Operations Strategy

Operations strategy is a business approach that helps managers to oversee every step of business operation to produce the intended results. Operations include all activities carried out the workplace in the efforts of converting inputs to outputs. Operational excellence is required to ensure that the firm achieves its strategy. Moreover, operations management should be measured to ensure that operations attain maturity. Managers, however, should be careful when employing various approaches to business to ensure that these approaches do not replace the organizational strategies. Purchasing and supply management, the use of technology in running business operations and strategy improvement approaches all help to build up the success of operations at all levels of an organization. The current portfolio seeks to show the progress of operations strategy from one stage to another as documented in the book operations strategy by slack. Each chapter builds on the previous one to bring the reader to a conclusive understanding of the operations strategy.
Chapter 1: Operational Excellence and Strategic Success
Operational management is an ideal practice that determines the success or the failure of any organization. Proper management of operations guarantees the success of the organizational strategy. By definition, operational management is the overall control of resources and the markets to ensure that the inputs produce the desired outputs (Tan & Mathew 2009, p 94). Operational management occurs at every stage of the organization; therefore, it should be managed at each level to reflect the strategic goal of the institution (Word 2009, p 77).

Strategic management of operations produces several benefits to the organization including reduced costs of operations, a platform for future innovations, reduced capital deployment, and increased revenues. Operations strategy helps organizations to reconcile the markets and the resources by ensuring that customers and competitors are handled with care to produce the intended results. Since strategies are propagated at the workplace either through a top-down approach or through a down-up process, it is paramount that operational management follows the same path to ensure the effectiveness of the process (Slack 2015, p 38). Operations strategy is what determines the competitive advantage of organizations.
Chapter 2: Operations Performance
Operations are supposed to achieve certain objectives and the ability of the practice towards this goal has considerable effects on the overall performance of an organization. The accomplishment of several objectives depends on the quality, dependability, flexibility, speed and the cost of the operations (Mitchell 2015, p 65). Every organization must strategically choose an area of strength within the industry. However, operations can fall out of focus following an introduction of a new product in the market or the shifting of the organizational strategy. In such cases, the operational manager must ensure that the company does not fall so far out of focus because the clear the operational objectives of a firm, the higher the chances of success in the market. Moreover, it is important for operational managers to understand that the performance importance changes over time and such changes require a change ion operational approach. The markets and the resources determine the operations suitable for an organization (Crabtree 2010, p 105). In addition, improvement in some objectives can interfere with the operational success of other objectives, but managers can exploit trade-offs between objectives to keep the organization ahead of its competitors.
Chapter 3: Substitutes for Strategy
Many new approaches to business operations have come up with the improvement of technology. However, it is important to know that as much as these new approaches are important to the success of the organization, they are not strategies themselves and should not be treated as strategies (Schwarz, Hall & Shibli 2010, p 57). Business operation approaches such as the total quality management, lean operations, and the six sigma, just to mention but a few are important aspects that help organizations to navigate easily towards the overall objectives of the firm (Rahabok 2014, p 81). However, if these are used to replace the strategy of the organization then failure and the loss of the firm’s competitive advantage in the market occurs. Managers should analyze these approaches before adopting them as part of the strategy to ensure that they are compatible with the existing organizational strategies (Gong 2013, p 68). Moreover, the managers should ensure that there are enough resources to incorporate the approaches to the organization and take care of the risks associated with the new approaches.
Chapter 4: Capacity Strategy
Each operation must have the right capacity strategy to ensure that resources are well utilized to provide and manage supply demands. The operational manager must ensure that the capacities of the organization at different levels of business operation are not too high to strain the performance of the company or too low to cause under-utilization of the firm’s resources (Jones & Robinson 2012, p 163). Several issues such as the market demands of the organizational resources and the cost of operation are different locations should be considered when determining the capacity strategy. For instance, an organization that has evenly distributed needs of consumers can choose to operate in several small locations as opposed to set up large facilities at few centers. Moreover, the strategic capacity of an organization should be differentiated enough to give the company a competitive edge in the market especially where similar organizations operate (Fitzsimmons & Fitzsimmons 2011, p 37). Capacity levels change from time to time depending on the changes in the market and the resources of the organization. For effectiveness, managers should consider issues such as lead and lag demand when changing the capacity levels of the firm.
Chapter 5: Purchasing and Supply Strategy
Each operation and strategy must collaborate with other functions of the firm to attain the ultimate goal of the organization. Every strategy is important in business management but the purchasing and supply strategy is the core of operational strategy because it enhances the every goal that the process intends to achieve through various approaches (Moser 2006, p 95). Purchasing and supply strategy ensures the effective interaction and management of suppliers, customers and all other stakeholders in the industry thus promoting the conversion of inputs to outputs. A manager must be careful while choosing the approach to use when deciding what to buy because some strategies might provide the immediate satisfaction but affect the overall performance if the firm in a negative way in the long run (Faulkner & Campbell 2006, p 78). For instance, over dependence on internal sourcing can hinder the progress of the organization and encourage redundancy. The manager must, therefore, the balance between internal and external sourcing to ensure profitability and the expansion of the firm at the same time.
Chapter 6: Process Technology Strategy
Technology plays an important role in operation strategy. Although many managers view technology as only an aspect that technicians should pursue, each operation process should seek to understand the contribution of technology to the day-to-day operations for improved operations (Prasad 2012, p 91). Analyzing different characteristics of technology goes a long way to ensuring that the right approach is employed in different aspects of operations. Technology makes it easy for operations managers to integrate different objectives for better results. The market and the resources of the organization also determine the kind of technology that an operation strategy should undertake. An approachable, manageable, and visible technology strategy should be employed at each stage of operational management to achieve the intended results (Baum 2013, p 66). The challenges of information technology should not be overlooked when employing the technology strategies to operations. A manager should have a clear plan of how to handle failures of systems if they occur.
Chapter 7: Improvement Strategy
Each strategy and process employed towards the achievement of a certain objective within an organization is aimed at improving operations. Operations strategy is the center of every organization and the improvement of the process translates to a general improvement of the firm’s performance (Imai 2012, p 101). Organizations that pride themselves in customer serves and better supply management chains invest so much in the improvement of operations and technological advancements. However, as much as improvement of strategies and operations is important, it is essential for the managers to manage the process of change to avoid the unnecessary drama that comes along with abrupt and speedy improvements (Slack & Lewis 2015, p 44). Steady and gradual improvement is less dramatic and long lasting because it does not strain the resources of the company nor affect the market in a negative way. Market needs and the availability of resources within the organization should determine how fast or slow the improvement of operations and strategies occur in an organization (Waters 2006, p 49)

