Unit 4 - Management and Operations Assignment sample

Introduction Of Management and Operations

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Management and operations are crux of the management of business procedures to ensure a company’s maximum degree of efficiency (Dekker et al., 2021). These function to make materials and labor as efficient as feasible into commodities and services. This report meticulously discusses the details about the company of Tesco, its “leadership” and “management” techniques, the description and duties of “managers” and “leaders”, the gaps between management and leadership have also been crucially examined. Along with these, an analysis of various management and leadership roles based on ideas and concepts in diverse organizational contexts and an assessment of the strengths and limitations of different leadership and management techniques has been done to achieve the overall understanding of the subject matter.

1. Overview of the company

Tesco is the biggest retailer in the United Kingdom and the world’s third-largest supermarket store, it is a “British” multinational trader of groceries and other goods. Its headquartered in the United Kingdom. Tesco’s organizational structure is “hierarchical” (Hashim et al., 2021). Positions and responsibilities are subdivided into several components in this structure to guarantee that work is completed effectively and seamlessly. Those at the head of the pyramid of business have the maximum accountability and authority.

As seen in Figure 1, Tesco’s organizational structure is comprised of 5 committees reporting to the “Tesco PLC Board of Directors”. “Tesco’s Executive Committee” consists of 11 members, chaired by Group Chief Executive Dave Lewis. “Tesco’s organizational chart” is very hierarchical, indicating the breadth of its operations.

The diagram in Figure 2 illustrates an organizational structure chart at the store level. It is sometimes said that having four levels of management inside a store can result in vexing bureaucracy, which has a detrimental influence on manager coordination and teamwork. Thus, it is advised that management layers be reduced as quickly as possible to allow for greater flexibility and a more rapid flow of information (Taqatqa, 2021).

2. a) Definition and functions of managers and leaders

Connotation

Leader: A leader is an individual who leads, guides, and directly impacts his followers’ conduct towards certain aims (Waldman, Siegel and Stahl, 2020).

Manager: A manager is emblematic of the organization responsible for managing a group of workers and takes the appropriate measures if necessary.

After interviewing the manager and leader of Tesco, it could be identified that they perform different roles in the context of the same arena: these are as follows-

• Work

Leader:

Provides guidance and communications for workers and encourage them to reach them easily (Shore and Chung, 2021).

Manager:

Formulates the organization structure and distributes powers and tasks to workers.

• Management function

Leader:

Provides direction to the employees by creating the vision, communicating, and encourages them to reach it effortlessly (Pellegrini et al., 2020).

Manager:

Formulates the structure of the organization and delegates authority and responsibilities to the employees.

• Authority

Leader:

 Plays the informal role of authority by virtue of the personal qualities

Manager:

Plays the formal role of authority due to the given positional role. (Giri, 2019).

2. b) Contrasts between leadership and management

While interviewing the leader and manager of Tesco Plc, the differences between management and leadership were also acknowledged, and these are as follows-

3. Analysis of distinct management and leadership positions

1. After interviewing a manager of Tesco, it could be known that-
2. Planning - The management of Tesco prepares the timetable and shows how the task should be carried out with all the essential information (Halkias and Neubert, 2020). When A new project is being planned the manager of Tesco has a contingency plan ready.
3. Organization – While software tests the management of Tesco sync and ensures that the strategy is complied with.
4. Staffing - Assembly of a new project team requires staffing that implies dividing individuals into various teams and assigning them different responsibilities.
5. Coordination – The manager of Tesco makes the project timetable to execute the work smoothly (Reynolds and McKimm, 2021).
6. Budgeting − The manager of Tesco checks that the amount invested in a project does not exceed the budget.
7. Controlling − The manager of Tesco controls everything, from the plan to the distribution of resources.
8. After interviewing the leader of Tesco, it could be known that-
9. Objectives:

 During project initiation, he fulfills the creative role of defining goals and policies to encourage subordinates to work with enthusiasm and trust (Zaccaro et al., 2018).

2. Organization:

The second duty of a leader is to build and shape the organization, while working allocation, to make the various components responsive to achieving company goals by allocating responsibilities that are suitable to each capability (Pellegrini et al., 2020).

3. Action to initiate:

In all topics of importance to the group, while execution, he must take the initiative. He must float fresh ideas and his choices were to mirror innovative thinking.

4. Co-ordering:

During an ongoing project, he reconciles the objectives of each group member with the objectives of the organization. It ensures the group’s voluntary cooperation in achieving the common goals (Sudarmo, 2020).

4. Assessment of the advantages and shortcomings of various management and leadership techniques

To get things done the leaders and managers use various approaches-

1. Authoritative Style:

 As Daniel Goleman addressed authoritative leadership is typically seen as one of the most positive and harmonious (Jaafar, Zambi and Fathil, 2021). Authoritative leaders offer clarity: they are successful in inspiring, motivating, and influencing their teams. This motivation is often driven by its capacity to comprehend and convey the strategic goals of a firm in a way that employees can easily achieve. If everyone understands what the organization’s goal is, it’s easier to make sure everyone is focused.

