Business Operations: Functions, Challenges, and Role in Strategic Planning

This document provides an overview of business operations, including the functions and processes involved. It discusses the challenges faced by businesses and offers strategies to overcome them. The role of business operations in strategic planning is also explored, along with an introduction to supply chain management.

BUSINESS OPERATIONS

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY ..................................................................................................................................3
LO 1.................................................................................................................................................3
Business function and process ....................................................................................................3
Challenges and how to overcome ...............................................................................................4
LO 2.................................................................................................................................................5
Role of business operation...........................................................................................................5
LO 3.................................................................................................................................................6
Supply chain management ..........................................................................................................6
CONCLUSION...............................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................1

INTRODUCTION
Business operation refers to the activities that business engage on daily basis to increase
the value of the company and earn profits. These activities can be optimised to generate revenues
that are sufficient. Corus is multinational British steel manufacturer and producer which was
being founded in 1999 by merger between Royal Dutch and British steel. Present report will
assess to various business functions, process involved in managing operation, challenges
involved and how to overcome the same. Role of business operation in strategic planning and
will apply various relevant models, techniques to supply chain management.
MAIN BODY
LO 1
Business function and process
There are various business functions and process involved in process of business operations and
various challenges as mentioned below
Business functions includes
Marketing and sales – This function is being related with making products and services of the
company to reach to end customers and include various promotional and distribution efforts on
the part of the company in order to attract large number of customer base and letting them know
about the benefits of company products and services and how they are being better a compared to
that of competitors
Human resource- This function of the company deals with managing people of the company to
support for effective achievement of organisational goal which includes recruitment, hiring and
selecting of talented and qualified employees to account to business growth and training the
same to help company meeting with various business dynamics(Cagle, Yılmaz. Doğru,2020)
Finance- this business function helps in ensuring all operation of the company are within the
allocated budget and company is sufficient with the funds to address to various future
contingencies and meeting with the needs and wants of the company in terms of financial
requirements(Painter,2019)

Business process at Corus refers to collection of liked tasks which helps in finding their
end in the delivery of a products and service to the customers or clients. It is being also defined
as a set of activities and tasks that once completed will help the company in achieving the goals
of the company. It is being related with
 Designing which includes a form to collect data and workflow need to be designed to
process the same. The company need to build and form and identity which will own each
tasks in the workflow
 The next step is related with the model where the process needs to be represented in
visual layout, giving and setting various deadlines to have clear idea of sequence of
various events(Mendling,2018)
 Executing the same by testing it live within the small group and then open it for all.
 Monitoring by keeping an eye on the processes as to run through the workflow, using the
right metrics to identify progress and lastly
 optimising the same with changes that needs to be done to ensure smooth functioning of
business operations.
Challenges and how to overcome
There are various challenges involved in the process of managing business operations
such as
Globalisation which accounts to process of interaction and integration among the companies,
people and government of different nations where the challenge for the company lies in
maintaining various trade barriers, advancement in technology and various other things where
the company faces global competition all across the world and accounts to the challenges of
various strategy generation that account with meeting and catering customers needs from various
regions (Rosli, Chang, Granados, 2017).
Sustainability which accounts to the challenge whether the business of Corus can maintaing
existing practices without putting resources of future at risk which outlines three pillars of
sustainability such as economic, environment and social where it is required by the company to
accounts implementing best practices with concern for all three pillars to ensure safety and
welfare of the company
Ethical conduct -this challenges also accounts to adopting practices that are being fair and on
lawful grounds that accounts to various restriction and non fulfilment of such may lead the

company with negative brand image which affects the business margins in terms of profits as a
result can lead to ban and discontinuation of business(Atepor, 2019)
Effective communication – This challenge is related with how company account to effective
communication which helps in conveying the message of what needs to be conveyed and
challenge lies with the source of communication to the end user which is cost effective and helps
in attracting large number of customers.
System design – the next challenge in managing operation accounts with the design of system
which focus around delivering quality products with no flaw and errors that supports the business
operations of the company.
These challenges can be overcome by the company when company has clear Vision
which can be supported by the clear mission statement which helps the company in reaching to a
position where its wishes to be where the company needs to have robust strategy that is being
guided to achieve the business goals and helps in deriving employees performance. It needs to
account to training and development of staff members which as a result leads to improvement
in certain areas and guides with productivity in operation. It can be overcome by having strong
leadership in the company which serves as the guiding force and can account to have team of
skilled and qualified employees that supports various challenges and improve service quality.
LO 2
Role of business operation
There are various role of operational management which supports with effective strategic
planning and helps in alignment which improves service quality where the role of operations in
Corus accounts to managing activities that are the part of production and manufacturing of goods
and service where the role is in wider context that accounts to process of operation, embracing
design which will attract customers, planning and controlling for effective production of goods.
The role and responsibilities of operations accounts to
Human resource management that states people employed by the company either work directly
to manufacture goods and services or account to supporting those who dose the same. The role
accounts to managing the people who serves as the key resources for the company.
Asset management- the role of operation accounts with the assets of the company such as
building, equipments, facilities which are being directly involved in and for the support of
functions of operations (Han,2018).

