Factors Impacting Operations Management and Decision-Making at Amazon

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Amazon's operations management. It begins by outlining key approaches, including Six Sigma, Total Quality Management (TQM), and Just In Time (JIT), and how these are utilized to improve efficiency and quality. The report then details the roles and responsibilities of leaders and managers within Amazon, emphasizing their roles in planning, organizing, directing, staffing, coordinating, and controlling operations. It further explores the importance and values of operations management in achieving business objectives, highlighting its impact on profitability, innovation, customer satisfaction, and brand loyalty. The report also examines factors within the business environment that impact operational management and decision-making, such as corporate social responsibility, business ethics, and stakeholder influence. Finally, the report references relevant sources to support its findings.

Management and Operation

TABLE OF CONTENTS
P4 Key approaches to operations management.....................................................................1
P4 Role that leaders and managers play with regard to Amazon operations management....2
P5 Importance and values of operations management in achieving business objectives.......3
P6 Factors within business environment that impact upon operational management and
decision making by leaders and managers.............................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

P4 Key approaches to operations management
Operations management is analysed as an important process to utilise the resources of
business enterprise in effective manner. It is a part of business in order to administer the
activities of the business enterprise and improvement of production quality. It is critical to make
sure that strategic direction of business is maintained by executing tactical decisions of
utilisation of resources in order to ensure that the competitive advantage is maintained. Amazon
Inc. is an American electronic and cloud computing organisation which has now become the
world’s largest online retailer (Jacobs, Chase and Lummus, 2014). The organisation has created
its individual websites, software development, customer service and fulfilment centres in various
locations around the world. Managers and leaders in organisation are highly responsible for
effective accomplishment and regulation of business operations. Further, for management of
operations, they implement various approaches which are mentioned above:
 Six Sigma approach: It simply refers to measurement of quality which strives for near
business perfection. Six-sigma is the major approach which has enabled the manager and
leaders of Amazon to effectively manage and control their products and service quality
(Heizer, 2016). It is also considered as data driven methodology used for elimination of
defects and problems in business operations. Amazon is widely established online retail
and cloud computing service provider organisation which has provided more emphasis on
improvement of quality.
 Total Quality Management: As the analysis, managers in Amazon are responsible to
control the quality of work and delivery of customer satisfaction. The role of managers is
to manage the performance and improvements in the products and services towards the
customers (Total Quality Management (TQM) And Quality Improvement, 2017). They
also made improvement within culture to analyse the customer requirements and current
trends in market. It is also the job of the managers in Amazon to support the total quality
management in organisation. Managers of Amazon have also play the role to optimise
the use of resources to match overall business objectives of quality within service.
 Just In Time (JIT) approach: Management of Amazon always use JIT approach in
production department in order to reduce the waste and appraising the efficiency in
management of inventory as goods and services adequately ordered to keep in inventory
in demand (Kato and NEC Corp, 2012). Further, cost of managing inventory can also be
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reduced with this JIT approach. Waste can also be reduced with an appropriate
forecasting of demand and consumptions of operations. Moreover, manager utilises these
approaches in order recycle and re utilises the product for decreasing the overall wastage
from the operations. In addition to this, products are completely refurbished for
improving the quality and minimising the waste within enterprise.
P4 Role that leaders and managers play with regard to Amazon operations management
There are various important roles and responsibilities have been accomplished by
managers and leaders of Amazon Inc. in order to improve and increase the quality of operations.
Below given points will determine the important roles which have been continuously performed
by them such as:
 Planning: It is important for the manager of Amazon to plan and establish key objectives
of company which complies to increase the profits and sales of products. Strategies which
are prepared by Amazon related to goals of enterprise involve Kaizen which also
provides contribution in continuous improvement in the process of marketing to increase
brand recognition and publicity in market (Slack, Brandon-Jones and Johnston, 2013).
The role of leaders in Amazon is to communicate these important roles developed
managers to staff and concentrate on the efforts of workers within accomplishment of
these common goals and objectives.
 Organizing: Amazon managers focus on organising and utilising resources of business
enterprise in effective direction to accomplish company’s goals and objectives. Further,
role of leaders is to efficiently allocate the resources and provide motivation to
employees in the completion of goals and ambitions (Walker and Walker, 2016).
 Directing: Managers tend to direct the task that needs to be performed by employees and
workers of Amazon Inc. but leaders plays roles in developing a team and directing how
the work needs to be accomplished effectively.
 Staffing: It is the important responsibility of operations manager and leaders to put right
person on right job in Amazon to ensure effective management and completion of tasks
(Prahlad, Pawar and CommVault Systems Inc, 2013). Leaders keep motivating the staff
and allocate jobs according to their competencies and communicate with them to resolve
various problems with the evaluation of their business performance.
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 Coordinating: Study has determined that operation's manager of Amazon coordinate the
functions of company for achievement of better outcomes (Brown and Bessant, 2013).
Role of leaders in these functions is to coordinate the business activities in order to
