Operational Management and Decision Support

This assignment delves into the world of operational management, exploring concepts such as COBIT 5.0, capability levels, decision support systems, visualization analytics, and risk factor assessments. It draws from various sources, including academic papers, research articles, and industry reports, to provide a comprehensive overview of operational management techniques. The assignment aims to equip learners with a deep understanding of how operational management can be applied in real-world scenarios, such as public-private partnerships, healthcare services, and waste collection routing.

Operational Management

Table of Contents
Operational Management.................................................................................................................1
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
a) Roles and characteristic of the leaders and managers with their differences and similarities 1
b) Functions of the managers according to the Fayol and describing the performance of these
functions......................................................................................................................................2
c) Explanation of leadership theories which are situational, systems and contingency
leadership in the Tesco company................................................................................................3
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................5
1. Explaining the various key approaches to operational management and also identifying the
method of using these approaches in Tesco company................................................................5
2.Explaining the role of store manager.......................................................................................6
3. Explaining the importance of operations management in the Tesco company.......................7
4. Identifying and assessing the major outside factors that can have an effect upon the
operation management in the Tesco company............................................................................8
5. Explaining the impact of these factors on the decision of the store manager of Tesco
company......................................................................................................................................9
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................11
Books and Journals...................................................................................................................11

INTRODUCTION
The term operational management is referred as a process of control, design and
execution of all operations related to activities that convert various inputs into desired outputs.
Input includes resources and output includes finished services and goods (Azcárate, Mallor, and
Mateo, 2017). The role and functions of operational manager who works in an organization to
develop structure and solve problems related to operations in business has been defined under
operation management.
In this report, various roles and function of managers and leaders will be discussed. An
appreciation for the role of leaders and managers perform in operations function of Tesco
Company will be made in this assignment. Lastly, description of key approaches to management
of operational activities will be made in this report.
TASK 1
a) Roles and characteristic of the leaders and managers with their differences and similarities
In an organizational structure of a company, there are different departments according to
their work and service (Chandra, and Wella, 2017). For every department, there is a manager and
for every team, there is a team leader who leads them to the right direction and achieves goals
and targets of company. In this context, Tesco have many managers and leaders and the role,
functions and characteristics of managers and leaders are as follows:
Leader – it is a person who gets the various task and work from others. The person who has an
ability to do work from employees and staff members of the company. They are playing an
essential role in an organization and motivate workers. They have better communication skills
and leadership skills and also have clear vision. They make many strategies and plans for
achieving objectives of that company. In Tesco, their leaders motivate employees and describe
their works to achieve desired goals.
Managers – the manager is known as an overall controller of department or company. The
managers are the head of all activities. They make plan for achieving desired targets. In Tesco,
there are many managers for different departments who work according to their criteria (Ebert,
Ertl and Gaither, 2014). They work for the improvement in of organizational services.
Differences and similarities of the leaders and managers -
Base leaders managers
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 Orientation The leaders are people
oriented and work according it.
The managers are task
oriented.
 Outcomes They work for outcomes
which are achievements
In this section, they work for
outcomes that are results.
 Styles Leaders work as consultative,
participative and
transformational (Gaichas and
et.al., 2016).
They work as autocratic,
transactional, dictatorial and
democratic.
 Organization They have many followers They have subordinates
 Direction They provide directions to
team
Managers provide direction to
groups or departments
 Role The role of a leader is
motivating and makes
inspiration.
In this context, their role is
planning and controlling.
b) Functions of the managers according to the Fayol and describing the performance of these
functions.
The roles and works of managers and leaders in the Tesco company are as follows:
Functions of the managers -
 Planning – the most important work of managers are making plan for fulfilment of
company's objectives and it is essential for them. Planning is a work and it is needed to
accomplish various tasks (Gray and Massimino, 2018). Planning assesses the work of
managers and provides a right way to them.
 Directing – it means a perfect manager should always give right direction to his or her
employees and done work from them. Direction is a process which includes many tasks
for achieving goals and targets of a company.