Pros:

• Authoritative leaders give direction and vision
• Authoritative leaders generate goodwill

Cons:

• Overbearing may appear, authoritative leaders (Adha et al., 2020),
• Authoritative leaders must acknowledge their mistakes

2. Democratic Style

This strategy typically calls for employees to participate. Although the boss makes the final choice, the employees are confident in decision-making because they believe their management of the prizes of destiny and other issues are resolved (Putra and Muzakir, 2020). This sort of leading ship is typically employed where teamwork is more important than mere speed.

Pros:

• This applies to nearly every company
• Its capacity to solve complicated challenges is huge
• It promotes a creative atmosphere
• It promotes a strong team membership connection

Cons:

• Decision processing is time-consuming.
• Leaders using a democratic leadership style often tend to mislead or become inconsistent, especially in crucial situations where quick actions are necessary.

3. Laissez-faire Approach

This type of strategy frequently prevails where employees are well qualified and self-motivated.

Pros:

• It fosters innovation
• It promotes personal development (Ahmed Iqbal et al., 2021)
• It enhances experience
• It enhances job satisfaction

Cons:

• It might foster a weaker position
• It can lower productivity
• It lowers accountability

Conclusions and recommendations

The study presented above explores the specifics of Tesco’s leadership and management practices, the definition, and tasks of managers and leaders are scrutinized along with the investigation of the disparities between management and leadership. An examination of many management and leadership positions based on concepts and ideas in various organizational contexts and an evaluation of the strengths and limits of various leadership and management approaches were also conducted to gain a comprehensive knowledge of the subject. The leadership and management roles of Tesco Plc have changed enormously and have influenced their operations, contributing to the competitive advantage in the UK. Changes were noticed at each supermarket’s operating level. These modifications include recruiting additional people on the floor of the shop, limiting the product portfolio to prevent duplication, and cutting product pricing. These modifications in the firm’s leadership have transformed the many operational procedures inside the company.

Recommendations

Tesco may think of deepening and strengthening employee penetration and operation. This will further improve Tesco’s relationship with its consumers; they will spend more time at Tesco shops, and spending more money on Tesco items. Tesco may also choose to utilize the penetration approach to enhance productivity (Setiawan et al., 2021).

Part 2

1. An Introduction to the Chief Operations of Tesco

Business transactions refer to acts undertaken everyday by businesses to improve the company's worth and make profits. The operations can be adjusted to make enough profit. The primary business operations of Tesco Plc can be categorized in the following ways:

• Identification and allocation of roles and duties:Business operations managers distribute and allocate tasks and responsibilities to other team members.
• Management of internal communication: While these roles and responsibilities may be specialised and one-of-a-kind, business operations also includes ensuring that specialisation inside a company does not jeopardise the company’s ability to function as a whole (Korauš et al., 2019).
• Management of resources: Business operations are concerned with the wise administration of a company’s resources, which vary from the capital to physical commodities, in addition to dispersing roles and responsibilities inside a firm (Medel et al., 2020). To be effective and efficient, a company needs to have the right amount and type of equipment and technology.
• Creation of a strategy road map: The frameworks around which a firm creates and conducts all of the duties thought necessary for success are known as business operations (Korauš et al., 2019). Only a tiny minority of companies feel they can operate effectively without a defined plan. The category of corporate operations includes developing a road map for this plan.
• Checking for conformity: Business operations also keep track of workers’ adherence to the company’s fundamental principles and standards. It might be difficult to keep track of compliance with specific criteria, such as a cost-reimbursement policy or the preservation of key cultural values, while a company is in the thick of operations and there are a lot of moving components.

2. Details of each key operational function, the identification of management roles and responsibilities in key functions.

Operations managers are responsible for a company’s daily operations, including the development of recruitment rules, training standards and seller contract negotiation. Other typical responsibilities include evaluating organisational performance data, developing efficiency strategies and discovering ways of simplifying business procedures (Akhtar et al., 2018).

In addition, individuals selecting this career path may have to interview, embark on and educate new and current staff. Although the precise activities and responsibilities of an operations manager vary depending on the size of the organisation, the major duty of the operations manager is to lead the day-to-day operations.

Operational managers are responsible for the scheduling of personnel, the development of workplace standards, job assignments and the implementation of projects in good time and on a budget. They negotiate and approve business contracts, review staff performance and find methods to decrease costs and increase efficiency (Olsen and Tomlin, 2020).

Other tasks include managing production and inventories, overseeing project completion schedules, helping the executive or CEO to achieve their vision, guaranteeing the efficient working of the organisation, complying with local, state and federal rules and examining the workload of the workforce (White et al., 2020).

3. Explanation of the value of the core strategic approaches to operations management.

The key operational approaches to operations management include reconfigurable manufacturing systems, six sigma, lean manufacturing and business process redesign (BPR) (Hernandez, Mortimer and Panetto, 2020). The significance of each of these approaches will be discussed below:

Reconfigurable manufacturing systems (RMS) are manufacturing processes that integrate rapid changes in their structure, hardware, and software components (Bortolini, Galizia and Mora, 2018). This enables systems to swiftly adapt to changes in their ability to continue production and the efficiency with which they operate in response to market or internal system changes.

