Managing and Operations

MANAGEMENT & OPERATIONS 1 INTRODUCTION 3 TASK 13 1.1: Role and characteristics of a leader and managers3 TASK 26 2.1: Roles of leaders and functions of managers in different situations6 2.2: Various models and theories of approach including leadership styles 6 TASK 38 3.1: Key approaches to operations management 8 TASK 410 4: Dimensions of the Contemporary business environment10 CONCLUSION 11 REFERENCES 12 INTRODUCTION Management and operations are the key elements of an organisation. Managers: Managers are responsible

MANAGEMENT &
OPERATIONS

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................3
1.1: Role and characteristics of a leader and managers..........................................................3
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................6
2.1: Roles of leaders and functions of managers in different situations.................................6
2.2: Various models and theories of approach including leadership styles...........................6
TASK 3...................................................................................................................................8
3.1: Key approaches to operations management....................................................................8
TASK 4..........................................................................................................................................10
4: Dimensions of the Contemporary business environment.................................................10
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
Management and operations are the key elements of an organisation. It is refers to
carrying out different business activities in effective and efficient manners for enhancing the
productivity and performance of the employees. Operations management is the field of
management which regulates the process of design to production of business activities for
producing products and services. The company taken for this assignment is Starbucks UK which
is a big food and coffee restaurant chain in UK. This report will discuss the role and functions of
managers and leaders in improving the performance of company. Through various leadership
theories, the key approaches of managers and leaders has been discussed along with importance
and value of operations management. Also this report will further discuss the strengths and
weakness of different theories and the factors of business environment that effects the operations
management and decision making process.
TASK 1
1.1: Role and characteristics of a leader and managers
Starbucks was established in 1971 and employing over 238,000 people on their over
28000 locations worldwide. Company has a wide range of food products and beverages for
meeting the demands and requirements of customers and market. Organisational structure of
Starbucks UK is flatter because there are very few levels of authority between administrative and
low level employees. This structure ensures that information is transferred easily from top level
to low level employees.
Leader: A leader is the person who is very knowledgeable in their field and who knows
how to lead people in times of need. Leader is responsible for structuring and managing the task
for achieving the desired goals and objectives of the company. These monitors the work and
performance of the low level employees. Leaders defines the plan and policies to workers which
were formulated by the management.
Managers: Managers are responsible for formulating the effective plans and policies in
order to execute and evaluate future business activities after assigning the roles and
responsibilities to their workers on the basis of their skills and capabilities for achieving desired
goals and managers (Giegerich, 2010) . There are many departments in Starbucks which are
supervised by managers such as project managers, line managers, departmental managers, etc.

They concentrate on providing guidelines and support to the team members for achieving the
objectives of the Starbucks.
Roles of a Leader:
Building team: In order to get positive result, it is important for people to work in a team
and gives their combined efforts. A leader is responsible for building a unique team with right
mix of skills to enhance the interest and working behaviour of team members to perform better.
Leaders of Starbucks should use right mix of employees for creating a unique team for achieving
team goals.
Motivator: For bringing improved and positive outcomes, it is important that every
employee of an organisation must work hard and give their best shot. So, leaders should act as a
motivator for encouraging employees by conducting various training and learning programs for
enhancing their skills and knowledge and brings motivation and self-confidence among them. It
is must for a leader of Starbucks to implement required policies and strategies to encourage the
members for contributing their maximum efforts.
Communication: Communication and coordination between employees and teams are
necessary for achieving desired goals. The main role of leaders of Starbucks is to communicate
effectively with their team members and higher authorities regarding strategies and polices setup
by management related to performance of an organisation and ensures that the employees are
performing in right manner.
Roles of a Manager:
Formulating policies and plans: Before executing future business activities, it is
important for an organisation have a suitable plans and policies which direct their workforce to
perform in right direction. Therefore, the managers here play an important role in formulating an
effective decisions and plans after getting feedbacks from their employees so as to ensure to get
maximum positive outcome in near future.
Monitoring and controlling: Managers control and regulates all business operations and
activities in a effective manner with a motive of providing quality products with the help of
utilising available resources in an optimum manner (Grant, Wong and Trautrims, 2017).
Providing training: The managers of Starbucks should require to conduct training
programs in order to enhance their employees skills and capabilities. Evaluation of employees
performance should require to carried out through comparing actual with expected performance.

