Operations Management: A Comprehensive Analysis of Leadership, Management, and Key Factors in Amazon (UK)

This report delves into the intricate world of operations management, exploring the distinct roles of leaders and managers within the context of Tullow Oil Plc. It examines various leadership theories, including situational, systems, and contingency leadership, and analyzes how these theories are applied in practice. The report then shifts focus to Amazon (UK), providing a detailed analysis of the operations management approach employed by the company, including Six Sigma, Total Quality Management, JIC, and JIT. It further explores the key outside factors that impact operations management, such as political, economic, social, technological, legal, and environmental factors, and how these factors influence decision-making for a store manager. The report concludes by highlighting the importance of effective leadership and management in driving organizational success.

Management and Operations
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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Task 1.........................................................................................................................................4
Task 2.......................................................................................................................................12
Conclusion................................................................................................................................20
Reference List..........................................................................................................................21
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Introduction
In today’s world, an organisation or a firm needs one or more than one manager to handle the
overall functionality of the same in a competitive market. The functions of a manager and a
leader are very different yet have certain distinct similarities. A definition of leadership that is
widely adapted from the basis of theories is that it is dependent on a group of individuals
working together to achieve the same goals and share the same modicum of respect amongst
each other. In addition to that, leaders also utilise their own skill sets to contribute to the
effectiveness of a team.
This report is to present the results of the research into the adoption of a leadership and
management development programme with certain detailed differentiation of both the roles
of a manager and a leader. Each organization is privy to a different hierarchy and hence
follows a different leadership role-play. The different aspects of leadership style are
discussed with respect to the organization and a substantiate amount of attention would be
given to the examples of the styles implemented within the organization to manage the risks
and enhance the efficiency.
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Task 1
Introduction
A leader is looked upon as the epitome of diligence and his working skills. A manager is
designated to manage or supervise a group of teams. However, a leader is required to do the
same for a team of a smaller size (Chemers, 2014). This task involves the determination of
individual roles of a leader and a manager and the discussion of the leadership theories
pertaining to their environmental dominion in the respective organisations.
a) Differences and similarities between a leader and manager considering their
roles and characteristics
Some of the common leadership content themes are as follows:
 Setting a goal and a clear vision involves enabling the employees to understand the
present state of the organization and then analysing the situation to predict the future
outcome of the same.
 Motivation of employees is of immense significance to the environment of the team,
culminating in bringing out the same in the concerned team.
 Guiding employees in the path to completion of their respective roles in their work
process and the sub sequential administration with the necessary tools required to
help them. Furthermore, it would be implied that the leader should understand the
employees’ problems and help overcome them with his horde of strategies (Stetler et
al., 2014).
 An element of resolve is necessary for all leaders; from sports to politics, a good
leader is fearless and required to be competent when it comes to his decision-making
abilities.
 Building morale-The organizational value is based on the morale of the firm; the
morale, consequentially, is maintained by the leader. At times, a leader is faced with
certain difficulties and hurdles within the social and economic realm of his team
(Susca, 2018) and must overcome with his own perception.
A manager is defined as the individual who is tasked with the management of a group of
teams. Some of the common themes are:
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 Staffing and hiring new employees is a daunting task for most managers. In the
modern world, as the market gets competitive, the managers don’t scrutinize the
aptitude alone; they attain an impression of one’s temperament as well, in
synchronization to the requirement.
 Dealing with performance problems often comes up when a certain department or a
team is facing an issue or a snag in response to the designated task or the desired
outcome (Lazzarotti et al., 2016). Timely performance evaluations are also designed to assess the performance of every
team under the managerial supervision. Reporting to senior management is essential for the managerial play-makers in the
lower hierarchies of an organization. To keep them abreast of every single
development, the upper management requires the lower managerial staffs to
essentially update them with the progress reports and the track records for future
references.
This report will briefly delve in the highlights of the roles and characteristics of leaders and
managers within Tullow Oil (UK). The organisation is primarily a London-based Oil and Gas
and Production company which operates over West Africa and Asia.
Parameters Leader Manager
Traits A leader is fearless as well as
cautious. His adaptability to the
problems related gives him an edge
over his peers. A leader is stringent
and benevolent towards his
subordinates. He is modest enough
to relay the spotlight to his peers.
