefore, all the above mentioned theories are helpful in running business in an effective manner. For example: company will be able to perform their activities according to different situation. For instance: in order to increase sales and profit firm can use situational leadership and manufacture products according to the needs and wants of customers. Whereas for their special customers organization can use contingency leadership style for giving effective services. Whatever theories are used if they are used according to the situation than it will ultimately provide benefit to the company.

6. Strengths and weaknesses of different theories and approaches

Situational Leadership:

Strengths: The biggest strengths of this theory is that it is easy to understand and leaders can easily adopt this style according to the follower’s need so that work can be done in an effective manner.

Weaknesses: Although situational leadership provides benefits to organization according to the situation but it has some limitations as well like it put lot of pressure on employees in order to finish the task. Along with this, to workers it provides limited flexibility because of which employees cannot use their creative minds while performing any kind of task.

System Leadership:

The system leadership style create the condition in an organization where employees of all level work productively to their potential, it use human behavior to create good leadership, organization strategy, system design and social process.  

Strengths: One of the strength of system leadership is that it allows company in performing their activities in a systematic manner which enable firm in delivering best quality product in a speculated time frame. Other than this, it is adaptive and dynamic in nature.

Weaknesses: System leadership does not always work according to the contingencies or a particular style which is its biggest weaknesses.

Contingency Leadership:

This leadership style highlights the effectiveness of a leader to match right leadership style in right situation. It outline two style of leadership:-task motivation and relationship motivation.

Strengths: As contingency leadership in an empirical research in nature it provides leaders with predictive powers.

Weaknesses: This approach is generally reactive in nature and doesn’t provide any kind of clue regarding what steps must be taken by managers in relation to a given situation.

7. Conclusion

With the above mentioned points it has been concluded that manager and leader are two different person of the firm who move in same direction for the accomplishment of goals. Thus, both are important for an organisation. Along with this in order to know the significance of both leaders and managers different theories and the management style which are used in business to take it on the highest position. Mentioned theories explain about the characters and responsibilities of a manager and leader which help the organisation to achieve new stage in the market by maintaining the culture of organization, motivating and satisfying the employees.

TASK 2

1. Operation management and its key approaches adopted by an organisation

Operation management and its approaches support organisation for effectively and efficiently resources so that their goals can be achieved by satisfying customer (Muller,2014). By the support of below approaches operation management can enhance the concerned organisation productivity and with the less resources.

Six sigma: Six sigma is a statistical approach used for eliminating defects and reduce variability. It is a methodology which was developed by Motorola in 1986 for improving quality of product or services by removing the defects in the production process. It is a method which is adopted in business in order to eliminate wastage and improve productivity of the organization. Six Sigma is an approach in which 99%of products which are manufactured are free from defects. Various types of cost get reduced by sis sigma such as transportation, over-processing, wastage in inventory and many more things.

Total quality management: It was adopted in the organization so that business achieve  all those factors in the product and service which are important to client (Storbacka, 2011).This approach aim is to make improvement in the quality of goods and services offered by the firm so that customer needs and wants can be satisfied. Under this all person of organization get involved in making process, product and service so that best product is offered to the client.

Just in time: JIT is manufacturing refers to producing the items in required quantity only when its need arises. It is process which says that raw material is ordered form the supplier when there is a demand of the product from the customer (Crevier,Cordeau and Savard,2012). This method increments the efficiency and remove the wastage of production in the organization. Basically, it is processing system in which commodity transfer from the system according to the need.

2. Roles and responsibilities of managers and leaders in successful management of the operation of your organization

When manager of Marks and Spencer apply six sigma in business than they plan such strategies which help can them in accomplishing goals with effective utilization of the resources. Manager of the concerned business ensure that six sigma project is perform properly within organization so that it will help business in achieving its objectives. Main duty the leaders of Marks and Spencer is to implement strategies and effort in such a way that it will help in the development and success of enterprise.

Under TQM manager of Marks and Spencer plan and apply such strategies which bring continuous improvement in production. Role of respective business leader is to encourage staff to work in a team so that employees get a chance to enhance their skill and able to perform their work effectively for the improvement in quality of product of undertaking.

Manager guides to the operation and manufacturing department in such a way that inventory is controlled so that product quantity remains in control on a regular basis. Respective business leader evaluate time taken by their employee in the production so that they can inform manufacturing department about schedule in which they have to make the product. By the help of this unwanted storage of inventory is not done in the warehouse.

3. Examine the importance and value of operations management in attaining business goal.

Management converts raw material, energy, time and labour into qualitative product and services is regarded as operation (Bujak,Carvalho and Sriramulu,2012). It is an important part of organisation which deals with designing, controlling, organising and administrating the production process of operation management. Operation management supports all other department of firm such as finance, marketing and production etc. Major importance of operation management is described below:

Reduce cost: Operation management reduce cost of company as it deletes the unnecessary activities taken place in the Marks and Spencer or doesn’t add value to the product. When cost is saved by the help of operation management than it can be utilise in other important things of an organisation so that firm objectives can be achieved.

Managing inventory: Operation management supports in managing the inventory of business as it tell economic order quantity and reduce ordering and storing inventory of cloth production (Davidson and Olsen,2013). With the help of this operation department of Marks and Spencer able to know safety stock, reorder level and idle time for the management of the inventory.

Optimum utilisation of resources: Operation management of Marks and Spencer is helpful in effective usage of resources through different mathematical and statistical technique such as linear programming. Due to this the concerned firm able to earn large amount of profit as raw material is effectively converted into service and good which decrease the overall production cost.

