Operations Management Research and Studies

This assignment provides a collection of research papers, studies, and journals related to operations management. The papers cover various topics such as business process management, supply chain management, and performance management practices. The assignment also includes patent applications and industry-specific research like data management and fleet management operations.

Management and Operations

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
Overview of the chosen organisation “TESCO”.........................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
1. Overview of Tesco management structure..............................................................................1
2. Define managers & leaders with their roles and highlight the difference between leadership
and management..........................................................................................................................4
3. Different roles of the management and leadership in the context of different organisational
situations......................................................................................................................................6
4. Evaluation of the different approaches to leadership and management in the context of
leadership theory..........................................................................................................................7
5. Conclusion and recommendations for the future improvements taken by Tesco's managers
and leaders...................................................................................................................................8
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................9
1. Introduction to the key operations of the Tesco.......................................................................9
2. Roles and responsibilities of managers in the key operational functions................................9
3.Different approaches that is being used in management operation .......................................10
4.PESTLE Analysis...................................................................................................................11
5. Improvement of operational efficiencies by using management and leadership approaches 12
6. Conclusion and recommendations for the future improvements taken by Tesco..................13
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................13
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................14

INTRODUCTION
Overview of the chosen organisation “TESCO”
Tesco plc is a leading organization in the retailing industry which is working at the global
level. Company's headquarters is in England, United Kingdom (UK). It was founded in year
1919 by Jack Cohen. It has around 7000+ stores in whole world (Walker, H. and et. al., 2015).
Present report will highlight the management structure of the Tesco, different between
leaders and managers with their responsibilities and implementation of different leadership and
management theories on different organisational situations. It will also evaluate different
approaches in context of leadership theories. It will introduce the key operations of the Tesco,
roles of managers in that key operations and various approaches to the operational management
of Tesco. It will also tell about the improvement of operational efficiencies. It will recommend
for the future improvement of managers, leaders and organisation.
TASK 1
1. Overview of Tesco management structure
Tesco Company management structure is hierarchical structure in which various
management levels and layers of management are there. It is in the form of hierarchical due to
the huge size of the organisation.
In hierarchical structure, there are various authorities who are working at different level
with different roles, responsibilities and duties. Higher the hierarchical structure, higher the
chance for the span of control in the organization.
1
Illustration 1: Tesco Structure Chart
Source: TESCO COMPANY ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE CHART EXAMPLE, 2016.

In Tesco hierarchical structure, there are 3 level of management with board of directors.
This hierarchical structure also consists store level also in which 4 layers of the management are
available (van Aken, Chandrasekaran and Halman, 2016).
Tesco Board of directors has 14 members which include Chairman, Chief financial
executive, Group Chief Executive and non executive directors. Out of members, 11 members are
non executive directors, 3 are executive directors and 1 is company secretary.
Tesco Hierarchical structure has various management teams of different departments in
which managers, employees and other staffs are working in various management layers for the
purpose of achieving the organisational goals.
2

3
Illustration 2: Management Structure
Source: Management Principles of Tesco PLC, 2018.

2. Define managers & leaders with their roles and highlight the difference between leadership
and management
DEFINITION OF MANAGERS AND LEADERS WITH THEIR ROLES
MANAGERS AND THEIR ROLES
Manager is a key employee for the organisation who is accountable for the operations of
the business. His main functions are as follows - planning, organizing, staffing, directing and
controlling the activities and people of the organization for the purpose to create co-ordination
and achieve the organizational goals.
Roles of the Tesco managers are as follows -
 Managers are the one who has the responsibilities for the fulfilment of the legal
requirements in order to prevent the organisation from any legal actions.
 Managers have the responsibilities to create the link between the top management teams
and employees. Managers are responsible for the allocation of funds, charge the employees and distribute
the organisational resources to the various departments of the Tesco company.
LEADERS AND THEIR ROLES
4
Illustration 3: Store Level
(Source: TESCO COMPANY ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE CHART
EXAMPLE, 2016)