A manager, on the contrary,
is more self-contained. He
is eccentric by nature and
this trait, often, qualifies as
a factor for bad employee-
employer relations. His
problem-solving decisions
are a relief when the firm is
in crisis.
Roles and
Responsibilities
While a manager has the identity of
a plate spinner, a leader is more of
an anchor. His responsibilities
include the development and
instillation of trust and uplifting
The roles of a manager are
specific to the development
of the organization. It
includes staffing and
recruitment, problem
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morale, creating a vision for the
team for a better understanding,
execution of a properly-assorted
strategy and acting like a coach or a
mentor to tap the potential of each
person in the team.
solving, and decision-
making, strategic
management and
devotement of resources
based on availability,
monitoring and controlling
staff and resource budgets,
planning future-term goals,
monitoring performance
and conducting timely
assessment reports for
updating the senior
management.
Authority and Power The leader must continue to be
relentless in achieving the untapped
potential of all the team members.
More than achieving the desired
results of a designated operation,
the leader must also focus on the
socio-economic aspects of the
Tullow Oil Co.
The manager must continue
to press hard for the desired
results. As such, he should
never compromise the
employee morale and more
importantly, just like the
leader, he ought to
contribute to the team’s
efficiency by assisting
them.
Table 1: Comparison between Manager and Leader
(Source: Created by the Learner)
There are several leadership theories to discuss on. Great man theory states the impact of
great men or highly influential individuals, who have due to charisma, skills and intelligence,
have had a major impact on an organization or an event. Trait theory encompasses the human
traits that are essential to being efficient leaders. The behavioural theory, in the field of
sociology, deals with the response of leaders to certain situations and shapes the environment.
The transformational leadership theory aims at a follower-friendly principle outlining the
very basis of a leader’s persona. The head being a visionary, this style adds to the charisma of
the leader and the public appeal amongst the employees by various the-captain-leads-the-way
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examples. There are some common strategies utilised in influencing followers like vision and
the followers are simultaneously persuaded to oblige the organization by engaging their own
self-interests.
b) the functions of a manager according to Fayol and how a manager in your
organisation performs these functions using various examples link with the
chosen organisation:
The roles of a leader, based on Fayol’s management principles, are as follows:
 In Tullow Oil, the manager demarcates specific individuals and groups them into
separate departments as per their skill sets. The specialization helps in easier
recognition of separate aspects of the task and greater efficiency.
 With authority comes responsibility similar to power from respect and hence, if the
management has the authority to instruct, it must also consider the responsibility.
 Remuneration and motivation is based on the degree of performance of the
employees and the efficiency rate with respect to time and the resources allocated.
 The degree of centralization implies the concentration of the decision-making impact
on the various departments of the middle and the lower management.
The functions of a manager have a greater authoritative impact on the overall ethics of the
organisation. Furthermore, just like a leader’s roles, the functions in a managerial perspective
are macro by nature.
 Order maintenance in the company is a vital task by the manager, deputising him to
ensure allocation of proper resources to the employees. He should also look to ensure
that the work ambience is safe and socio-friendly.
 One of the management principles is equity (Rodrigues, 2001). The manager must
avoid all issues of partiality amongst his lower staff members and his peers always,
irrespective of staff quality, work-power and other essential factors. This ensures the
social job security of the employees in an organisation.
 Initiative and freedom of expression should be thoroughly persevered and followed in
all branches of the managerial hierarchy. This encourages the employees to express
new ideas.
 The management principle ‘Esprit De Corps’ resembles the motto of unity amongst
cadet corps or boy scouts. Tullow Oil, being a British firm, essentially emphasizes the
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qualities of unity and harmony in diversity amongst all areas of the firm. It adds to the
development of cultures, averting the basic germ of racism or discrimination in a
workplace and boosts the morale of the employees, leading to mutual trust and
understanding.
The two roles of a leader in the Tullow Oil Company are to inspire and motivate its
employees to practise and enhance corporate social responsibility. The overall outcome
should be to incorporate the business aspects such as environmental impact, workplace
diversity, employee voluntarism, risk management and the transparency in reporting.
Furthermore, the human rights are also exercised by the heads to avert breakdown in the
organisational harmony and the socio-economic problems are sometimes looked after with
care and empathy by the heads (Gilberthorpe, 2016).
