Importance of Operations Management and Factors - Marks and Spencer

TASK 1

P1 Define and compare the different roles and characteristics of a leader and a manager

Mark and Spencer one of the most largest retailer in the United Kingdom which was founded almost one hundred thirty four years ago. It has almost 979 stores across the country and approximately 615 stores among that sells food products only. The company is running by Archie Norman (Chairman) Steve Rowe (Chief Executive). There are two key people who plays an important role to run a business with prosperity. Managers and leaders are the two most essential bodies who set the objectives and show a path to accomplish the goals.

Leaders :

Leaders of an organization leads a company such as Mark and Spencer. They establishes a a clear vision and shares their vision to achieve its. In fact, they have the ability to take the risk in order to attain the objectives and goals to make M&S top company. The leaders can take step ahead to overcome the crisis and build a path creatively that is followed by their employees to attain the target (Baboli and et. al., 2014).

Managers :

The manager is an individual who takes charge of a group or team through which it achieves the goals that are given by the leaders of a company. In order to accomplish the task successfully managers develops the strategies, policies and plan that needed to work for the staff with an effective manner. The manager has subordinates who aid to reach out to the goal by the completing the task within time. It is manger's responsibility to assign the task in a team equally and according to the efficiencies of subordinates to attain the objectives. It is a prime responsibility to manage a team with guidance so that the employees can reach towards the goals. For an example, the manager of Mark and Spencer assign the task to the sales force to sell the products with predetermined target. The managers manages the sales force to increase the sales with maximum profit
(Burke, 2013).

There are some key differences between leaders and managers according to their roles and characteristics and that are given below -

Leaders	Managers
A leader innovates or invent the new ideas to kick-start their organization and has an ability top think forward. Leaders always keep their eyes on the horizon to develop new strategies and techniques for the company. As they are already has an immense knowledge of the current trends, advancements and skill sets and they also has the clear purpose and vision to attain the objectives. For an instance, the leaders of M&S has the ability to develop the innovate the products like the it has the food products to sale and then it comes with the clothing to increase the profit.	On the other hand, manager only follow the instructions of the leaders and they maintain the work for the process which is already established. They needs to watch the bottom line process to control the employees and workflow in Mark and Spencer to prevent chaos in working. Such as the production manager in Mark and Spencer needs to generate the apparels with a particular process and through managing the employees.
Leader of M&S pushes their employees to put their effort and give the best performance and they also know to set appropriate pace and coordination in rest of the group. For an illustration, the leaders of Mark and Spencer has various kind of products and for this they need to push their employees to put their effort to meet the desired objective.	Whereas the managers at M&S needs the job description to establish the control on their employees which helps them to bring out the best output. The managers requires to be aware about the capabilities of subordinates to perform effectively while working in Mark and Spencer (Casolino and et. al., 2012).
Leadership is refers to the dignity to lead the people through encouragement.	On the contrary, the managers follows a process to manage the activities of Mark and Spencer.

Leaders and managers both plays a crucial role for Mark and Spencer as leader sets an objectives and to meet that vision the manager needs to establish strategies and plans.

TASK 2

P2 Role of a leader and the function of a manager

Leaders are the most dominant personality who holds the superior power and position in an organisation. They have the ability to influence the people over time whereas are assigned the tasks to manage the work among employees with smooth workflow that can meet the goals. There are different roles of leader and functions of employees that are mentioned below -

Roles of leaders

Establish objective 

A leader have a fair outlook without any bias towards an individual. They has the capability to develop their own opinion and give the judgement on the basis of logical thinking.

Encouragement 

Leaders has self – confidence to attain the task and they motivate their subordinates to meet the aim. The leaders of Mark and Spencer has the capability handle the situations with a strong will power (Chen and et. al., 2011).

Create a vision

The leaders establishes a vision that needed to support by the M&S employees in order to reach out the objectives. For an example, the leaders of M&S sets vision to open 800 stores across the country and it needed to support by the employees in order to achieve this vision and that is why it accomplish the goals to be a successful business with the support of employees.

Functions of managers

According to Henri Fayol there are five basic functions of management which manages the activities of an organization that are given below -

Planning 

Planning is the basic function it shapes the appropriate actions to achieve the task. Planning refers to plan the activities what things are required to accomplish the task, when the activities will be performed and in what way the actions will be done.