Leader is a key employee who is accountable for encouraging and influencing the
behvaiour of employees in the way so that they can achieve their organisational goals (Baxley,
and et. al., 2016).
Role of leaders in Tesco are as follows -
 Leaders are the one who create vision for the company and tell organisation about how to
achieve that vision.
 Leaders are the one who help managers, supervisors and employees in executing and
implementing various kinds of strategies. Leaders are the one who motivate Tesco's employees, improves their capabilities and
performance and help them to gain heights in their career.
DIFFERENT BETWEEN MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP
BASIS MANAGEMENT LEADERSHIP
Meaning It is the process of managing
organizational activities,
resources and people with a
particular procedure in order to
co-ordinate between activities,
resources and people and
achievement of organizational
goals.
Leadership is a particular skills
through which leaders of the
company are able to influence
the employees for the
achievement of organizational
goals.
Purpose Management is done to control
the activities and people of
enterprise.
Leadership is done to influence
the activities and people of
enterprise.
Focus Their focus is only on the
stability of the organizational
culture, model and process.
Their focus is only on the
bringing change in the
organizational culture, model
and process.
Creation Management focus on the
creation of policies and
procedures of the activities
Leadership focus on the
creation of vision for the
achievement of organizational
5

according to the mission,
vision, organizational goals
and objectives.
goals and objectives.
(Rosemann and vom Brocke, 2015)
3. Different roles of the management and leadership in the context of different organisational
situations
SITUATION 1
In Tesco, there is conflict between 2 departmental employees regarding not able to
achieve the departmental target due to no corporation between both department.
ROLE OF MANAGEMENT
In this situation, manager with the support of Human relation theory, will try to reduce
the conflict between employees of 2 department in Tesco. For that manager will take interviews
of both departmental employees to get to know the whole scenario and after that he will
implement the new policies regarding that 2 departments and observe the change in the
behaviour of employees.
ROLE OF LEADERSHIP
In this situation, leader will apply trait theory and accordingly judge the employees
according to their personalities and traits. After knowing personalities and traits, he will analysis
the strengths and weaknesses of the employees and accordingly try to motivate them to resolve
the conflict (Rosemann and vom Brocke, 2015).
SITUATION 2
Tesco is all set to bring new technology in the organisation and employees are refusing to
accept this change.
ROLE OF MANAGEMENT
In this situation, manager will adopt participative theory. According to this theory, he will
get to know about the reason behind the refusion of employees. Then he will conduct meetings
and talk to them, take their point of views and accordingly motivate them. He will also provide
them training too.
ROLE OF LEADERSHIP
In this situation, leader will create a vision in order to guide and motivate the employees
in for accepting the change. He will also explain the importance of bringing change in
6

organisation by providing real example so that employees can get inspire and try to accept the
change. Leader will do this with the support of Transformational leadership theory.
SITUATION 3
Employees of Tesco are facing issues regarding their working environment and due to
this, employee turnover ratio is increasing.
ROLE OF MANAGEMENT
In this situation, managers of Tesco will analysis the environment of Tesco and try to find
out the reasons behind the dislike of employees towards their working environment. They can
conduct various events and activities so that employees can get to communicate with others and
their working environment can improve.
ROLE OF LEADERSHIP
In this situation, leaders of Tesco can motivate the employees to bring new ideas and
communicate with each other. Leaders also can use team shifting so that employees can get to
know about others employees. This will improve the working environment and reduce the
employees turnover ratio.
4. Evaluation of the different approaches to leadership and management in the context of
leadership theory
MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP APPROACHES IN THE CONTEXT OF
LEADERSHIP THEORY
There are various leadership approaches through which leaders of Tesco Company
conduct their responsibilities in the different way according to the situations that arise in the
business. Various leadership theories and approaches are as follows :
Situational Leadership approach: This approach allows the leaders to take the decisions
regarding the team members and organization according to the situation which is occurring in the
organization. According to this theory, leader motivates their team members after analyzing and
evaluating the situations and the impact of situations on the employees and their capabilities.
Advantage of This leadership style is to help the leader and employees in taking the
accurate decisions according to situations. Disadvantage of this theory is wrong analysis of the
situation will lead employees and leader to take wrong decisions which impact the organizational
activities and goals.
7