The functions of a manager such as recruitment and decision-making are equally paramount
to the growth of a firm. When it comes to recruitment, the manager must be certain that the
candidates are deserving of the position and their forte is essential to the company’s benefit.
The decision-making abilities of a manager would require his personal discretionary powers
and foresightedness to work out the risks and devise and implement the strategies to benefit
the respective employees and the organisation overall, without compromising the roles and
legal limitations.
During the Cold war crisis, most of the petrochemical firms were fighting tooth to nail to
accommodate the supply-demand ratio and keeping the organisational harmony intact. The
managers at Tullow Oil Plc embraced the situation in a better manner and resorted to cut
down of extra costs to achieve the targets. In addition to that, the managers had a better
supply strategy based on the odds provided to respond to the global market for the need of the
products and respective services.
Certain situations require the managerial role-play to be very specific and meticulous. A large
aspect comes from the fact that it operates over West Africa. The tacit managerial tactics are
devoted to the cut down of unnecessary costs without violating international business
relations (Ofori-Parku, 2018).
c) Apply different theories situational leadership, systems leadership and
contingency leadership using various scenarios in your organisation to support
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your explanation, explain how they are applied in the organisation by any
manager.
The situational leadership model, developed by Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard, was aimed
at conceptualising the fact that every leader has a different style and every manager’s modus
operandi varies as per his aptitude and his insight. It has two fundamental concepts, namely
the leadership style and the individual’s performance level. The systematic leadership style is
an efficient process of conducting business management and is essential to the
petrochemicals company as it would require them to devise newer and cost-effective ways of
transport and product exchange between areas. Fiedler’s contingency leadership theory deals
with the leader’s effectiveness and his influence on the others. It states that a leadership
doesn’t consist of performance alone; the control over a situation and the response rate is
equally important to deciding if the leader is effective enough (Sethibe, 2015).
The democratic style states that the leadership would be participative by nature; it keeps the
employees informed. Even though the leader shares his ideas and decisions with the team, his
decision attains the ultimatum. He also allows freedom of expression, which helps the
employees to express ideas. The autocratic style is the arbitrary way of leading a team. It is
coercive in nature. As the name hints, an autocratic leader primarily depends on his power to
make decisions, which could often affect the employees. The laissez-faire style is known as
‘hands-off’ style. It gives followers the maximal freedom. The followers are also allowed to
make the decisions for the company and set the goals and the future targets of the company.
The continuum leadership styles are those kinds that are manager-oriented and manifest the
amount of freedom and power that a manager chooses to bestow upon his team and the same
that he wishes to exercise at his own discretion. Kurt Lewin, often acknowledged as the
father of social psychology, was the architect of the continuum leadership model, which was
sub-divided into the democratic, autocratic and laissez-faire styles respectively based on the
administration of power between the manager and his unit. There are several pros and cons to
this leadership style; the pros being it deviates away from the old, mystic ‘great man’ theory
and makes the leader more approachable and gives both the parties enough exposure for
dispassionate and impartial responsibility sharing. This leadership style provides the vantage
of self-learning and self-building through experience and daily retrospection. Another merit
of this style is it serves as a coaching framework and thus adds to the value of executive
leadership coaching.
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The demerits lie in the fact that these styles are considered outdated in comparison to popular
recent hypotheses by many psychologists, as they do not have a proper cache in the
competitive context of all businesses in UK. The Tannenbaum and Schmidt Continuum
leadership recognises that the chosen leadership style depends on a vista of factors, namely,
the leader’s personalities and the respective workers’ qualities at the former’s disposal.
Clearly, it practises the elements of decision-making and prioritises the need for leadership
(Tortorella et al., 2018).
The continuum represents the action area pertaining to two aspects, area of freedom available
to non-managers and degree of authority belonging to the leader. The managerial part of the
leadership is in telling and selling the decisions to the staff, which involves persuading the
staff to buy the idea. He then entertains all kinds of questions from his staff for which he
presents a ballpark of tentative decisions subject to further implementation. Furthermore, the
manager presents a problem, then gets the required suggestions, and then emerges with a
decision, which sums up the consulting form. Finally, the part where he asks his team
members to join hands and accomplish the task given or achieve the set targets within the
parameters and the limitations. Simultaneously, the manager also allows the freedom of
options to be exercised by his own team to set a strategic pattern for task-completion (Bond,
2015). Hence, the theory rightly pointed that the telling, the selling and the consulting parts
were cardinal to the manager and the joining part was essential to the subordinates. The pros
and cons of this leadership are as follows:
 The advantage of this leadership lies, hereof, that the manager has a wide range of
aspects for easy involvement and power exercise. It allows the features of delegation
and authority. It emphasizes the focus and empowers the decision-maker to judge
time, resources, etcetera and it creates a background research of the delegation model
to adjudicate about its effectiveness.