implement best practices. This develops coordination between employees with help of
communication and effective leadership skills.
 Controlling: In this, strategies have been made and implemented by managers in
organization control business operations. Leaders in Amazon are controlled and
monitored by managers of company. They will verify results of employee’s performance
in comparison with established standards. They also provide guidance to employees to
improve their performance after analysis of results.
 P5 Importance and values of operations management in achieving business objectives
Role of operations management is very essential for products and services of Amazon to
be effective and efficient. It can significantly influence the profitability of retail organisation.
This has become an important factor to maximise profits and values. In this context, operations
management tends to increase opportunities of growth and development of company’s position
in market (Schniederjans, Cao and Triche, 2013). Further, managers in operations department of
organisation provide more importance to application of digital technologies and promotion of
communication with clients and customers digital media in order to make company more viable
across the world. With effective operation's management, Amazon will get support in increasing
innovation and transformation of business processes to increase customer satisfaction and
resolving redundancies.
In addition to this, operations management also adds values towards success of
organisations by increasing brand loyalty among customers and reducing cost of products and
service in market. Increase in employee’s efficiency will add values and create competitive edge
rivals like Flipkart etc.
Presently, Amazon has faced various problems in supply chain management due to some
redundancies created by employees in supply of products to customers. Providing improper
service and ineffective products have influenced its brand image. In order to remove these
redundancies, managers have decided to improve its hierarchy and to change business
procedures. Effective leadership styles are applied by managers to motivate employees of
operations department in organisation (Mahadevan, 2015). Proper management of functions will
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enable company to excel its progress in market. Further, issues related to data security have been
faced by organisation and for this, they have taken various steps to improve data security
software at workplace. Rather, leader also tries to make effective allocation of resources in order
to remove wastage. In this, operational efficiencies of Amazon can be improved to meet the
objectives. Business aim at increasing profitability and sustain in competitive market.
P6 Factors within business environment that impact upon operational management and decision
making by leaders and managers
Business of Amazon has been highly influenced by external factors which exist in
business environment. Managers and leaders will make their decisions after analysing these
factors so that redundancies can be resolved effectively (Barton and Court, 2012). External
factors involve those elements which are not in control of organisation. In this context, there are
some factors have been identified which can provide impact on operation's management of
Amazon. These are as follows: Corporate social responsibility: It implies roles and responsibilities that need to be
performed by Amazon to provide support to local communities and societies in UK.
Policies of government of UK have also bound corporate organisations like Amazon to
contribute towards development of local communities by providing employment
opportunities and financial support. Further, this has increased cost of operations of
Amazon (Laudon and Laudon, 2016). Further, it has also provided positive impact on
perception of customers towards company and tends to raise growth of sales in market.
 Business Ethics: Ethical operations are required to be carried out by organisation in order
to remove any discrepancies on business (Bugiotti and et.al. 2012). In past several years,
Amazon has faced issues and penalties due to unethical practices of its employees which
have influenced its profitability and ability to meet customer requirements. It implies that
Amazon needs to carry out its operations by following regulation such as consumer law,
common law, employment act, health and safety act and quality management etc.
 Stakeholders: These are analysed as parties which are directly related business such as
consumers, employees, suppliers, clients, agents, competitors and government (Brown
and Bessant, 2013). Among these, competitor’s strategies and decision also affects
business operations etc. technology has also provided power to consumers for selection
of appropriate products and services which has also raised competitor’s rivalry among
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customers. Change in customer’s perception towards products will also influence sales
and revenues of enterprise.
However, manager will plan to ensure that cost of operations of Amazon will tend to decline
to increase profitability. They will also put emphasis on customer requirements and apply
innovation in products and services to meet quality and requirements of product.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals:
Barton, D. and Court, D., 2012. Making advanced analytics work for you. Harvard business
review. 90(10). pp.78-83.
Brown, S. and Bessant, J., 2013. Strategic operations management. Routledge.
Bugiotti, F. and et.al., 2012, March. RDF data management in the Amazon cloud. In Proceedings
of the 2012 Joint EDBT/ICDT Workshops (pp. 61-72). ACM.
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.
Kato, K., NEC Corp, 2012. Operations management apparatus, operations management system,
data processing method, and operations management program. U.S. Patent 8,225,144.
Laudon, K.C. and Laudon, J.P., 2016. Management information system. Pearson Education
India.
Mahadevan, B., 2015. Operations management: Theory and practice. Pearson Education India.
Prahlad, A. and Pawar, R.S., CommVault Systems Inc, 2013. Systems and methods for
performing data management operations using snapshots. U.S. Patent 8,595,191.
Schniederjans, M.J., Cao, Q. and Triche, J.H., 2013. E-commerce operations management.
World Scientific Publishing Company.
Slack, N., Brandon-Jones, A. and Johnston, R., 2013. Operations management. Pearson.
Walker, J.R. and Walker, J.T., 2016. Introduction to hospitality management. Prentice Hall.
Online
Total Quality Management (TQM) And Quality Improvement, 2017. [Online]. Available
through:<https://www.thebalancesmb.com/total-quality-management-tqm-2221200>
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