For Example – Company is bringing new technologies. It will scare the employees because they
don't know how to work through it. In that case, leader of the organisation will use Situational
Leadership approach and give them training regarding technologies and motivate them to work
through it,
System Leadership Approach
This leadership theory focus on combining of system which form by the people, activities
and process with the help of principles and policies make by the company's management team.
This approach allows the employees to create coordination between their work with other
employees and staffs for the purpose of deliver the effective and efficient work (Simpson and et.
al., 2015).
Advantage of this approach is that it allows the employees within the organization to
coordinate their work in order to achieve the main objectives of the firm, which improve the
efficiency and productivity of the organization. Disadvantage of this theory is that this approach
is not implemented successfully within the business then it may create the conflicts and
confusions among the employees.
For example – Company is facing conflict situation between employees. In that case, Leader will
use system leadership approach and try to focus on the team building strategies in order to create
co-ordination and communication between employees.
Contingency leadership approach: This leadership approach shows that the leader's
effectiveness is depending upon the adoption of leadership style according to the situations of the
firm.
Advantage of this theory is that It helps in widening the understanding of the leaders and
managers in different situations of the company which make them experts in their own field.
Disadvantage of this approach is that in case the leaders take wrong decisions during complex
situations then it creates a lot of problems for the organization regarding workforce and their
activities (Sterman and et. al., 2015).
For example – Company is facing employee turnover issues. In that case leader will adopt
Contingency leadership approach. In order to motivate the employees to stay in the organisation,
he will analysis the motivation drivers for the employees and accordingly adopt leadership style
in order to motivate them.
8

5. Conclusion and recommendations for the future improvements taken by Tesco's managers and
leaders
It has been concluded that leadership and management theories helps managers and
leaders to perform their tasks in systematic way so that they can be able to achieve the
organizational goals.
For the future improvements, the recommendations for the Tesco's managers and leaders
are as follows -
 Managers and leaders of Tesco can focus on the scientific procedures of human resource
management such as scientific approach to recruitment and selection so that they can get
the best candidates out of pools of candidates.
 Tesco's manager and leaders can work together so that they can achieve their
organizational goals as well as they can motivate, guide and direct the employees in the
right way for the future of the organization.
TASK 2
1. Introduction to the key operations of the Tesco
There are various key operations in the Tesco company. These key operations are as
follows -
Just In Time (JIT) Approach
It is a kind of operation tool use by Tesco Company for the purpose of reducing time
within the production model of the company. In this approach, Company directly order the raw
materials from their suppliers to the production house for the purpose of reducing the production
time. It helps company to reduce their production as well as inventory costs too.
Kaizen
Kaizen can be define as the activity which is carried by the company to improve all the
business activities. It involves every staffs, employees, managers, leaders, supervisors and even
chief executive officer in the process. This approach helps company to increase their efficiencies
and productivity due to continuous improvement process (Spring and et.al., 2017).
Total Quality Management (TQM)
Total quality management (TQM) refers to the repetitive procedure for detecting and
eliminating errors or mistakes in production, supply chain system and streamlining in the
organisation. It involves feedback and experiences of customers in order to improvement in
9

required areas. It also includes the continual training of the employees to make them updated
about changes and trends. It will help in increasing the productivity of the employees which lead
to increase in the quality of the products and services offered by the organisation.
2. Roles and responsibilities of managers in the key operational functions
Role and responsibilities of managers of Tesco in Just In Time (JIT) Approach
Manager of the Tesco company have following roles and responsibilities in Just-In-Time
approach which are as follows -
Manager uses Kanban which is considered to be a part of JIT. It will help manager to
track their supplies system. Thus, manager should check the system time to time and spend
money on their maintenance in order to make sure that they won't lost their tracking system.
Along with that Manager should provide proper training to their employees regarding the
system they use for the application of JIT on the organisation.
Role and responsibilities of managers of Tesco in Kaizen
Manager of the Tesco company have following roles and responsibilities in Kaizen
approach which are as follows -
Manager has the role of looking upon the 5S principles of the Kaizen and give guidelines
to the employees about how to implement the approach in the production of the organisation. If
there is something goes wrong, then it is the role of manager to look upon, measure the
problems, discuss it with another managers and try to solve them.
Role and responsibilities of managers of Tesco in Total Quality Management (TQM)
Manager of the Tesco company have following roles and responsibilities in TQM
approach which are as follows -
Here in this approach, the role of manager is to do planning and research on the quality
standards and how to achieve them without compromising the production. Another role and
responsibility of manager is to assist the employees in the implementation of TQM in the
organisation.
3.Different approaches that is being used in management operation
Operation management can be defined as dealing with the operations and processes of the
company. It is linked with the various processes that is used in company while manufacturing a
product it has to gone through different processes then it will come as final product. Techniques
that is used are :
10

Finance:- As it plays an important role in every organization for preparing the budget and taking
record of each and every thing in the company. It plays an important part of the organization as it
manages all the transactions and keeping record of it (Maylor and et. al., 2018).As it finance has
value in the Tesco as without finance company can't run its operation properly. Finance helps in
utilization of resources properly.
Operation:- It is associated with the planning, organising, controlling and directing activities of
the company. As all these activities plays an important part in Tesco without these activities
company cannot run its operation properly. In operation various activities can be taken place as
raw material is converted into finished by passing through various processes. As Tesco is using
different operational activity to manufacture the product for satisfying customer needs.
Designing of product:- As designing of the product plays an important part in the company for
satisfying its customer. Tesco is adopting various technology in designing its product by
catering the needs of customers (Musalem and et. al., 2017). Designing attract more customers
towards its product. Therefore, all the above key approaches plays an important part in operation
management of Tesco.
4.PESTLE Analysis
These are the external issues that will affect the working of the company as these factors
are as under:
Political Factors
These factors include political stability,, government policy, corruption, foreign trade
policy etc. As this affect working of Tesco due to changes in the foreign trade policy will affect
the export and import of product from outside. This will lead to problem for Tesco as raw
material is supply from outside so company have to face difficulty in importing material from
outside. As this will affect the decision making of Tesco.
Economic Factors
These include exchange rates, inflation rate, unemployment rate etc. (Mohar, Abdullah
and Ho,2016). Through this factor economic decision will affect as if inflation rate will increase
the purchasing power of customer will get down and it will decrease the sales of Tesco.
Social Factors
These include growth rate, income distribution, lifestyle etc. These factors affect the
decision making of Tesco as income distribution is different of all the customers so that will
11

show the purchasing power of customer so its difficult for Tesco to decide that to which group it
has to made its target customer so that will help in increasing its sales.
Technological Factors
These factors include innovation, research and development and automation. As it will be
difficult for Tesco to decide that what technology it has to adopt for manufacturing the product.
As there are many competitors so to beat competition it also has to do proper research and
development before implementing into Tesco.
Legal factors
This include discrimination laws, employment laws, consumer protection laws etc.
Different countries is having different laws so before setting up business in another country
(Hani and et. al., 2017). Tesco have to conduct the research that which laws are taken into
account for business operations in that country.
Environmental Factors
These factors include weather, climatic condition etc. As environmental factors affect the
decision making of Tesco regarding how to set up the plant and proper arrangement is to be set
up for storing product as if climate changes it will damage the product so proper storing is
provided in Tesco.
5. Improvement of operational efficiencies by using management and leadership approaches
Through participative approach, managers and leaders involve the employees of Tesco in
decision making process and in meetings regarding changes or issues which makes employees
feel that they are important for the organisation. This lead them to work with full efforts. Thus,
this improves the productivity and operational efficiency of the employees.
With the assist of situational approach, managers and leaders of the firm provide
flexibility to work according to the situations face by employees. This lead employees to do their
work and take decisions according to the situations which encourage employees to do work in
their style. This improves the efficiencies of the operations conduct by employees.
Through system approach, managers and leaders will create relationship and link between
every components of the organisation. This relationship and link will create co-ordination
between all the activities conduct by the employees which improves the efficiencies of the
operations conduct in the Tesco ( Davidson and Olsen III, United Parcel Service of America
Inc, 2017).
12

