Introduction to Business Operations and Management

This report covers contemporary research on operational issues, a case study on ALDI, business ethics, and the importance of IT services in business operations. Business operations and management are crucial for achieving business objectives efficiently.

Introduction to
Business Operations
and Management

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................2
TASK-1............................................................................................................................................2
Contemporary research...........................................................................................................2
TASK-2............................................................................................................................................3
ALDI case study.....................................................................................................................3
TASK-3............................................................................................................................................4
Business ethics........................................................................................................................4
TASK-4............................................................................................................................................5
TASK-5............................................................................................................................................5
Summary of all the activities listed........................................................................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7
Books and Journals.................................................................................................................7
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INTRODUCTION
Business operations can be referred to as the process in which it involves different types
of activities which the business has to perform. Their are different and varied form of activities
which are required to be undertaken by the business so that they can achieve the business
objectives efficiently. Business management can be defined as the process in which their has to
be the proper management and coordination of business activities including the business
functions(Raut and et. al., 2019). Management is related with the planning, organising, directing
and controlling of activities so that all the work in an organisation can be completed in a
predefined manner. It is very important that the manager of a organisation is working according
in a positive manner so that all the activities in an organisation can provide productivity. Tesco is
a multinational groceries company which was founded in the year 1919 and is having its
headquarter in England, UK. This report will cover contemporary research on the operational
issues which has an affect on the lives of people, the business ethics and the summary of all the
activities which has been conducted in this report.
TASK-1
Contemporary research
Their are many issues which the operations manager has to face and if these problems exist in
the company for a longer period of time then in this case it can create the direct effect on the
profitability of a business. There are some of the operational management issues which has been
discussed below-
 Monitoring performance is one of the major factors which is being analysed by the
manager but for that it is important to make the analysis that how the staff of a company
is working. For example- In Tesco the group of employee there are some people who do
not work in an active way and the chances of this is that they might affect the rest of the
team morale and motivation(Li and et. al., 2020). This is the main issue which the
operational manager has to focus on so that the productivity of employees do not reduces.
The main solution in which the company can work is that they can set out the
performance indicator which will be helpful for measuring the performance of the
employees. It is important that the manager of Tesco knows that how they have to make
the measurement of their performance, they must make the monitoring of employees.
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 Cyber security risks is the main issue which is increasing in the business on a daily basis
which has created a lot of issues to be tackled and managed by the managers. All the
things are worked and recorded on a internet and the chances of hacking the system and
the data has been increased a lot. This is the main problem which is coming in the
business of Marks & Spencer in which the company can work on the cyber protection
aspect for the business. The main requirement is that the IT department of a company
must be given with the adequate training that whatever issues they are facing must be
tackled in a very efficient and effective manner(McKee, 2019). They must conduct their
business operations by following all the standards and policies which will be important
and that the system of the company in the near future would not be hacked.
TASK-2
ALDI case study
Question1: ALDI is a discount grocery chain which has gained success because of the effective
operations management. ALDI is bigger in size in which they are having the stores of around
10,000 in 17 countries which is having the expansion of around 1000 to 1500 square metres
which is small as compared to that of the traditional supermarkets. They mainly target to make
the smaller stores because these are easily to locate and becomes convenient to the customer as
they do not have to travel to long distances. They believe that it is important to keep the stock in
a limited form rather then to offer variety of products to consumer. This helps in reducing the
inventory and the main focus is kept on inventory management so that the planning and
forecasting can be made in a correct way(Wen-Si and Jia-Long, 2019). This type of business
model can be used in the fashion industry also so that it would become easier for people. They
must keep the stock which is limited and must place their store which is nearby to the consumers
so that they do not have to travel to long distances.