 The disadvantage is once the managerial aspect is done with, the supremoes do not
follow up with the task computation and the efficiency of the strategy set by the team
members. It assumes ‘neutral’ environment and hence doesn’t socialise much or
engage in politics. It simplifies complex decisions to a polar dimension, thus
restricting the extent of acumen usage and increase in restrictions.
In Tullow Oil (UK), the manager exercises a Lewin leadership model, which comprises the
democratic, and the autocratic styles and at times, tangentially fringes on the laissez-faire
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style. The managers have an authoritative impact on their employees and prioritise certain
aspects of the operations management field such as cost, time, resources and manpower
dependability to gain the competitive edge. In doing so, the managerial emphasis often
overlooks the employee satisfaction part, resulting in office chaos and several disgruntled
members (Franks, 2015). The managers are devout to their work and should remind
themselves to empathise with the situation of the employees. Their skill sets are however,
pivotal at times when the teams and the company, at large, face a production crisis and hence
help the organisation, overall, to overcome the odds.
Conclusion
The managerial styles and the leadership criteria are very essential to the organisational
benefits at large, without risking its values in the consumer market. A manager, above
everyone else, must remember that he is the brainchild of how the company strategizes its
objectives and forwards the company. Addition and implementation of long-term goals and
execution of the same are distinctly achievable if the leaders can adapt to the changing times
with response to the consumer audience and deploy the newer technologies like shale oil
extraction to restrict unnecessary expenditure. As petrochemicals are increasingly becoming
an expendable resource, it also helps to create background research on more innovative
methods for supply enhancement. The employees, because of such highly challenging moves
could avail the benefits for added welfare adding to the employee customer satisfaction. A
quantitative macroeconomic analysis suggests that the organisation might take a slack on the
sovereign funds and deploy more tools to assist its workforce in regions of West Africa and
Asia. The company, being a private sector company, would not deploy the laissez-faire style
as it might prove the company’s vulnerability to employee-manager conflicts of interest.
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Task 2
Introduction
The manager of a retail store is required to deliver to a seminar on operations management.
The store in context is Amazon (UK). A brand manager is often looked upon as the pilot of
most decisions in the organization. Hence, a manager must discharge his duties with utmost
care and diligence, so that his members can complete the task with a greater efficiency,
portraying the overall efficiency of the organization; this strategy should be exercised across
all the branches of the same firm to inspire confidence in managerial styles and
implementation to give a better work-field backdrop amongst employees.
a. Explain different approaches to operations management and identifying what is
used in your store.
An operations management approach is primarily based on the production arrangement and
the criteria that be-fits its maximal potency. Amazon Inc. (UK) is one of the worldwide
reputed examples of e-commerce. As such, it deploys numerous theories in several
applications of it operations management. These theories help in improving the quality and
the efficiency of services and resource management, keeping in mind, the employer-
employee satisfaction and the consumer-market adaptability range. Some of the theories and
tools that are utilised to enhance the approach are discussed as follows:
Six Sigma
Six Sigma is a measure in many organizations to strive to better market quality and process
improvement. Engineered by Bill Smith, it has recently been centralised to most companies
as a part of its business strategy. The strategies seek to control the quality of output of a
process by marking and optimization of the product defects and uses a set of empirical
statistical models. Each Six Sigma project is executed to improve the performance, increase
customer satisfaction, complement the product quality, value the consumer targets, reduce
costs and have a direct impact on ecology. Following a delineated series of steps and
techniques, it is aimed at keeping the number of defects to effectively 3.4 per million
opportunities. The key idea of this seminar would be able to manifest and enlighten others
how Six Sigma could help Amazon in ascertaining its place and consolidating its reputation
in the world market of e-commerce.
