Operations Management in Action - Zorro Organization - Essay Example

Operations management in action The main aim of every business is to create and deliver valuable goods or services to its customers. Sometimes, issues arise in their quest to satisfy their customers fully. Some are easily solved while some take time to solve. Zorro Organization provides services like management consultations, coaching skills, technology implementation and strategy development. According to Greg (2008), every organization has pillars that direct it to their success. However, there are operational management issues that affect any business prosperity among them; wastage, delay, quality, control and management issues and work cultural issues. These are the same operational issues affecting Zorro Organization. Operations management has the sole role responsibility of ensuring that an organization’s business operations are both efficient and effective. Efficiency is directed on reduction of wastage, delays and improvement of services and goods offered to a client such that they are of high quality. This requires designing a system that will ensure smooth running of operations. As Lee (2009) clearly puts it, the very first stage is to design an operations system. Here, Zorro Organization determines the kind of service they are going to offer as per the client’s instructions. The service to be offered in such a way that it will not overuse the organization’s resources, but it should also be operational and satisfy the customers’ needs. The next thing is planning how the resources available will be used to ensure that the service offered is up to the customer’s standards. To offer some services, more resources in terms of staff and time are required. The management plans this during this stage so that the customer gets all the required services on time. The very last stage is working with the various staff or teamwork to offer the service. This information was obtained from the human resource manager of Zorro Organization. Challenges and issues Having looked at how the operations management system of Zorro Organization works, let us now look at some of the problems, issues and challenges it encounters. One of the major problems is globalization; there are so many regions in the world and in each region, there is a difference in operations management. Each region has its own unique strategy in operations management. This leaves the organization with the question whether their facilities in different parts of the world should use their own operation management systems or uniformity should be inherited from the mother company. For instance, in some cultures, a gift is seen as a bribe no matter how small. The human resource manager likened this problem to the McDonalds Company who despite the uniformity of operations management, discretion is allowed in branches in places like Japan where they include Teriyaki Burgers in their menu. In globalization still, there is the issue of managing across national and international boundaries. Operations managers in different parts of the world face problems that may be unique to the region only. These are inclusive of culture and even a simple thing like language. This means that the organization has to develop a system that will not override the whole operations management network, which is a difficult task. It also makes almost impossible to compare profits obtained from different regions. When it comes to transferring operation systems from one region to another, some practices cannot work everywhere. During the interview, the human resource manager further stressed this point by giving me the example of how the cultures in France and Sweden could not allow them to adopt the just- in-time manufacturing system used in Japan (Greg 208). This problem of globalization is important to Zorro Organization due to the fact that the organization being a multinational, it is forced to consider many factors when making an operations management system. Wastage is another problem in the operations management; these include material, time, knowledge/skills and technology wastage. These are caused by operational issues like in technology; there is the lack of technology and misuse of technology. In knowledge wastage, poor knowledge of knowledge available, poor clarity of goals and loss of trust in management contribute to wastage. Time wastage includes poor planning and implementation of stages in operational management contribute to wastage. Material wastage is looked at in terms of loss of storage, overuse of materials and unavailability of materials when needed poses a problem in implementation of operations. The other problem is demand forecasting due to intermittent demand, assortment instability and pricing and promotional activity. A customer needs a product or service to be at the right place at the right time. Unfortunately, Zorro Organization offers a vast number of services and it is not practical to try to forecast the demand for each service. As discussed above, some services require more staff members while some require just a few. Again, it would be very expensive to employ demand analysts for each forecast. Solutions The solution to the problem of demand forecasting is in Information Technology. There are softwares that do large scale automated forecasting saving the organization time and money. Using revenue optimization systems is another way of curbing this problem. This will help in pricing and promotional activity. This system has successfully been used by several companies to maximize revenue, minimize inventory and in the end financial success (Lee 209). In the problem of wastage, a deep analysis of each cause of wastage is required. After the culprit has been identified, they are specified with their source the department, which is, concerned (Kaufman 201). Owing to the fact that the problem will affect all departments, it is very important to communicate the collected and analyzed data to each employee; this will help in implementation of changes to the operation system. To make employees feel included in the whole system, invite suggestions from them and try to include the suggestions during the changes. Zorro Organization has come up with a model to combat these problems where the first step is to identify several types of operation management systems from different countries. This will help in the process of making the operations management system uniform in almost all regions. In some regions, they have offered a way with which the local managers can slightly change the operations management. The next step is to identify areas where potential problems may occur and try to eliminate them. This step also includes developing solutions to these problems. These problems alongside their solutions are documented in a manual provided to each head of department and local managers so that it is easier to refer incase a problem is identified. The last step is to implement the required change. According to the resource manager, they have implemented this program in one region and so far, they have seen success, and as a consequently intend to do the same in the other regions. Finally, we all know that the world keeps changing as the days go by. Therefore, transformations in the operations of any business are vital in order to keep up with change. Organizations have to invent ways to deal with today’s problems because methods used to solve yesterday’s problems might not help us solve today’s problems. Continual monitoring is also very important in providing feedback about an organization’s performance and the problems. Deploying the right tools in operations management will ensure success; any manager should be in a position to identify the best operation management policy for different regions. Works Cited Chapman, Greg. The Five Pillars of Guaranteed Business Success: Why Most Businesses Will Stay Small and What You Can Do About Yours. New York: O’Reilly & Associates, 2008.Print. ISBN9780646481029 . John, KaufmanThe Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business. New York: Portfolio Penguin, 2010. Print ISBN- 9781591843528. Lee, J, KrajewskiOperations Management (9th Ed). New York: Cengage Learning, 2009.Print ISBN 9780136065760. Read More