 Organizing – it means organise all employees and staff members in a specific manner
and they work according to their abilities and skills. It is also an important task which
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should be done by every manager (Litkowski and et.al., 2016). The manager should
complete this task in the right manner and without any conflicts.
 Co Ordination – this is describes as the making full co ordination among employees and
staff members. In this context, managers get help from his or her abilities and skills.
 Control – this is also one of the characteristics of a perfect manager. All managers must
control their team members.
Functions of the leaders -
1. Inspiration – It is refers as to providing proper work schedule and encourage their team
member in order to achieve the common goal. A leader always give his or her inspiration
to their team members and it is good quality of the leader (Mahdavi and et.al., 2018).
They must render suggestion to their supportive team member and help them in the
critical situation.
2. Make Vision – It is essential work of every leader to create mission and vision and
defines it to every staff member. To establish the right target is the main work of a leader
to sustain the competitive market and those target must be achieve by the company. For
achieving company's goals and targets, a leader should make perfect vision for enhancing
business. It is useful for earning profits and maintaining the organisational environment.
3. Become a Guide – A must guide their team to reach at certain height of success and earn
more profits. For every team member, a leader can become a guide and he helps his team
members (Mahdavi and et.al., 2018). The leader become a guide and give right direction
to his or her supportive employees and achieve target goals and objectives.
4. Challenge Accepter – In every company, there are many situations in which some are
critical or not. A leader always accept every situation and work better for growth and
development of company. In this context, every leader of Tesco evaluate all challenges
and they also get better results from that challenges and work in the right manner.
5. Develop Communication Skills – Every leader must have different types of qualities
and skills. In this context, he or she will work for growth of his or her team members.
Leaders lead and inspire team with teaching them different skills and develop
communication skills (Mahdavi and et.al., 2018). This is the common skill which exists
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in every leader. They communicate their team members and talking about their mission
and achieve it.
c) Explanation of leadership theories which are situational, systems and contingency leadership
in the Tesco company.
The role of a leader and functions of manager play an important role to achieve desired
goals and targets of company. The functions of a manager in the Tesco Company help to reach at
height of success (Osei-Kyei and Chan, 2017). In this organization, there are many problems and
issues and for this reason the ability of manager and techniques of a leader are very useful.
In addition to this, the accomplishment of various objectives is possible from leadership
skills. In the Tesco company, there are many leaders and they lead their team with co ordination
among employees and staff members. The skills and abilities of a leader apply as the technique
to get desired output from full utilization of their capabilities. There are various styles and traits
as well as functions which utilize in the proper management of the company. In this context,
there are some theories and strategies to be implied by a company's manager and the leaders
grow it operations in business activities.
According to leadership theories, the company Tesco use some theories in their business.
It is a multinational company and it provides various types of products and services for gaining
competitive advantages in the market (Ramos, de Morais, and Barbosa-Póvoa, 2018). There are
many leaders in this company and they lead their team with effectively and efficiently. Their
work is divided into their supportive team and they done according this. Every leader has various
types of skills and talent that are useful in their task and also useful for company. In leadership
style they adopt some useful theories for getting desired success in different situations (Roman
and et.al., 2015). These are given below :
 Situational Leadership – it is a theory provided by the Paul and Hershey and Ken
Blanchard and this is assign for conducting better leadership. According to this approach
a leader must be confidential in every situation and always work better in every situation.
This gives various methods and techniques for a leader to stable in every business
condition whether it is difficult. This theory performs an essential role in the operational
and business activities of the company. By musing this type of leadership a leader
become successful and he or she achieves desired goal and targets. It works in every
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situation whether market is stable or not stable. The business activities of Tesco company
is grown up and their leaders have sufficient skills to increase it profits.
 System Leadership – this is also a theory related to the leadership aspect. In this
approach the leaders became as a controller and works according to their plans (Sibilla
and et.al., 2014). Every leaders should follow the policies and strategies which are made
for achieving the objectives and targets of the company. The Tesco company make new
changes in their business activities and expand their business by using the leadership
skills. In this context, the system leadership work as a system where desired output must
come in the right manner. It is essential to this company to guide its staff members with
the help of right direction of leaders and earn more profit in different situations. The
organization should prepare it plan and strategy so that it will able to do work according
to it and system leadership helps for this procedure.