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The methodical strategy is sub-divided into two sub-methods: DMAIC and DMADV. The
DMAIC (define, measure, analyse, improve, control) method is aimed at revamping of
services and the advancement of boundaries in newer methods of experimentation in service
quality. The process usually encircles the existing processes failing to achieve the target
levels of satisfaction and product output. Each process is defined specifically to help others
learn its purpose, measured based on its pros and cons, analysed as per the leaks and
suggestions are given to improve the desired results and a steady set of control measures are
kept in place to check their snags (Basios, 2017). The DMADV (define, measure, analyze,
design, verify) aims, however, at the prospects of newer processes in serving the customer
demands better at Six Sigma quality levels. It is a benchmark that demonstrates the quality
levels at 99.9% performance for products and processes.
Total Quality Management
TQM stands for total quality management. Since Amazon is an employee-dependent
organization and involves both microeconomic and macroeconomic analysis of its consumer
audience with relation to its products, this process is devised to deliver high-quality
performance environment for the betterment of the services on a permanent basis (Parshuram,
2017). In a nutshell, there is no or little room for backpedalling in such a method.TQM and
Six Sigma both are categorised within improvement methods.
JIC and JIT
JIC and JIT are tools of inventory management and are pivotal to the assessment of
operations management in Amazon. The strategies, contrary to each other’s prospects and
aimed at accomplishing customer satisfaction standards, usually lapses between the extreme
ends. One hints at surplus inventory and the other does for inventory deficit. JIT (just in time)
applies to meet immediate customer demands when it pertains to certain products, which are
otherwise not available or are exotic to the region. For example, Amazon Global Store keeps
certain products restricted due to the political restrictions in a certain area and the customer
demands of that region are met with this process. JIC (just in case) applies to meet large order
demand-supply ratio to manage backside snags due to certain unforeseen factors- weather,
traffic, product taxes- which could plague the progress of business.
b. Explain what makes your role as a store manager a classic example of an
operations manager.
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The store manager, in certain cases, must perform the role of an operations manager. His
strategies must align responsible investment and regulatory compliance. As such, a manager
must optimize product quality and render the services effective, culminating in a better
operations management. The manager must ascertain that his task is time notwithstanding at
all costs and hence, he should innovate newer ways of improving productivity with reduction
in snags, keeping the production time constant or less than before. In addition to that, the
manager must also ensure that his store delivers on time to gain an unperturbed customer
satisfaction level and compete with other stores; often, he must take arbitrary steps in
improving better delivery services by employing better and more time-efficient agents
(employees). His own coordination would establish a marked improvement in the services
and with time, his store would capture the spotlight in front of the review board.
Another context for the impact of the managerial role and his authority comes to controlling
the cost of the products. A single product may have different sellers and in often searching
for the variants, the customer is confused as to whether choose the product by significance,
market value, product cost or others. a manager must put himself in the shoes of a customer,
enabling him to meet satisfy his criteria within a single variant; his search for a single product
would result in a range within the parameters of the costand other qualitative features. Thus,
the manager would deploy his cunning to explore better variants and establish those in a
significant range of positive customer feedback, delimiting the customer search to a lesser
and more specific range, saving time. Previously, Amazon, although a Mecca for shoppers
now, began as a miniature start-up. Hence, with the advent of newer technologies, Amazon,
like its competitors, started advancing towards newer ventures and fought over the gain of
target audiences in different retail branches (clothing, electronics, home ware, etc.) with other
firms as Overstock (USA) & Flipkart (India).
Eventually, the manager exercises his powers and discretion to distribute resources as per
their demand and conveniently categorise them as per the type. The creation of a multi-
faceted filter for any product in online shopping becomes highly valued to ease the customer
into shortening the list for the desired variety; its one feature that caught the customers’ eye.
A captain is only as good as his team. Updating and quality training on a regular basis helps
keep the managers and their respective team members refurbished about newer market facts
and trivia which could help improve the efficiency and further the benchmark of asset
management in the organization. So often, it happens that the organisational efficiency and
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response rate are curbed by certain other departments within the same, disrupting the smooth
flow of work and transmission of products and services.
