Perspectives on Operation Management - Essay Example

This paper intends to advise the independent retail outlets situated in Hartwell in Essex on some potential operations strategies in response to the recent opening of Asda/Walmart on the edge of town. Operations strategies While planning operations strategy redesign in response to the recent opening of Asda, the retail outlets must consider the position of the Asda in the UK market and its strengths. Statistical data indicate that Asda is the second largest chain in the UK in terms of market share (BBC News, 2011).

The company’s UK grocery market share was 16.5% in 2010. Furthermore, it must be noted that Asda is the subsidiary of retail market giant Walmart, the largest retailer in the world. Low price offer is one of the major core competencies of the Walmart that assisted the corporation to grow up to the top of the world’s retail market. In addition, the company has good reputation across the UK market. Low inventory levels and short flow times are the major operations strategies of Walmart. This assists the corporation to maintain adequate levels of inventory all times and thereby keep more working capital with the firm.

Hence, the operations strategies developed by the retail outlets must be comprehensive enough to confront with the Asda’s powerful marketing policies. . Thirdly, each retail outlet has to clearly identify order winners and order qualifiers. More precisely, they have to recognise which elements are necessary to win an order and what makes an item attractive to customers. Finally, each retailer must evaluate its position in the Hartwell retail market. It is advisable for the retail outlets in Hartwell to adapt to the internet based operations strategies because Walmart is still at its early stages of researching internet opportunities.

Internet can be effectively employed to strengthen the existing core competencies and by integrating recently developed and traditional supply chain activities. Market analysis reports show that retail firms nowadays raise major portion of their revenues from online sales. The Web based operations strategies aid retailers to significantly reduce operational costs and increase their efficiency in order processing, product delivery, and customer service. However, the retailers must be more innovative while deploying web based operations strategies since customers may be pulled towards the companies that present product displays more attractively to site visitors.

It is also recommendable for the retail outlets to develop customised operations strategies as such a policy would better fit the needs and requirement of these retailers. Customised operations strategies may assist retailers to effectively meet the changing tastes and specifications of customers on time (Lowson, 2003). ‘Make to order and assemble to order’ would be the most recommendable production related operations strategies for the retail outlets. In the words of Dickersbach (2005, p. 27), under the make to order strategy, retailers can add customer specifications to a particular product after