 Contingency Leadership – every company have an option to choose this type of
leadership for their leaders and this will too much useful. The leaders have many skills
and they also work in various situations (Stepanova, Nikolaev and Sivobrova, 2015). The
contingency approach describes as the situation where company face conflicts and for
these situations the leaders of this company have enough knowledge to ensure about
profits in this particular condition. Every leader lead their team and better communicate
their team members to organization's goal and mission. They motivate them in order to
achieve competitive advantages in different situation of market. It will also useful in
various situations.
TASK 2
1. Explaining the various key approaches to operational management and also identifying the
method of using these approaches in Tesco company.
For every company, the operational management is and important feature and it controls
and regulate the activities regarded to the operations. It serves various functions of managing the
system of converting inputs into outputs (Azcárate, Mallor and Mateo, 2017). The operational
management contains many concepts, applications and suitable theories which can useful in
operating company's business in the proper way. There are also some problems and issues related
to the social, technical and quantitative issues which are complex and time consuming process.
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So for this reason an operational manager should have all skills and have to knowledge about
solving such type of issues.
In this context, there are various types of approaches and strategies for help to the
manager in business activities. These approaches are easy to use and it rectifies all problems. The
quantitative factor includes these things related to the planning, supply chain management and
critical path analysis (Chandra and Wella, 2017). In technical issues, it consists the factor related
to the optimization, automation and scheduling etc. The operational management is the
systematic administration's strategy of any organization and it creates the highest value of
capacity which is possible for a company. In this given scenario the major approaches use by the
operational manager of the Tesco company are as follows :
six sigma concepts - it is a special approach which is use for gaining more profit in competitive
environment of market. It is a kind of mixtures of techniques and its use in many organizations.
It allows the team efforts in the completing of various work. This approach is useful for
improvement in the performance of business activities. Leaders have to accomplish all their work
with the effective use of this approach (Ebert, Ertl and Gaither, 2014). This is also known as
strategic development of the management and it uses for making road map which is customized
based approach. It ensures the optimum use of available resources and also this make sure about
the compatibility between material mix and technology. It provides proper arrangements of
staking stores as required. It adopts the statistical thinking in order to reach at quality level. It
provides flexibility to accommodate several changes in product mix and production volume.
Total Quality Management Approach - this is a process of improvising in the quality of
production of products and services in the company by making new strategies in the production
department of a company (Gaichas and et.al., 2016). This approach is known as TQM with
focused on the regular increase in the quality of all products and services. In the organizational
context, each and every products and services have its own demand and their target market. The
TQM is refers as increase the quality of every products so that the company would be able to
increase its goodwill in the market and attract more customers. So for this reason this approach
play very effectively and efficiently in various situations.
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2.Explaining the role of store manager.
For every company there is a store manager who kept day to day operations in the proper
manner and he or she develops new strategies to improve profitability, drive store sales,
customer service, make new strategies for store and arranging market programs. He or she
maintains high standard for the store and condition for a positive environment (Gray and
Massimino, 2018). The store manager make sure about customer needs, complaints and resolved
as soon as possible. Manager ensure about all displays and products which are merchandised
efficiently to increase turnover and growth in profit. He also forecasts the needs of staff and
develop a process of recruiting planning to provide proper staff members in all departments. The
store manager also require experience and work according to company's policy. A successful
manager will maintain and adjust operations and able to manage corporate budget and makes
new changes which are need to sustain the projected profit margin for each objectives and goals.
The major role and responsibilities of a store manager, describes under :
1. Maintaining Sales Environment – it is the essential duty of every store manager to
maintain required sales environment so that the company increases its sales and make
profit.
2. Managing the Assets – it is the duty of the store manager that he or she secure the store
and manage all assets and he makes sure about all appliances and equipments are
maintained properly.