Comparison between Leaders and managers
Leaders managers
Leaders achieves the targets of Starbucks
with the help of their effective team members.
Whereas Managers sets the targets for leaders
and teams of Starbucks for achieving their
targets.
Leaders of Starbucks works with its team
members to accomplish the desired goals in
required time.
Whereas Managers manages the work of
planning, designing and production etc. for
achieving the goals of Starbucks.
Leader motivates employees to work hard for
improving the productivity and performance of
Starbucks.
Managers gives directions to the employees to
work hard for achieving Starbucks goals.
Characteristics of leader and managers
Positive attitude: Both leader and managers are necessary for providing guidance and
support to employees for achieving the desired goals and objectives of an organisation. They
both deals with requirements of clients for improving future business growth. Positive attitude
among managers and leaders of Starbucks helps both managers and leaders in handling issues or
conflicts and dealing with them effectively in less time.
Creative: Both the managers and leader should have necessary creative skills that helps
them in bringing more innovative and creative ideas and strategies which will help the Starbucks
to achieve success and growth in future time. They should need to use their creative and
innovative skills in order to attract more customers to buy their products and services.
Confident: It is necessary for managers and leaders to become confident in implementing
strategies and policies for bringing future growth to the company. Lack of confidence among
Starbucks managers and leaders can leads to negative results on customers so it is important for
both to have confidence while performing their business activities in the organisation (Groves,
Frater and Stokes, 2011).
Motivator: Managers and leader should need to have good motivation skills and are
responsible for providing motivation and guidance to the employees for getting better result.
They both communicate with team members to collect their important feedbacks and suggestions

for implementing new policies and strategies. Starbucks needs to consider opinions and
feedbacks of employees for increasing their motivation towards the task assigned to them.
TASK 2
2.1: Roles of leaders and functions of managers in different situations
These situations regularly happened within the company. So, It is the responsibility of the
management to identify such changes in the situations of the organisation for improving
productivity and performance of the employees (Karnani, 2011).
Stable situation- In such situations the Changes in situations does not take place
frequently. managers needs to analyse the speed of change and evaluation must be done for
whether that change is good fro company or not. Starbucks managers should motivate their
employees towards working efficiently in such different situations and be prepared for the
changes, if required.
Stable to moderate situation- These situation changes happen less frequently in nature.
Trends and demands of the people in the food industry can be considered as stable to moderate
change for the organisation for which leaders are required to take suitable essential decisions
which should be implemented by the managers. Managers of Starbucks should adopt suitable
strategies for determining these changes in trends or behaviour of customers for generating more
profit.
Fast situations- In such situation, changes takes place very frequently. For example-
technological changes such as launching of mobile application or any digital platform should be
considered important by the Starbucks management. If employees are not accepting changes than
it is required by managers to convey the importance of change to the employees. Managers must
properly and regularly use communication skills and strategies for informing employees
regarding the changes.
2.2: Various models and theories of approach including leadership styles
There are different theories and approaches for leadership which are used by Starbucks
company for improving the performance as well as productivity of the organisation. managers
and leaders of Starbucks should implement these various theories of leadership described below
for achieving desired goals and objectives (Khan and Lund-Thomsen, 2011).

