Operations Management and Service Excellence: A Case Study of Cafe O Beauty Salon

This case study examines the operations management practices of Cafe O Beauty Salon, a newly established beauty salon offering a wide range of services and products. The study analyzes key operational processes, including human resource management, training, communication, forecasting, purchasing, budgeting, and inventory management. It also identifies five performance objectives crucial for the salon's success: quality, speed, dependability, flexibility, and cost. The study further explores key suppliers to the salon's operations, including manufacturers, distributors, independent craftspeople, and third-party consultants. Finally, it highlights initial areas of concern for the salon's operations management, such as globalization, sustainability, ethical misconduct, effective communication, and system design.

[ OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT AND SERVICE EXCELLENCE]

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CAFE O BEAUTY SALON
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW...........................................................................................3
KEY OPERATION MANAGEMENT PROCESSES IN CAFE O BEAUTY SALON.................4
FIVE PERFORMANCE OBJECTIVES.........................................................................................5
KEY SUPPLIERS TO THE CAFÉ OF SALON OPERATIONS...................................................7
INITIAL AREAS OF CONCERN..................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

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CAFE O BEAUTY SALON
INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW
Generally, the beauty salon is an establishment dealing with beauty or cosmetic treatment for
women and men. Cafe o beauty salon is upon commencement of operations and sell of wide
range of beauty products and services. The salon provides quality skin, nail and hair services,
along with the quality cosmetic products to the consumers. The salon is dedicated to constantly
providing high consumer satisfaction through giving exceptional services, quality products and
endowing an enjoyable atmosphere along with value for money relationship. The salon offers a
variety of services involving pedicure and manicure, hair styling and cutting, and often cosmetic,
makeovers and makeup.

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CAFE O BEAUTY SALON
KEY OPERATION MANAGEMENT PROCESSES IN CAFE O BEAUTY SALON
The importance of the operation management is quite embedded in every determinant of the
service sector such as beauty salon. The key management operation processes in café o beauty
salon are:
 Sourcing and managing effective human resource for the salon such as professional
hair dresser, beauty artists etc. through effective recruitment and selection
procedures
 Providing effective training to the staff on regular basis
 Maintaining effective communication with the client as well employees to promote
positive culture (Krajewski, et al. 2015)
 Establishing objectives and goals for the salon and also formulating policies for the
same
 Forecasting system demand for the smooth running of the operations of the salon
 Monitoring all the significant purchasing for the right authorization of the right
material such as cosmetic, furniture etc. at the right quality and quantity at the right
price (Krajewski, et al. 2015)
 Keeping the salon on track through budgeting and controlling cost which can be
achieved through management of the supply chain and other resources
 Generating a clearer and better inventory management in salon specially for peak
seasons such as charismas and summer (Slack, et al. 2010)

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CAFE O BEAUTY SALON
FIVE PERFORMANCE OBJECTIVES
The key five perforce objectives of the café of salon business are:
QUALITY: considering the customer’s prospective, quality in salon refers to the characteristics
of the services such as aesthetics, performance and reliability. In addition, the consistent
conformance to the expectations of customers is quality (Heizer, 2016).
SPEED: the speed in the salon refers to the intervened or elapsed time between consumers
requesting services and then actually receiving the. It should be fast and turn out time should be
reduced (Subramanian and Ramanathan, 2012).
Figure: five performance objectives in operation management
Source: Slack, et al. (2010)
SpeedQualitydependabilityCostFlexibility

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CAFE O BEAUTY SALON
DEPENDABILITY: dependability in salon refers whether the salon can deliver service that was
promised to customers of salon.
FLEXIBILITY: the volume flexibility refers to the process of making balance between capacity
and demand i.e. the ability of the company to be performed profitably at different overall output
levels in salon (Heizer, 2016).
COST: in salon, cost refers to the amount that has to be waged in order to get something i.e.
variation in unit cost due variation in volume of production. It is an important factor as it affects
the final price of the services (Slack, et al. 2010).
All the aforementioned objectives are multidimensional and can be utilized by café of salon to
gain strategic and competitive advantage in the industry.

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CAFE O BEAUTY SALON
KEY SUPPLIERS TO THE CAFÉ OF SALON OPERATIONS
Suppliers are very much important to any business as they are backbone of the products and
services offered by company. Key suppliers for the salon business are:
MANUFACTURERS: initially, the producers of manufacture of the beauty products or
cosmetics are the biggest supplier of the beauty salon because all the services of the business are
dependent on it (Barratt, et al. 2011). In addition, the manufacturer of the furniture or other
necessary resources required for the operations.
DISTRIBUTORS: Secondly, distributors also known as jobbers, brokers and wholesalers who
buy beauty or cosmetics products from manufacturers in bulk and warehouse the products for
sale. Their price is slightly high from the manufacturers but provide small quantity products.
INDEPENDENT CRAFTSPEOPLE: to gain the unique collection of the products and services
craftspeople are used by the companies. Here to get the unique beauty products or cosmetics
craftspeople could be beneficial suppliers for the café o beauty salon (Jacobs, et al. 2014).
THIRD PARTY CONSULTANTS: third party suppliers either for human resources or other
resources should also be considered by the café o beauty salon for better efficiency and
affectivity (Barratt, et al. 2011).

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CAFE O BEAUTY SALON
INITIAL AREAS OF CONCERN
Operation management is the multidisciplinary area of study that is focused on managing all the
constraints of the operation of the organization. Operation management is concerned with all the
areas of planning and controlling of all the functions essential for the provision of products and
services of the organization. Generally, the company generates strategies and plans to cope with
the challenges and opportunities that arise in its specific operating environment; it should be
started with the system design which is capable of generating quality services in demanded
quantity in satisfactory tenure (Slack, et al. 2010). The major areas of concern, while studying
the operations management are globalization, sustainability, ethical misconduct, effective
communication and system design.

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REFERENCES
 Barratt, M., Choi, T.Y. and Li, M., 2011. Qualitative case studies in operations
management: Trends, research outcomes, and future research implications. Journal of
Operations Management, 29(4), pp.329-342.
 Heizer, J., 2016. Operations Management, 11/e. Pearson Education India.
 Jacobs, F.R., Chase, R.B. and Lummus, R.R., 2014. Operations and supply chain
management (pp. 533-535). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.
 Krajewski, L.J., Malhotra, M.K. and Ritzman, L.P., 2015. Operations management:
processes and supply chains. Pearson.
 Slack, N., Chambers, S. and Johnston, R., 2010. Operations management. Pearson
education.
 Subramanian, N. and Ramanathan, R., 2012. A review of applications of Analytic
Hierarchy Process in operations management. International Journal of Production
Economics, 138(2), pp.215-241.

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