Thus, the manager exercises his weight and command to establish a systematic way of
coordination and well-timed correspondence with other aspects of the business to achieve the
given targets. Decentralization of a major firm helps in proper dispersal of the goods and the
services. From greater metropolis to small-town suburbs, decentralization in Amazon has
been taken up by managers and the system of multiple couriers within the region has helped
the response rate for the beneficiaries (Srai et al., 2015). The impact of an organization’s
action on society requires an organization to understand the society in every aspect better,
much to the extent of analysing the economic and social background of the consumer market.
This development of understanding a society better in terms of its product needs is one of the
most important social movements in business marketing of the present era.
c. Explain the importance of operations management in your store.
The leaders and managers can make lemonade out of lemons in sheer times of crisis when the
company looks to overhaul the older ways of working and instil in a new spirit in the
strategic areas of planning. This aspect of a leader’s professional realm would boost all the
departments in an organization, creating a work-friendly and socially safe environment to
usher in freshness and a competitive edge amongst the members. Firstly, a leader can work
on the targets set by the top levels of management and create a pattern of modus operandi to
help his members understand the approach better (Nguyen et al., 2017). A leader can then
divide the tasks amongst his team members, deploying them to their fullest potential as per
their skill sets, thus minimizing any confusion and maximizing efficiency and a clear-cut
focus on the job. The leader can efficiently use his own skill set to contribute to the cause,
adding to the empowerment of his associates and enabling them to work up the response rate.
A leader can be said to be the mind and soul of his team. He can understand his team’s
problems more than anyone. His teamwork-centric skills and his sense of belonging boost the
team spirit, beyond any doubt.
There are several evidences where the leaders’ lack of persuasion or the presence of it has
affected the team’s performance, resulting in the breakdown of hierarchical coordination and
the correspondence in services. Often, it has happened that the leader-subordinate
understanding can affect the progress in one department of the business firm or it might hog
the spotlight for its beyond-comprehension efficacy. With the advent of technology, the
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organisation instructs the managers and leaders to help the workers adapt to the modern tools
for smoother implementation of work (Chang, 2015). Similarly, the operations management
has many bearings of improvisation and betterment. The transformed and the transforming
resources are kept in proportion to the goals of the company, akin to the modes of operation
that would facilitate keeping them in a proper balance. The transformed resources, being a
mix of target audience information, material availability and market analysis based on facts
and quotients, would eventually help the organisational management staff to deploy the
transforming resources, which comprise amenities, and staff count. As a result, leaders must
carry out a proper analysis of all the events and the market situation, which could affect the
business anyhow. They must ensure the supervising teams can create newer ways to tackle
these hurdles or improvise on the older ones.
The ways of improvisation for a manager are vast and varied. A manager can strategise newer
goals for the benefit of the company to meet its long-term demands. Thereon, the managers
must sell the idea properly and convince the staff to understand the goals properly. Once the
team units understand the objectives better, the managerial tasks are confined to checking the
efficacy and the action speed towards achieving the tasks (Budworth et al., 2015) and
motivating the teams for their own enhancement.
d. Identify and assess the key outside factors that can have an effect on the
operations management for your organisation.
Amazon is one of the largest e-commerce sites in the world, having operations and
management, almost in all countries in the world. Amazon has immense potential and has
witnessed exponential growth in its revenue and number of online customers in past five
years. The PESTLE analysis of the company will provide an understanding of the company’s
business environment.
Political
The company works alongside political influence, in simple words, the political stability in
developed countries will directly promote growth of the company. In almost all countries,
government institutions are focusing on enforcing strict laws for cybercrime, making online
shopping safe. Government bodies in developing countries are supporting e-commerce sites
to grow their business; this is in favour of the company as well.
Economic
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Amazon’s business is highly dependent on the economy of the countries in which it operates.
All developed countries around the world are having a stable economic growth, thus
increasing the chances of the company’s success. However, the business of the company is
likely getting affected due to economic recession in China.
Social
Increased use of mobile and internet services in almost all countries, is promoting the growth
of online buying habits among customers. More and more customers are choosing to buy
clothes, toys, electronics and other products through e-commerce sites. The company has
huge potential to grow its business in developing countries.
Technological
Technology is what has led to the development of online sites, making it accessible
everywhere. Thus, technology has direct relation with the company’s business. The company
can benefit from growing efficiency in information technology and may face adverse effect
due to the rise in cybercrime.