Attaining aims and objectives: Marks and Spencer operation department activity is important in the achievement of business aims and objectives as it save time and cost which are utilised in unnecessary things.

Quality: Operation division of business help in total management of quality in the production and operation process (Ashby,Leatand Hudson-Smith,2012). Due to this management there is reduction in the defects of goods which directly increase quality of cloth and food products of Marks and Spencer. When concerned business able to produce qualitative products than large number of customers get attracted to the firm which increase profitability, total income and financial performance of the association.

4. Evaluate how managers and leaders could be effective in improving operational efficiencies to successfully meet business objectives.

Both leaders and managers play their crucial role in providing benefits to an organisation. They manage things, allocate roles and responsibilities according to the skills and knowledge they acquire etc., some of the factors are mentioned below through which operational efficiency can be improved in order to meet business objectives and these are given below:

Governing Mechanism: Company sustain in the market on the basis of goods and services they are providing to its customers. Thus, if leaders and managers handle activities such as training and performance in a better manner than company can be able to deliver best quality products and it will ultimately assist company in achieving its goals and objectives in a speculated time frame.

Inventory Control: It is considered as one of the most difficult system in a company because managers and superiors have to keep a record of funds used in different kinds of activities. Therefore, this is required to be managed managers must undertake things like whether employees have appropriate resources or not.

5 Illustrate factors present in the business environment which impact upon the operational management and decision-making of Leaders and managers.

In external environment there are various thing such as technology, customer, government which are not in the control of the business, if they want to turn it into opportunity than they have to made modification in the policy and strategies. There are various factors which affect businesses are as follows:

Government rules and regulation: Rules and regulation of the country have a strong impact on the business (Choi, Chan and Yue,2017). For example: if government make any law regarding the wastage of raw material than manager and leader of Marks and Spencer have to make modification in their production method and material which will cost higher to business. Whatever rules legal bodies make business have to follow it whether it make positive or negative impact otherwise they have to face close down of their business. Government always make many rules for the protection and security of the person of society, Marks and Spencer should keep them update regarding this so that they don’t have to face consequences of it.

Supplier: They are most important part of the organisation because they are transferring the material which is needed by the management while manufacturing product and services. When suppliers provide raw material on high cost than business fully get affected by that. Manager and leader of concerned organisation have to make changes in their policies and strategies or make new version of them so that extra cost in the production does not get charged by the customer. They can do it reducing some of their unwanted expenses. Change in the decision can also be done in case when the supplier does not provide raw material on time due to any reason. In this case manager of Marks and Spencer have to find out some alternative route so that their production should be done in the similar way and the customer get the product timely.

Technology: In today’s time technology is changing at a very fast speed the person or business that does remain linked with it remain behind with their competitors. Manager and leader of Marks and Spencer should make adopt new technology in their working so that it supports them in fulfilment of their objectives. With the adoption of new technology authorities have to make many changes in their existing polices and plans so that it get synced with the new advance technology for the fulfilment of the desired position (Benzarti,Sahinand Dallery,2013).

Concerned business should organise games and various trips in the organisation time to time so that employee get stress free and able to work in their full capacity. Leader talks to employees within a proper schedule so that their problems can be solved.

6. Include critical evaluation of the application of operations management to manage the factors that impact on the wider business environment. 

Operation management’s main purpose is to manage all the activities that happens in an organization such as managing purchases, quality inventory etc., other than this, they also assist firm in evaluating things that are happening in market area such as getting detailed about new technologies which can provide benefits to the company. Other than this, operation management helps in making appropriate plans and strategies so that things can be accomplish in a speculated time frame. Operational management requires the coordination between the operational functions, marketing, financing, accounting,IT and human resource in the organization. This may coma up with the disadvantage because if all departments do not work together than it affect the success of the organization.

7. Conclude and suggest recommendations for future improvements to be taken by the organization.

From the above report it is concluded that operation management is important for managing different functions in an organisation which start from converting input into output.  Furthermore, it describes about Six-Sigma, TQM and JIT which is used for quality control and the development of a company. Moreover, it tells about the importance of operation management in remaining the business into existence. In last the external factors such as government and supplier impact on the manager and leader working is known. Further it can be suggested that Marks and Spencer can must go according to the market environment and implement activities accordingly so that all the demands and needs of customers are fulfilled. They also motivate,  satisfy and coordinate to their staff so that they work efficient and effective which leads to the success of an organization.

References

• Alderton, P. and Saieva, G., 2013. Port management and operations. Taylor & Francis.
• Omansky, A.H. and Kanner, J.L., Autodesk Inc, 2014. Systems and methods for construction field management and operations with building information modeling. U.S. Patent 8,732,125.
• Brandon, C.J. and Mullan, P.B., 2013. Teaching medical management and operations engineering for systems-based practice to radiology residents. Academic radiology. 20(3). pp.345-350.
• Gillen, D., Jacquillat, A. and Odoni, A.R., 2016. Airport demand management: The operations research and economics perspectives and potential synergies. Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice.94. pp.495-513.
• Wu, Z. and Pagell, M., 2011. Balancing priorities: Decision-making in sustainable supply chain management. Journal of operations management.29(6). pp.577-590.
• Singhal, K. and Singhal, J., 2012. Imperatives of the science of operations and supply-chain management. Journal of Operations Management. 30(3). pp.237-244.

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