3. Implementation of Market Plan – the manager should involves in maintaining the
policies and strategies regarded to market and implement them as requirement (Litkowski
and et.al., 2016). For example, he or she allocates the space for sales promotion scheme.
4. Cost Minimization – it is a compulsory assignment to be accomplished by every store
manager. It includes controlling expenses. That are important to operate a store. It is easy
by using the process of eliminating the waste, accidents and errors.
5. Recruiting – store manager should handle to the job of recruiting the right person at the
right post or designation. This process also includes the training and development
program of new employees.
6. Holding Inventory – it is also an essential activity performed by a retail or store
manager. It is a duty to record all incomings and outgoing stock sop that by this process
there are not any shortage of the stock level inside the store (Mahdavi and et.al., 2018).
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7. Budgeting and Forecasting – he or she is suitable for forecasting the organization future
performance and then manager can be able to calculate future expenditures and arrange
the budget according to the expenses.
3. Explaining the importance of operations management in the Tesco company.
There is a common belief in the normal business that is operation management is
important only for the manufacturing organization but it is also an important thing for
manufacturing as well as trading and production business. In many situations the sales assistance
also considered as operational management. In the service industry it has different amounts of
process which involves in understanding the customer needs to getting back on the provided
services. This management is purely focused on the production of services and products of a
company and it manages overall organizational activities (Osei-Kyei and Chan, 2017). In the
company Tesco the human resource department is capable for better predictions about the needs
of staff members and it develops job descriptions and they are responsible for recruitment and
training to new entrants. So for this purpose there are using the operation management to growth
well.
This is important for every department of every company whether it is involved in
manufacturing, service providing, public or private, profit or not for profit organization. The
management of Tesco company can not hope for success without any use of operation
management. By using this, the organization must use all resources appropriately to produce
more products as well as services. It deals with the department of product and services and
maintain proper growth of the organization. It also maintains the speed, quality, speed and
flexibility of company's outputs (Ramos, de Morais and Barbosa-Póvoa, 2018). The major
responsibilities of operational management is to maintain the strong power of supplier and keep
relationship with them to make sure about the raw material is being supplied in timely. It forms
the heart of the organisation by controlling the system of operations.
4. Identifying and assessing the major outside factors that can have an effect upon the operation
management in the Tesco company.
In the Tesco company, it gets affected from its outside factors and there is an essential
thing for the manager of operation management is to know all about the environment before they
start their business activities. The external factor of the company are factors which can not be
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control and manage according to the organization. In this context, the social, governmental and
many more factors are includes (Roman and et.al., 2015). The external environment of this Tesco
company comprises all the factors which consists outsides and it may have great impact on the
activities and workings of the organization. For the Tesco, there are two types of external or
outside factors these are directly interactive and second is indirectly interactive. The directly
interactive environment has an impact of immediate on the organization and in the other hand
there is indirectly interactive environment which is secondary and more impact on the
organization. In addition to this there are describing some type of outsider factor which can
affect the overall business of Tesco :
 Economy – the company can not run in the bad economy and it would not be able to
survive. There are many policies and rules related to the country's economy so that the
company should follow all rules and regulations for making more profits in various
economic conditions.
 Competition – every organization whether it will be conducting production business or a
trading business. It must face the great competition in the market and it is difficult to
attract new customers towards the company's product (Sibilla and et.al., 2014). So this
the external factor which can affect the Tesco's organizational activities.
 Politics – in every nation, there are many changes due to change the governmental
policies. Every country has their own rules and regulation and these are changeable due
to change in the politics. For Tesco, it gets great impact from this outside factor. This will
change the organizational environment and also affect the customer loyalty.
 Suppliers and Customers – every company have many suppliers and customers and
these supplier give raw material or inventory for resale or for production. These suppliers
also have impact on the business activities of the company (Stepanova, Nikolaev and
Sivobrova, 2015). The customers are depends on the quality products and services of the
organization so for this reason it is mandatory for the company to maintain the quality of
its outputs.