Legal
Amazon needs to adhere to the legal requirements for selling products online. There has been
increased focus on product regulation due to societal demands on business organization. This
factor is has opened new door for the company to increase their efforts to minimize
counterfeit sale on its online website. Ease in regulations for importing and exporting
products has allowed expanding its global reach.
Environmental
The company’s effort to improve its corporate social responsibility strategy is significantly
contributing to its interests. There is growing popularity of low carbon lifestyles; Amazon
can develop strategies to implement this in its operations and management. New
environmental protection regulations are forcing large corporations to take the responsibility
of environmental damage that is caused due to their activities.
SWOT analysis of Amazon is done here to analyze the internal environment of the company.
This will provide a sound knowledge about the company’s present standing.
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Strength- The Company has developed a strong name in the world; consumers prefer to look
for products on this site for buying anything online (Diehl and Bishop, 2017). Other best part
of the company is that it has proper supply chain management, which contributes in high
shipping quality. Amazon has a strong corporate culture mainly focusing on customer
satisfaction.
Weaknesses- Amazon is likely to face slight risk due to unrelated diversification. The online
website lacks in custom languages, which is a drawback for the company. Few products that
are available in the online site have high shipping costs, which might affect future financial
outcome.
Opportunities- The biggest opportunity for Amazon is the growing habit of consumers to
choose online platform for buying products. Amazon’s strategy to expand in Asia and the
Pacific is opening new opportunities for the organization. The company can also avail better
opportunities by increasing its product range.
Threats- Amazon is facing fierce competition from other e-commerce sites such as eBay,
Barnes & Nobles, OLX etc. Increasing cybercrime is likely to affect the Amazon business
slightly (Kato et al., 2015). New tax regulation in the international markets from governments
may disrupt the business.
Leaders and managers are responsible for handling all the operations and activities of the
organization. They take charge of developing new strategies and tactics for promoting
business growth and productivity. Managers in Amazon have begun focusing on finding
ways to promote and lay more emphasis on business sustainability (Wang et al., 2015). This
is very much required as the company operates its functions in almost every country. Even
though it’s an online website, it has considerable amount of impact on environment. The
company has invested immensely on developing wind farms in Texas, which is aligned with
the company’s strategy to use renewable energy for operating its international offices and
facilities.
e. How are these factors impact upon your decision making as a store manager?
Managers have lot of duties and responsibilities to handle every day; any change in the
business environment of Amazon will have impact on the operations and management
(Mahadevan, 2015). Managers must modify or even change their pattern or structure of
doing business to incorporate changes in the internal environment of the organization.
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Changes introduced in regulations related to import and export of products has allowed
managers to focus on developing expansion strategy. This they can exploit the increasing
ability of their sellers to reach overseas supplies. Managers are concerned about the
environmental impact that different activities and operations are causing. To tackle this, they
have taken few initiatives such as development of windmills to produce 300,000 Giga Watts
of electricity from renewable energy. Focusing on corporate social responsibilities, Amazon
can increase its social image and address increasing environmental protection regulations.
These efforts of managers will go a long way to increase business competitiveness in the
macro as well as domestic environment.
According to Rozar et al., 2015, the conclusion hypothesizes that large organizations are
responsible for causing immense air pollution, global warming, thus they need to realise the
importance of sustainable development and control the use of natural resources. They should
focus on incorporating green supply chain management to reduce the impact on ecology
systems. They can use various approaches to improve the efficiency of their technology,
equipment and other machineries.
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Conclusion
The highlight of this report mainly focuses on the leadership and the managerial aspects of
the operations management of a chosen organization, Tullow Oil Plc. Alongside is another
part of the same report that deals with the self-managerial roles aspired of oneself in an
organization, namely Amazon. One can be enlightened with the leadership and management
theories that could help garner the working pace of an organization at the ground level and
increase the efficacy of all the teams or departments involved in the rhythm of the given
tasks. As per the research depicts and proves, several models are performed or taken up by
leaders to work upon their teams. Often, the contingency models are examined to moderate
the psychological effect on the team members. The situational leadership models are carried
out during critical situations. In addition, the second part of the task highlights the role of a
brand manager as a classic example by explaining a self-made profile. Certain steps have
been put to the centre-stage to explain the listeners how a manager or a leader can properly
affect and effect upon the team’s performance and their psyche, eventually drawing the path
of a company’s overall progress in the immediate future.
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