Cost management- this role of operation in the company accounts to monitoring most of the
cost which is being associated with production of goods and services and are related with the
cost of acquiring resources and delivering and transforming them to the customers, by analysing
various cost it helps the company to et competitive edge and support for strategic planning in the
company.
Product design the main role account with the design of the products which will sold to end
customers which includes generating new ideas and expanding into the same which leads to
effective flow of business operations.
Delivery management- the role accounts with how the products of the company will be
delivered which accounts to various distribution efforts and accounts to ensuring goods delivered
what customer or clients have ordered which helps in meeting with the needs of the customers
more fruitfully (Wolniak,2019).
LO 3
Supply chain management
It is being referred as the flow of goods and services and includes all process that helps in
transforming raw material into final goods and services. Various model of supply chain
management are
Continuous flow model – it states and offers stability in high demand scenarios that accounts to
vary very little. It accounts to manufacturers that produces same goods repeatedly with very little
fluctuation can benefit from this model and which is ideal for commodity manufacturing and is
one of the traditional model of supply chain (Rajagopal, Venkatesan, Goh, 2017).
Fast chain model- which is ideal for manufacturers that produce goods that are in trend with
short term life cycle. It work effective with the business that changes its products frequently and
that accounts to get out fast before the trend for the same expires.
Efficient chain models- this model states and is suitable for business that are run in highly
competitive market which account to the goal of end to end efficiency.
Custom configured model – this model focuses on on custom configuration especially during
production and assembly. It is a hybrid sort which is the combination of agile model and model f
continuous flow.

Agile model- This is the model and primary method of supply chain management that is ideal for
the Business of Corus and highly justified as it deals in speciality order items where Corus
speciality is manufacturing steels (Geissdoerfer,2018).
Flexible model- is the model which gives freedom to employees to meet various high demands
and manages long periods of low volumes movement which is being suitable for company as
business operation can account to switch off and on easily.
CONCLUSION
From the above report it is being understood that there are various business function and
process involved in managing operations of the company. It led to the understanding of various
challenges in business operation and means to account to overcoming the same and accounted
with role of business operation in strategic planning and lastly made to the understanding of what
is supply chain management and its various models.

REFERENCES
Books and journals
Atepor, L., 2019. Business education in the e-world: Issues, trends, challenges and strategies in
Africa. Nigerian Journal of Business Education (NIGJBED).6(2). pp.1-13.
Cagle, M.N., Yılmaz, K. and Doğru, H., 2020. Digitalization of Business Functions under
Industry 4.0. In Digital Business Strategies in Blockchain Ecosystems (pp. 105-132).
Springer, Cham.
Geissdoerfer, M., and et.al., 2018. Business models and supply chains for the circular
economy. Journal of Cleaner Production.190. pp.712-721.
Han, D., and et.al., 2018. The role of operation in the treatment of Boerhaave’s
syndrome. BioMed research international 2018.
Mendling, J., and et.al., 2018. Blockchains for business process management-challenges and
opportunities. ACM Transactions on Management Information Systems (TMIS). 9(1).
pp.1-16.
Painter, M.,and et.al., 2019. Sharing vocabularies: Towards horizontal alignment of values-
driven business functions. Journal of Business Ethics.155(4). pp.965-979.
Rajagopal, V., Venkatesan, S.P. and Goh, M., 2017. Decision-making models for supply chain
risk mitigation: A review. Computers & Industrial Engineering. 113.pp.646-682.
Rosli, A., Chang, J. and Granados, M.L., 2017. Collaborate to innovate: challenges and
strategies for rural business to innovate. Rural Tourism and Enterprise: Management,
Marketing and Sustainability0. 191.
Wolniak, R., 2019. Operation manager and its role in the enterprise. Production Engineering
Archives.24(24). pp.1-4.
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