System leadership: This theory is extensively used by managers and leaders in order to
provide solution of issues and conflicts related to business operation for achieving the desired
goals. Leaders and managers should need to resolve the issues in a systematic and effective
manners. Therefore top authority of Starbucks should identify such factors which impacts the
business activities and implement suitable policies for reducing such issues in the company. This
also helps in maintaining healthy and stress free environment in the company (Marchington and
et. al., 2016).
Situational theory: This theory states that leader need to adopt various styles of
leadership on the basis of nature of problems arises at workplace. According to this, same style
of leadership is not effective in all types of situations instead the leader should use different
flexible theories based on the problem. Managers and leaders of Starbucks should use situational
theory according to the nature of situations for efficiently carrying out activities and operations.
Contingency theory: This theory states that effectiveness of the leader and managers
depends on their style of their leadership which is to be implemented by them which fits with the
situations arises. The leadership style in such theory is either task oriented or people oriented.
Task-oriented is related to achieving goals of a company where as people oriented related to
building interpersonal relationship. Starbucks leaders and managers should effectively use this
theory as due to having experience and skills for determining the type of situation and providing
solution for resolving the problem.
Strengths and weakness of these 3 theories
Contingency theory of leadership: Strengths: This theory is linked to the situation which arises in leadership. It is not
necessary for a leader to be effective in every situation.
 Weaknesses: It does not explain the reason behind why some people are effective leaders
in only certain situations. Another weakness is the LPC scale.
System theory of leadership: Strengths: This theory is focused on achieving individual as well as organisational goals.
 Weakness: This theory often delays the decision making process because it is not always
practical.
Situational theory of leadership:

 Strengths: This leadership styles exists in managers from a very long period of time and
broadly used by companies for training leaders and managers for improving their
performance.
 Weakness: This theory have limited studies and research for confirming the assumptions.
These different leadership theories plays a essential role in the development of a leader.
The main theories of leadership are situational, contingency and system styles of leadership
which effects the performance of the leaders as well as of companies (Pedrycz and Chen, 2015).
Chaos theory
It states that the markets undergoes several changes related to global economic slowdown
or change in customer behaviour due to recession in the market. The company should adapt
themselves according to the situation by changing their objective, goals and strategy. When
company identifies the change in the preference and demand of the customers then it should
accordingly adapt themselves by improving the existing product and present to the customer as a
new alternative product in order to sustain in the market.
Management by objectives
Management by objective aims to enhance the performance and productivity of the
company by clearly defining the objectives agreed by both the employees and the management.
From an organization’s point of view it is very necessary that both the management and the
employee works together to create and define the goals of the organization to achieve. The
objectives must complies with the resources available in the organization.
TASK 3
3.1: Key approaches to operations management
Organisation plays a important part in converting input into output and then transferring it to
the external environment. It works with the managements functions like planning, organising,
staffing, directing and controlling. A company is defined by its transparent system which
includes interactions and communication between business and its external environment. Some
key approaches of operation management are mentioned below:
Total quality management: This approach states that the products and services which
are to be delivered consist of best quality that company serves to the desired customers for
satisfying their needs and requirement. Basically companies concentrates on total quality

management approach for producing quality based products and services forfulfiling customer's
demands. Starbucks offers best featured and attractive products with best quality to their
customers which helps in generating more revenues by attracting more customers towards the
company (Rastogi, 2010).
Just in time: It refers to stocks management process where company concentrates on
managing and controlling stocks from production process. It leads to improved efficiency and
reduced costs or wastage. So just in time approach helps a company in developing improved and
new products on the time of market requirement. Starbucks should control their inventory
management system through this approach for better and improved production of products.
Lean products: This approach is used for reducing the costs as well as wastage in
production department because it provides support to the production department in generating
best profits from limited resources. Starbucks should apply this approach for quality products
and less wastage of raw materials.
Six Sigma: This approach includes various tools and techniques which helps customers
to securely order defect free by providing adequate transportation methods from the organisation.
This will help employees of Starbucks to maximise the satisfaction level of customers by
increasing quality based products (Rohini and Mallikarjun, 2011).
Importance of operations management
A systematic approach in carrying out activities will always helpful in spontaneous
improvement in performance of the organisation in terms of capacity and outcomes. It is
concerned with various procedures and methods for implementing strategies and focus on
improving performance and results. Various operational functions are described below: Control and Distribution system: Control and distribution system helps in transferring
and distributing the products to the end user and their restaurants for fast delivery which
will positively effect the company. Starbucks is using their structured supplier chain of
distribution with the help of different suppliers which is proved to be effective for the
company. Process design: The process of production is very necessary for an company. The design
of this process must be in a structures and systematic way for carrying out activities in an
effective and efficient manner. Starbucks should develop better and improved design for
attracting more customers and producing quality products based on the demand.

