Management & Operations Assignment Solution - Marks and Spencer

Management and Operations

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................3
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................3
1. Introduction to organization and its management structure...............................................3
2. Define manager and leader and compare their role and characteristics.............................3
3. Differences of managerial functions and leadership roles.................................................6
4. Different situations in your organization and examine how the roles of a leader and
functions of a manager ..........................................................................................................7
5 Different management and leadership theories to support growth and sustainable
performance............................................................................................................................7
6. Strengths and weaknesses of different theories and approaches........................................9
7. Conclude on how managers and leaders make impacts on the organization and make
recommendations for future improvements..........................................................................10
TASK 2..........................................................................................................................................11
1. Introduce operation management and key approaches adopted by the organization.......11
2. Roles and responsibilities of managers and leaders in successful management of the
operation...............................................................................................................................12
3 Importance of operation management in achieving business objectives...........................13
4. How managers and leaders could be effective in improving operational efficiencies to
successfully meet business objectives..................................................................................14
5. Factors which impact upon operation management and decision making of leader and
manager................................................................................................................................14
6. Critical evaluation of the application of operations management to manage the factors that
impact on the wider business environment..........................................................................15

7. Conclude and suggest recommendations for future improvements to be taken by the
organisation..........................................................................................................................15
CONCLUSION .............................................................................................................................16
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................17
INTRODUCTION
Operation management is the maintenance of business activity so that highest level of
efficiency can be achieved in the enterprise (Nakayama and Bucks, 2012). Management and
operation is connected with planning, organizing and supervising in the context of production,
manufacturing. It is process which is take place in the organization in order to convert raw
material and labor in the product effectively so that profit can be maximize. Marks and Spencer
is a multinational retailer who trade in cloth, luxury and food items. The company main office is
situated in the Westminster, London.
In this report there is an information of roles and characteristics of leader and manager
and their attitude in different situations of the enterprise. It also defines various leadership style
which manager and leader adopt in order to face the changes of external environment. Along
with this it illustrates different approaches which help management for improving their
production system. Lastly, it talks about the external factors which affect the decisions of the
leader and manager and organization operations.
TASK 1
1. Introduction to organization and its management structure
Marks and Spencer is the British international retail company which is situated in City of
Westminster, London. They are mainly deal with different type of products such as clothing,
home products and items, luxury food items. Marks and Spencer follow flat organizational
structure, this type of organization structure has limited levels of management between
administrative level and front line employees. This structure is followed in organization to
motivate their workers in making appropriate decision. Main reason behind following these kind
of structure are to resolving issues and conflicts of employees properly. Through this, employees
of firm can working together with the seniors workers that assist in enhancing their working
level properly.

2. Define manager and leader and compare their role and characteristics.
Marks and Spencer is started by the two friend Michael Marks and Thomas Spencer
through stall in 1884. The main aim of the respective company is to sell the durable product at an
appropriate rate. The organization become public limited company in 1926 (XU and et. al.,
2012). This company worldwide is known for providing qualitative commodity. It follows flat
organization structure where there is no level or few level of management between top
authorities and the junior level staff. M&S is less involved in supervising their employees and
take their involvement in decision making.
Manager: It is the person who perform five functions in the organization such as
planning, organizing, staffing, directing and controlling. Manager is the link between the
organization and its stakeholders such as employees, customers, suppliers, shareholders and
government so on (Bealkowski, 2015). They are the one who by using their knowledge and skill
complete the work and has the authority to hire or fire any employee in the organization. There
are different kind of manager present in an enterprise such as functional managers, general
managers, top level managers, finance manager and so on.
Role of manager in the business are as follows:
Planning: Manager of a given company plan the activities in such a way that it is able to
achieve their goals in an effective manner (Khlat and et. al., 2016).
Organize: In context of Marks and Spencer, manager organize various things in the
enterprise such as workforce, resources, training so that business can have accomplished its
desired outcome.
Characteristics which manager should contain in their attitude are as follows:
Communication: In case of selected firm, manager should have the communication
skills in them because they are the link between the top level and lower level employees (Park
and Jho, 2012). If manager convey the information correctly to the employees than only they are
able to perform the job effectively.
Time management: In respect of given enterprise, the manager \should understand the
importance of the time. They should complete their work on time so that employees take
deadline of completion of their work seriously (Burke, 2013).
There are various roles which leader have to perform in the organization are
described briefly below: