Why Are Operational Plans Used by a Business - Assignment Example

The Author's Name] [The Professor's Name] [The Course Title] [Date] Overview of an Operational Plan 1) Why are Operational plans used by a business? Operational plans include strategies like selling, storage, production and placing the orders in any business. Operational plan is a main ingredient of strategic planning. Before 1998, British business strategy was to create business operations for reducing the product costs and to deliver it in a minimum time as possible in the global market.(Lederer & Sethi, 1991) Operating plan is a vital part of gaining competitive advantage and organizations are increasing their value by giving the importance to supply chain. Operational plans define the implementations of strategies and practices. Following factors are the key parts of an operational plan: · Human skills to implement the plan. · Financial strength is also required to fund the projects under cover. · Risk analysis involved in in the business, to deal with the future problems and issues. · Calculating project’s length and duration and its outcomes. Development and implementation of a operational plan is not an easy task. Although it is not costly in an economic sense, the process of operational planning takes a great deal of dedication. The paradigm shift necessary for the implementation of an effective operational planning process is generally difficult for a city or subcomponent to implement. An agency must abandon the commonly accepted practice of waiting until someone separates from the agency before filling a management or leadership position. Proactive strategies must be implemented to attract and retain viable leaders from the beginning and continue to cultivate and develop skills throughout their careers. This will allow the operational from one developed leader to another to occur without any perceptible loss of leadership to the agency. Fundamentally, operational planning is in large part a leadership development process. Each operational plan encounters its own set of problems. It is important to be aware and informed of problems that may arise. There is no single way to create a operational plan, but utilizing the feedback and analysis from others can assist in the success of your own. Listed are someidentified and rectified quickly. Responsibility for professional development does not only lie with the agency but with the individual as well.(Lederer & Sethi, 1991) They need to consider the following in order to contribute to the agency’s success: Take a leadership approach; • Read applicable literature; • Participate in a formal courses of study; • Network with others; Assure that accomplishments are well documented. Operational planning is a complicated process that requires the dedication of everyone involved. Its success can only be measured by the people that it affects. common problems that occur with operational planning that were identified while researching multiple plans: • Loss of potential leaders due to agency structure; • Lack of an objective selection process; • Command staff need to be accountable for the operational plan; • Lack of communication to potential leaders; • Lack of participation from all levels of management. By frequently updating, reviewing, and modifying the plan, problems can be 2) What is the process for planning, implementing and reviewing and operational plan? In the past 10 years or so, attention has also focused on investigating the success factors of many of the operational planning efforts. Success depends on a wide range of issues; these include: organizational issues (Lederer & Sethi, 1991), resource issues (Tukana & Weber, 1996), effectiveness of the planning methods used and the actual relevance of the plan, and more importantly, problems associated with implementing the plans themselves (Tukana & Weber, 1996). While executives have to set the direction for the business, it is equally important to listen to the views of the people in the field and at the shop floor level who are close to the business. They can provide valuable input such as fresh ideas, feedback on the performance of existing systems, as well as gaps in information systems. These inputs are invaluable in making better prioritisation decisions. Such user participation (Feurer et al., 2000) and consultation with employees can also create a sense of belonging and empowerment. However, listening alone is not good enough; there is also a need to communicate clearly to all levels how technology can significantly improve business performance. Lack of communication (Teo & Ang, 2001) can result in serious resistance from employees to the implementation of a strategic plan and the accompanying changes. Also listening and communication should not be restricted to internal employees. It should include all stakeholders of the organization—suppliers, customers, distributors, and so on. This means creating an organizational culture that proactively supports constructive engagement and information sharing between all levels of the organization and its external stakeholders. The plan should be high-level enough to allow changes in implementation details without rewriting the whole document. One sensible approach is limiting the number of pages the plan can contain and then using subdocuments to deal with implementation and other details—too much detail can often put people off. Another approach is to divide the strategic plan into two sections: one describing applications or solutions for business units or functions and the other providing information on infrastructure requirements, software upgrades, and so on (Slater, 2002). By doing so, representatives from other departments can focus on solutions and not the architecture, if they choose. 3) How can you ensure that the intended user group is aware of and participates in a plan's implementation? Two aspects of plan implementation included the external focus on clients and an internal focus on business operations, both is vital to quality processes (Reed and Lemak 1996). Internal business operations depend on employees who develop quality products and services and gather customer requirements. The plan should be high-level enough to allow changes in implementation details without rewriting the whole document. One sensible approach is limiting the number of pages the plan can contain and then using subdocuments to deal with implementation and other details—too much detail can often put people off. Another approach is to divide the strategic plan into two sections: one describing applications or solutions for business units or functions and the other providing information on infrastructure requirements, software upgrades, and so on (Slater, 2002). By doing so, representatives from other departments can focus on solutions and not the architecture, if they choose. Keeping operations and strategies apart can cause a firm’s underperformance. It is necessary to make a strategic operational plan and every participant of operations should be aware of each and step of plan to keep things uniform. Once authorized level of resources are determined by the managers, financial calculations become easier. Operating and capital budgets continue quickly and grow after sales and operating plans through powerful discussions. When integrated strategic planning and operations are completed by the firm which includes these steps: 1. making a strategy 2. Linking the goals 3. Targets 4. Developing the strategic steps 5. Recognizing the betterment process 6. Sales forecast with strategic planning 7. Estimating the sales costs From here start the manager’s action to implement the plan to its next level. 4) What is the process for reviewing an operational plan? What methods and or tools can you use to gauge an individuals or groups use or reaction to the implemented change? How would you do this relating to your completed plan from tutorial tasks? To review sale reports, managers should hold a meeting twice a month so that they keep an eye on issues like delivery, costs, absence of main positioned employees, new market opportunities and shot term financial crises. Daily review of an operational plan creates quick learning and solves issues in no time; if data is posted on daily basis then reviewing also needs daily attention. Mostly operations people belong to the same department or process. For example sales people will review sales market operations, recent customer guidelines and new sales techniques to introduce. Many things come under operational review like supply chain, maintenance of equipments, financial issues and banking links. Many small firms hold a monthly review depending upon the market level. Statistical analysis can be used by those firms which are working with large number of operational units to quantify correlations between investments in, for example, customer reliability and financial performance. Managers should strategically balance near-term operational apprehensions with long-term strategic precedence. A proper strategic plan helps mapping out operational plans and resources required to achieve its goals. When managers implement their operational plan strategically they frequently observe and learn from internal outcomes and external data on competitors and the business surroundings to watch if the strategy is subsequent. At last managers pick out the faulty part of plan which does not work and reassess the new one. Reviewing the activity-based costing reports with company’s current economics’ strategy shows market ups and downs and regional status which every firm should do when overview an operational plan. The Ceo will review the point where the plan goes down or succeeded and make strategies to plan profitable operations for business growth. If a product fails to market itself, it does not mean that company operations will stop to produce that item but they will redefine, reproduce and remake its production strategies. Works Cited Lederer, A. L. & Sethi, V. (1991). Critical dimensions of strategic information systems planning. Decision Sciences, 22 (1), 104–119. Tukana, S., & Weber, R. (1996). An empirical test of the strategic grid model of information systems planning. Decision Sciences, 27 (4), 735–765. Slater, D. (2002). Strategic planning: Don’ts (and Do’s). Retrieved August 16, 2006 from http://www.cio.com/archive/060102/donts.html Teo, T. S. H. & Ang, J. S. K. (2001). An examination of major IS problems. International Journal of Information Management, 21 (6), 457–470. Feurer, R., et al. (2000). Aligning strategies, processes, and IT: A case study. Information Systems Management, 17 (1), 23–34. Read More