With the help of behavioural approach, managers and leaders will understand the
personalities, nature, strengths and weaknesses of the Tesco employees. This will lead manager
to assign the tasks according to the employees' strengths which improve his efficiencies and
make them expert. On the other side, leaders will work on his weaknesses and encourage him to
work on their weaknesses so that weaknesses can be converted into strengths, which improve
operational efficiencies in the organisation.
6. Conclusion and recommendations for the future improvements taken by Tesco
It has been concluded that without operations, there is no worth for the employees and
businessmen to run their organisation. For the running of the organisation, there should be
various kinds of operations and each operations must be co-ordinated with each other.
For the future improvements in the firm, the recommendations for the Tesco company are
as follows -
 Tesco should focus on the organisational culture and organisational environment so that
employees can be happy and satisfied. Satisfied employees are efficient. This will
improve the organisational performance (Bititci,Cocca and Ates, 2016).
 Tesco should focus on the quality management of the company so that consumers can get
qualitative goods and services at low price. This will increase the goodwill, revenue and
profitability of the organisation.
CONCLUSION
From the above study, it has been summarised that leaders are important part for the
organisation. Without them, organisation can't achieve its target. Leaders and managers both
should conduct their activities together in the form of co-ordinative way for the employees and
for the organisation. Organisation's operations play significant role in the attainment of
organizational objectives and goals.
13

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Walker, H. and et. al., 2015. Theoretical perspectives in operations management: an analysis of
the literature. International Journal of Operations & Production
Management. 35(8).pp.1182-1206.
van Aken, J., Chandrasekaran, A. and Halman, J., 2016. Conducting and publishing design
science research: Inaugural essay of the design science department of the Journal of
Operations Management. Journal of Operations Management. 47.pp.1-8.
Baxley, B.T. And et. al., 2016. Human-in-the-loop assessment of alternative clearances in
interval management arrival operations.
Rosemann, M. and vom Brocke, J., 2015. The six core elements of business process
management. In Handbook on business process management 1 (pp. 105-122). Springer,
Berlin, Heidelberg.
Rosemann, M. and vom Brocke, J., 2015.. A review of empirical operations management over
the last two decades. Manufacturing & Service Operations Management.
Simpson, D. and et. al., 2015. Professional, research, and publishing trends in operations and
supply chain management. Journal of Supply Chain Management.51(3).pp.87-100.
Sterman, J. and et. al., 2015. System dynamics perspectives and modeling opportunities for
research in operations management. Journal of Operations Management, 39, p.40.
Prahlad, A. and Pawar, R.S., CommVault Systems Inc, 2016. Systems and methods for
performing data management operations using snapshots. U.S. Patent Application
15/018,151.
Spring, M. and et. al., 2017. Creating the competitive edge: a new relationship between
operations management and industrial policy. Journal of Operations
Management.49.pp.6-19.
Maylor, H. and et. al., 2018. Old theories, new contexts: extending operations management
theories to projects. International Journal of Operations & Production
Management. 38(6).pp.1274-1288.
Musalem, A. and et. al., 2017. A Review of Choice Modeling in the Marketing-Operations
Management Interface.
Mohar, A.H.A., Abdullah, F. and Ho, V.B., 2016. Development and Validations of a Holistic
Service Operations Management Instrument. Procedia-Social and Behavioral
Sciences. 224.pp.429-436.
Hanif, S. and et. al., 2017. Distributed congestion management of distribution grids under robust
flexible buildings operations. IEEE Transactions on Power Systems.32(6). pp.4600-4613.
Davidson, M.J. and Olsen III, J.A., United Parcel Service of America Inc, 2017. Systems and
methods for utilizing telematics data to improve fleet management operations. U.S. Patent
9,704,303.
Bititci, U., Cocca, P. and Ates, A., 2016. Impact of visual performance management systems on
the performance management practices of organisations. International Journal of
Production Research. 54(6).pp.1571-1593.
14