Six sigma is indeed a quality-oriented methodology. It was primarily developed between 1985 and 1987 by Motorola. The term "six" relates to the control limit which, aside from the average of the normal distribution, is six standard deviations. Jack Welch, General Electric, launched a push in 1995 to adopt the six sigma process, which enhanced the popularity of the approach. 3 Each six sigma project in a company follows a certain procedure and has particular financial objectives such as profits or reduced expenditure (Antony, Snee and Hoerl, 2017). A multitude of tools are used in the six sigma process, including trend charts, likely error estimates and other ratios.

Lean production is a systematic approach to waste disposal throughout the process of production. The lean concept offsets overburdening or uneven allocation of work waste. This strategy considers resource utilisation to be wasteful for any purposes other than to provide value for customers and attempts to remove these costs to the maximum degree possible (Adusei, Dunyah and Seidu, 2017).

BPR was established in 1993 and is a business management approach focused on the evaluation and redesign of the working flow and processes of a firm (Fasna and Gunatilake, 2019). The aim of BPR is to help companies restructure their organisations considerably by establishing systems and processes of business from the initial concept.

4. An investigation of the effects of external environmental factors affecting decision-making by managers and leaders.

Leaders can influence and lead their followers, enhancing the effectiveness of an organisation in achieving its objectives. External factors such as the business’s environment, demographics, employee characteristics, resources, economic and political concerns, technology, and the culture of the organisation all have an impact on leadership styles of every organization, including Tesco (Feng et al., 2019).

• Technology: Technology has the potential to drastically transform the business environment overnight. To aid the organisation in adapting to technology, leaders must modify their management techniques (Fragouli, 2020). Leaders can use research and development to come up with new methods to streamline processes.
• Sociological factors: To produce goods and services for certain groups, leaders must understand the demographics and cultures of their organization’s clients, as well as market trends (Mitugn, 2021).
• Organizational Resources Available: Leaders rely on organisational resources such as employees, technology, finances, and physical assets to achieve their goals. The effective acquisition and utilisation of resources are critical to management success.
• Consequences for the Economy and Politics: To comprehend the economic and political dynamics impacting the market, leaders must educate themselves on their suppliers, consumers, and competitors. These factors have an impact on how leaders achieve their goals.

5. How operational efficiencies could be well enhanced to fulfill business goals with proper leadership and management approaches.

To improve the overall efficiency of the operations management of Tesco, the following steps can be implemented by the leaders:

1. Examining the values of the business: Every aspect of the firm, from operations to marketing, should represent the company’s values. It should serve as the guiding principle for all of a business’s actions (Honig and Rainey, 2020).
2. Examining rivals’ operational tactics: If a leader or manager is unsure which metrics to employ, he should examine his competitors’ measurements to see how they ensure efficiency.

• Investing in operations management software: This enables a leader/manager to monitor certain indicators and compare data in order to make informed decisions about the company’s productivity (Coulson-Thomas, 2020). Additionally, it is beneficial for spotting potential difficulties that must be addressed in order to keep operations operating properly. For instance, more production errors result in product development being delayed.

1. Considering the methodology of work before making investments in technology: Investing in machinery and equipment without first determining how it will be integrated into operations is a typical management mistake. Before investing in technology, a leader/manager may reduce waste and increase efficiency by specifying how certain activities should be performed (Pascoe, 2021).

6.Conclusions and Substantiated Recommendations for Future Organizational Improvements

It is apparent from the discussion presented above that the leadership and management units of Tesco have a huge role to play in terms of overseeing and executing the whole range of activities that fall under the umbrella term “business operations”. This implies that right from the hiring and training phases, to the administration of the various organizational processes of Tesco, everything requires active participation and involvement of its leaders and managers for ensuring that the entire range of operations is executed most efficiently. Although Tesco’s leadership and management units put in much effort to streamline its business operations, ample room remains for further improvement. Therefore, the following set of recommendations would greatly assist the leaders and managers of the company to further enhance its business operations: 

1. Making heavy investments in training purposes: For both employees and management to work successfully, regular training (including cross-trained) on systems and processes is necessary. Documentation of standard operating procedures and the development of a style of “coaching” are examples of the best practice training (Winter, 2019).
2. Keeping the focus on order fulfillment: The leaders should provide the organisation with the required tools for success with increasing order volumes and SKUs. Regular maintenance and evaluation of the whole system as well as mobile devices and slotting in the golden zone should strive to provide an atmosphere in which pickers can perform optimally (Suharjo, 2019).

• Elimination of performance obstacles: The process should be analysed to identify problems and identify areas for improvement. Pareto charts which help to detect extremes and determine where changes should be made should be employed.

1. Comparing with other people: Leaders should connect inside their industry to gain insights and learn from strategies that others have effectively adopted. They can contribute to the operations of their business by communicating with their vendors and suppliers.
2. Evaluation of the strength of the system: Leaders and managers should conduct a systematic assessment to determine the efficiency of the operational management system (Jiang, Zhao and Ni, 2017). They should know the products of the marketplace and evaluate whether an upgrade is necessary.

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