Organizing 

An organization functions on the activities which are well defined to attain the goals. Mark and Spencer is able to achieve the goals because it has sufficient capital, raw material and staff that manages the work in smooth manner. It has a good structure of work to manage the work in appropriate modules is very important. Managers recognize the activities, distribute work in groups, assigns duties to people. They also manages the coordination in team to complete the task (Chen and et. al., 2010).

Staffing

Managers hires the manpower and manage the activities among them to complete the task by putting their efforts. The managers of recruits the employees according to the requirement of the Mark and Spencer and then provide them training and development which help them in to increase their performance while working in the company. Management also give the appraisal on the behalf of their performance and they can also promote the employee according to their performance measure.

Directing 

After the three functions of managers directing refers to influencing, guiding, supervising, motivating the employees within a team to achieve the goals and objectives of the company. As the name suggests the M&S has the managers who tells their team what they need to do and if they are facing some problem then they can motivate employees to accomplish the task.

Controlling 

Controlling refers to control the over all task with an efficient and effective manner. It ensures all the events should occur on the predetermine time and standards. For an instance, Mark and Spencer's product manager ensures that only after the designing process of clothing manufacturing can take place. Because all the activities which are needed to accomplish are inter - depended and that's why controlling is essential.

There are some specific steps of controlling such as establishment of standard performance, measurement of actual performance, compare both performance and finding the correct action to control the activities (Handschin and Petroianu, 2012).

These are the roles of leaders and functions of managers that are needed to run a business successfully because all the activities are followed by a defined manner to reach towards the goal of organization.

You may also like:
Critical Thinking and Evaluation Process

P3 Theories and models of approach, including situational leadership, System leadership and contingency.

There are different leadership theories and models which is applied by the leader within organisation in several situations. Some of the theories is mention below :-

Situational leadership theory – This is also known as situational leadership model which is developed by Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard, while they are working on management of leadership model. The same was firstly introduced as life cycle theory then after sometime renamed situational leadership model. Business environment is dynamic is nature and there are several situations which can arise. Thus, according to that leader of Mark & Spenser have to apply theories as per the situation. In simple words it can be said that model vary from situation to situation. It includes mainly four leadership approaches :

• Telling – This is directive and authoritative approach because in this leader take decisions and tell rest of the staff members what they have to do.
• Selling – In this also, leader is still the decision maker in the company, but they communicates and works to influence the staff members instead of simply directing them.
• Participating – Leaders do their work in team for making decisions in more better manner. Along with this they support and encourage them as well all such activities look democratic.
• Delegating – leader of Mark & Spenser give decision making responsibility of their employees also (Lindström and et. al., 2012).

Thus, situational leadership theory is applied by M&S in their day to day activity because there are several situations which rise in operations of the company. Strength of the respective theory is that it is flexible and can be applied to every kind of situation. Whereas, weakness is that sometimes modification applied in the business is not communicated to each and every employees which create disturbances (Lisi, 2010).

System leadership

It is one of the most prominent theory in management as per the current scenario. System leadership theory treat company as an system as well an system can be either closed or open. But most of the approaches treat enterprise as an open system. Apart from this open system interact with the environment in which business exist by the manner of inputs, output and throughputs.

Strength of the system theory is that it bring uniformity in the working of Mark & Spenser because leader follow particular system from starting to the end. Whereas on the other hand, weakness is that it bring rigidity in the business but business environment is flexible is modify on continuous basis. Thus, system approach is not appropriate for implementing in M&S .

Contingency theory

It states that there is no single best way of managing things in organisation, to lead a company or for taking decision. Because in this actions are taken by the leader in Mark & Spenser depend on external and internal factors. There are several situations in the business thus, contingent leader affectively implement their own style of leadership as per the requirement of situations. Respective theory is given by the Fred Edward Fiedler in his article of 1960. Fiedler’s Contingency theory propose that leaders fall into one of two different leadership styles i.e., task-oriented or people-oriented.

Contingency theory strength is that leader easily change their leadership style as per the requirement. Apart from this there is weakness also, that is there is no uniformity and consistency in the respective theory (Nakayama and Bucks, 2012).

TASK 3

P4 Explain the key approaches to operations management and the role that leaders and managers play

Operation management

In Mark and Spencer operation management department has some responsibilities that ensures the business should be operate efficiently through utilizing the available resources and meeting the customer satisfaction. It involves the managing the process by which raw material, labour and energy can be be converted in to valuable goods and services. An organization needs skilled people with creativity and technological knowledge to accomplish the tasks. As in M&S there are so many people are creative designer who are being utilized by the company to design the apparels. They are included in the operation management because until they will not design the clothes the manufacturing unit would not be able to manufacture the clothes.