5. Explaining the impact of these factors on the decision of the store manager of Tesco company.
The store manager of the Tesco company get affected from the external environment of
this organization. The store manager should have all the rights to solve these impacts. Every
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business, whether it is run at large scale or small scale, is affected and there are many factors
which give their impacts on the business activities of the company (Azcárate, Mallor and Mateo,
2017). The firm can lose their revenues and profit generate capabilities because of these external
factors. There are some factors which have impacts on the decision of the store manager of
Tesco company :
 Finance – the requirement of funds and capital employed are major aspects for every
company. This is fulfilled by own capital and financial institutions. So there is an
essential thing is to demonstrate the rate of interest of these financial co operation. It will
affects more on the organization's daily business.
 Economy – in the continuously changeable environment, the company can hardly to
survive. The operations of store manager are complicated to perform in adverse situation
of the economy so it is noticeable factor.
 Infrastructure – this is also given a great impact to the company's business. A company
can run its operations threw better infrastructure and this will make organization to earn
competitive advantages in the market.
 Law – there are many rules and acts of local and state government which should be
followed by every company's store manager (Azcárate, Mallor and Mateo, 2017). It is the
main factor in the external environment of the business of Tesco. It is compulsory to
implement these rules and regulations.
 Trends – in today's environment, the fashion trend is also a measurable factor for the
store manager. The manager should noticed on this point and provides his or her service
accordingly it.
CONCLUSION
In this report the operation management of a company is most important thing and it
required proper management. In every company there are manager for assessing the whole work
related to the operations. The manager and leaders should appoint for accomplishment of all
activities and operational management. In this context, there are role and responsibilities of the
leaders and managers describing. Further, it describes the store manager and his or her liability
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about the store management. In addition to this, there are referring the impacts of outsiders
factors.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Azcárate, C., Mallor, F. and Mateo, P., 2017. Tactical and operational management of wind
energy systems with storage using a probabilistic forecast of the energy
resource. Renewable energy, 102, pp.445-456.
Chandra, K. and Wella, W., 2017. Measuring Operational Management Information
Technology: COBIT 5.0 and Capability Level. International Journal of New Media
Technology, 4(1), pp.37-41.
Ebert, D.S., Ertl, T. and Gaither, K., 2014, January. Introduction to visualization and analytics
for decision support, operational management, and scientific discovery minitrack.
In System Sciences (HICSS), 2014 47th Hawaii International Conference on (pp. 1353-
1353). IEEE.
Gaichas, S.K. and et.al., 2016. Combining stock, multispecies, and ecosystem level fishery
objectives within an operational management procedure: simulations to start the
conversation. ICES Journal of Marine Science, 74(2), pp.552-565.
Gray, J.V. and Massimino, B., 2018. Commentary on:“The Effect of Language and National
Culture on Operational Process Compliance”. World Scientific Book Chapters, pp.143-147.
Litkowski, S. and et.al., 2016. Operational Management of Loop-Free Alternates (No. RFC
7916).
Mahdavi, M. and et.al., 2018. Recent Iranian health system reform: an operational perspective to
improve health services quality. International journal of health policy and
management, 7(1), p.70.
Osei-Kyei, R. and Chan, A.P., 2017. Perceptions of stakeholders on the critical success factors
for operational management of public-private partnership projects. Facilities, 35(1/2),
pp.21-38.
Ramos, T.R.P., de Morais, C.S. and Barbosa-Póvoa, A.P., 2018. The smart waste collection
routing problem: Alternative operational management approaches. Expert Systems with
Applications.
Roman, P. and et.al., 2015, February. Concept model of resources accumulation and operational
management in biotechnology, biomedical and Web information systems. In Experience of

Designing and Application of CAD Systems in Microelectronics (CADSM), 2015 13th
International Conference The (pp. 152-155). IEEE.
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Sibilla, P. and et.al., 2014. The timing and operational management of the variables of bleaching
in cases of rehabilitation in the esthetic field. The international journal of esthetic
dentistry, 9(3), pp.436-445.
Stepanova, V., Nikolaev, A. and Sivobrova, I., 2015. Risk Factors Assessment Model in the
Regional Operational Management System. GISAP: Economics, Jurisprudence and
Management, (7).
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