Question2: At some point of time customers also have to make the sacrifices in terms of the
shopping which they have to do because if this model will be used by different industries then
the availability of products which will be provided to consumers will also be less. Businesses
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will keep the availability of all the products at times creates the confusion in the minds of
customers that which product will be best for them. ALDI have always believed that it is
important to keep the less stock so that the management of inventory can be mad in a better way
and also it can increase the productivity. Consumers have to make the sacrifice of the products
which are made available to them as compared to the variety of availability of products.
Consumers always likes that they are given with the products which are available to them in
variety and this is the main sacrifice which they have to made.
TASK-3
Business ethics
Business ethics are the values and standards which holds up by the business in the way by which
the business is conducting their operations. It is important for the business that they are behaving
in an ethical terminology because with this it will make an impact on both the internal as well as
external perception of the company. There are few examples in which business have worked on
the ethical practice and those are discussed below-
 Unilever have always worked on the ethical practices in which the main focus of them is
to behave in a respectful manner (Brown, Bessant and Jia, 2018). They keep it very
private regarding the information which has been given by the employees or the
consumers. They make the collection of data on the basis of values and the applicable
laws so that they can work on safeguarding the human rights. Unilever only collects the
data which is accurate and which is mostly required by them other then that they do not
focus on taking the data of both the consumers and of the employees.
 Transparency is also the another factor which is mostly been practised with many
companies. Tesco is a company which works on the ethical practice of transparency
where they make the actual representation of the data and facts which are important for
the employees to be known by them. They make a very clear and effective
communication so that employees do not feel that they are being misguided in any of the
things. When the things will be made clear not just to the employees but also to the
consumers then they will not feel that they are misguided or being cheated.
 Showing loyalty to the consumers is very important thing because with that consumers
will feel trustworthy about the things as the products and services which they are getting
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is right. This is also the ethical practices which needs to be followed in the companies
because with this only customers would be able to trust the companies and the products
which they are providing (Gardiner and Reefke, 2019). This ethical practice is not being
offered by many of the companies because they consider to earn profits in the beginning
and later to do any of the loyalty programme.
TASK-4
Presentation
Covered in PPT
TASK-5
Summary of all the activities listed
The above report is about the business operations and management which provides the
brief description about the issues which is faced by the businesses. The first topic which is
covered is about the operational management issues which is faced by the businesses and the
other is related with the case study of ALDI(Freudenreich, Lüdeke-Freund and Schaltegger,
2020). The other factor which is being covered in this project is about the business ethics that
what practices are being used by the businesses to work and gain trust from the employees and
from the customers. Business ethics is an important criteria which must be used by the
businesses so that they can create good image of the business externally as well as internally.
The other is a business area which makes an impact on the business operations in which the area
which is taken is of Information Technology services. The importance of IT services are being
discussed in this report which explains that why it is essential for conducting the daily
operations.
CONCLUSION
From the above report it can be concluded that business operations are the most important
part of every business because with that only all the business activities can be conducted in a
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smooth manner. When the company wants to achieve the objectives then at that time they will
conduct the search of those things which will prove them to be the worth of helping them to
become most efficient one. In the business management also all the activities which are related
with the businesses are included which covers the business operations. Business management is
also an important factor which is helpful in responding to all the activities which is related with
the management.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Brown, S., Bessant, J. and Jia, F., 2018. Strategic operations management. Routledge.
Freudenreich, B., Lüdeke-Freund, F. and Schaltegger, S., 2020. A stakeholder theory perspective
on business models: Value creation for sustainability. Journal of Business Ethics,
166(1), pp.3-18.
Gardiner, D. and Reefke, H., 2019. Operations management for business excellence: building
sustainable supply chains. Routledge.
Li, F. and et. al., 2020. Key factors affecting sustained business operations after an earthquake: a
case study from New Beichuan, China, 2013–2017. Natural Hazards, 104(1), pp.101-
121.
McKee, J., 2019. Architecture as a tool to solve business planning problems. In Advanced
Methodologies and Technologies in Business Operations and Management (pp. 157-
172). IGI Global.
Raut, R.D. and et. al., 2019. Linking big data analytics and operational sustainability practices
for sustainable business management. Journal of cleaner production, 224, pp.10-24.
Wen-Si, H. and Jia-Long, X., 2019, November. Sci-Tech Business Incubator-Favorable Network
Operation Management Mode for Small and Medium Enterprises Development. In 2019
IEEE International Conference on Service Operations and Logistics, and Informatics
(SOLI) (pp. 65-69). IEEE.
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