Choose the best Coursework Help Canada with Experts.

There are some key approaches of of operation management that are mentioned below -

Six sigma 

Six Sigma is a technique to examine the quality of operational activity to attain this it needs to follow some process including such as measurement, improvement and validation activities. If Mark and Spencer adopts the six sigma then they can improve the efficiencies through identification and resolution of product or defective parts and minimize the variation with this process.

Lean Principle 

Lean principles relies on collaborative of team effort in order to improve performance through a systematic approach to remove the waste and reduce variations. It has principle through which maintain the effective process to minimize the waste and these principle includes value, the value stream, flow, pull, perfection (Neck and Manz, 2010).

Total quality management 

Total quality management comprises of the organization's wide efforts to install and make the systematic atmosphere in which M&S can improve its capabilities in order to deliver high quality products and services to the end user.

A manager plays an important role in Mark and Spencer that are given below -

• Manager plays an interpersonal roles as being the figurehead they performs specific duties. They also manages the work as being a leader in a team by assigning work to the subordinates.
• Manager monitors the works to determine the efficiency and effectiveness that is assigned to the employees

Leaders has some important role in M&S that are given below - 

• Leaders motivates the employees to accomplish the task with their efforts.
• They do not hesitate to take the risk because they have the ability to take the risk to run a business successfully.

P5 Importance and value of operations management in achieving business objectives

Operation management is the major module that impacts on development of a business as it is responsible to accomplish a task in an effective manner with concentration on the goals and objectives. Mark and Spencer has operation management which produces the quality products and services to meet the customer requirement. There are various importance of operation management that are given below -

• Attract the customer – To run a business successfully it essentials to attract the customer towards the products of Mark and Spencer. Operation management provides a best quality products that captures the attention of people (Pinkerton, 2011).
• Minimizing waste material : Operation management get the advantage of eliminating the waste and utilize the resources which are available with an effective time. Mark and Spencer reduced the maximum wastage to reduce the cost and maintain the quality of the product (White, 2016).

TASK 4

P6 Business environment that impact upon operational management and decision-making by Leaders and managers

There are some external factors which directly impacts on the business operations and and decisions of leaders and managers that are given below -

Customer 

Customer satisfaction is the primary goal of Mark and Spencer as it offers wide range of outfits and food products but it needs to analyse the demands and requirement of customers. Because they are paying for that product and they are the part of the profit that company dreams to achieve. So the managers and leaders should pay attention towards analysing the needs of the targetting customers because they are purchasing their product and keeps the company alive.

Supplier 

Suppliers are the providers of quality products and services material through which the finished goods produced. The management should deal with attention that the supplier will bot break the contract because it will also impact on the quality of products.

Competitors 

Mark and Spencer is influenced by its rivals to define the strategies and policies. Every company want to stay for a long run in the competitive environment because of this the leaders and management needs to change their policies for operation of organization to maintain the position in the marketplace.

Are you stuck with submitting your management assignment on time? Waste no time and take assistance from Management Assignment Writers UK at affordable prices.

Impact of External factors on decision making

• Political factors – These factors determines governmental rules and regulation that can affect decision making process in an organisation. For this, manager needs to implement effective as well as impactful strategies to mange impacts of these factors on business operations.
• Technological factors – In an organisation, technology play a most important role that assist in managing works properly. Thus, it can affect decision making approaches of firm in terms of taking decision of implementing advance technology in firm.
• Social factors – These are the impactful factors that affect decision making approaches of firm in regard production and delivering. Social factors can affect negatively while organisation faces sudden changes in customer's demand and new trends. Therefore, manager needs to make impactful strategy for taking instant decision for different situations.

Recommendations

• Mark and Spencer needs to take a close watch to the customer to meet their satisfaction level as in food and apparels.
• It needs to amend the policies and strategies according to the market environment that can hold the profit of the Mark and Spencer (Winget and Thomson, 2010).

CONCLUSION

From the above report it has been summarised that operational approaches of firm assist in managing each function in systematic manner. The report is based on management and operations that defines the differences between leaders and managers along with their roles and characteristics. It covers the roles of leaders and function of managers, models and theories of management like situational leadership, system leadership and contingency. Moreover, it also has key approaches of operation management, importance and value of operation management to achieve the business objective and factors of business environment that influences the decision of leaders and management. Main objective of this report is to determine functional approaches of manager and leader by taking effective decision for different situations.