Operations and Corporate Influences
Strategic decisions focus on "the kind of business we want to be, how diversified and what our growth/acquisition (of diverstment) plans and programmes are". There are implications for operations and production relationships within the business and between the business and its stakeholders. Operations strategy requires a long-term, hard-edged competitive outlook and great determination. Operations activities
- follow and support overall business strategy across the whole product/service life cycle.
- involve implementation of strategic programmes - new products, new plant, new methods
- success with such programmes gives a firm its competitive advantage
Marketing - Emperor's New Clothes
With an insubstantial product/service and delivery base, a brilliantly creative marketing strategy can fall flat. The classic example is the marketing promotion which fails because the product has not yet been delivered to distributors.
From a policy angle, the firm must analyse how well its operations are performing and whether they are meeting market needs. This means auditing the current operations, products and methods? What are strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) which point to operations and production programme/policy gaps?
- how healthy is our factory/product/service performances in terms of quality, cost, speed/responsiveness, dependability, flexibility?
- how many factories or service points are needed? Where and of what size? Should we out-source?
- what product and service development and investment programme do we need?
- how should we organise/set out departments and facilities in production/service areas?
- where are our machine/process technologies weak? What improved technologies should we be adopting?
- what programmes for communications, training and staff resourcing should we implement?
- how can we best balance available capacity with demand?
- what information systems are needed to support the planning, management and delivery of our goods and services?
A firm might manufacture and distribution totally itself, or concentrate on design and promotion only, out-sourcing/sub-contracting everything else. These are policy alternatives dependent on the structure of the operations function itself, product development and investment programmes, budgets, employees, staffing allocations and expertise development.
References
© maintained and developed by C Jarvis