 Logistics and inventory management: Logistics and inventory management is necessary
for the company for developing efficient and quality based products. These provides
resources and raw materials to the company for producing products in production
department. Starbucks should manage and control their logistics and inventory division
for transferring and producing these products for fulfilling the demands of customers.
 Scheduling: It is also a positive element of operation management which helps in
management of time and product as it results in increase in the efficiency and
productivity of work. Time management results in providing improved products and
services to the consumers in specified time. Scheduling of product is necessary for
Starbucks in delivering their quality products on right time under right conditions
(Shuxin, 2011).
TASK 4
4: Dimensions of the Contemporary business environment
Environment is referred to the surroundings or situations in an organisation in which a
specific activity is carried out in the organisation where the organisation considers the
hierarchical structure where all products are put together to obtain best results.
Corporate Social responsibility: It is described as the approach of business which
contributes to the sustainable development by bringing economic, social and environmental
benefits to its stakeholders. The leadership and management in Starbucks plays a great role in
context of CSR. The company must adopt short time goals for the company which is considered
as beneficial for the company.
Culture: is defined as ideas or social behaviour of people at a particular place. The
culture of a organisation effects the business directly as the companies are identifying the culture
of a specific place and produce the products based on the culture of that place. Culture also plays
an important role in operations management as at the time of operation process, the culture of the
employees is taken into account and suitable strategies are made to increase the productivity of
employees.
Values: these are defined as principals of individuals behaviour. Values are considered as
necessary factor in Starbucks as the products and services of the company is developed and
improved after identifying the values and beliefs of the customer of a place. In the operations

management, values are considered as important elements to decide the standards of the
production.
Ethics: For following the Corporate Social Responsibility, Starbucks should practice
ethical business and ensure that the operations of the company are not harming the stakeholders .
Ethical business is defined as the business which is done by following the ethics and its target is
to benefit its stakeholders (White, 2016).
Sustainability: It effects the operations management as it ensures that the resources of the
company are utilized according to the needs and demands in an effective process. It helps in
increasing the efficiency and performance of the operations management.
Stakeholders and meeting stakeholders expectations
The management and leadership of an organization should need to efficiently fulfil the
demands and requirements of their stakeholders and take care of them. A stakeholder is defined
as the individuals that have the stake in the company. Therefore it is the responsibility of each
company to meet their expectations. Consumers is the primary stakeholder of an company who
expects quality products from the organization at a low price. Company must ensure that their
expectation are fulfilled.
CONCLUSION
It has been concluded from above report that operations management is necessary for the
development of Starbucks. The roles and responsibilities of managers and leaders are related to
each other and their performance often interfere with each other. The roles, responsibilities and
characteristics of managers and leaders are explained with specific reference to the Starbucks.
Different theories and models of leadership along with the importance and value of operations
management in achieving organisational goals has been discussed in the report. Further the
internal and external factors that impacts upon the operational management and decision-making
of Leaders and managers of Starbucks has also been analysed. These factors together greatly
affects the business environment which can be minimised by the management of Starbucks by
implementing necessary strategies and policies for improving the efficiency of employees and as
well as of the organisation for enhancing the future growth.

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