Reference List
Baum, M 2013, Comparison and contrast of the operations strategy of two ‘manufacturing, Munich: Grin Verlag.
Crabtree, R 2010, Driving operational excellence: successful lean six sigma secrets to improve the bottom line, Livonia, MI: MetaOps.
Faulkner, D & Campbell, A 2006, The Oxford handbook of strategy: a strategy overview and competitive strategy, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Fitzsimmons, J & Fitzsimmons, M 2011, Service management: operations, strategy, information technology, New York: McGraw-Hill.
Gong, Y 2013, Global operations strategy: fundamentals and practice, Berlin New York: Springer.
Imai, M 2012, Gemba kaizen: a commonsense approach to a continuous improvement strategy, New York: McGraw-Hill.
Jones, P & Robinson, P 2012, Operations management, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Mitchell, J 2015, Operational excellence: journey to creating sustainable value, Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley.
Moser, R 2006, Strategic purchasing, and supply management: a strategy-based selection of suppliers, Wiesbaden: Dt. Univ.-Verl.
Prasad, N 2012, Downstream process technology: a new horizon in biotechnology, New Delhi: PHI Learning.
Rahabok, I 2014, VMware vRealize operations performance and capacity management: a hands-on guide to mastering performance and capacity management in a virtual data center, Birmingham: Packt Publishing.
Schwarz, E, Hall, S & Shibli, S 2010, Sport facility operations management: a global perspective, Oxford Burlington, MA: Elsevier Butterworth-Hein.
Slack, N & Lewis, M 2015, Operations strategy, Harlow, England New York: Pearson.
Slack, N 2015, Operations Strategy, 4th Edition, Pearson (Intl), Available from Bookshelf Online.
Tan, K & Matthews, R 2009, Operations strategy in action: a guide to the theory and practice of implementation, Cheltenham, UK Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar.
Waters, C 2006, Operations strategy, Australia: Thomson Learning.
Word, J 2009, Business network transformation: strategies to reconfigure your business relationships for competitive advantage, San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.