Operations Management in Retail: A Case Study of Asda

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Management and Operations
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Table of Contents
Introduction...................................................................................................................... 3
LO1.................................................................................................................................. 4
LO2.................................................................................................................................. 8
LO3................................................................................................................................ 13
LO4................................................................................................................................ 19
Conclusion..................................................................................................................... 21
Reference List................................................................................................................ 22
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Introduction
In the particular study, diversified process regarding operation management and its
relationship with enhancing the wider functionality of a business organisation will be
analysed. In order to do so, different seminal as well as contemporary theories
regarding management will be used. Moreover, the functionality and role of different
managers and leaders will also be analysed in given context. Moreover, appreciation of
managers and leaders in context to wider business function will also be discussed at the
study. Lastly, the core relationship between management and leadership theory will also
be illustrated at the study.
In order these activities, Asda has been taken into consideration. It is a supermarket
retailer belonging from UK. It has been introduced towards the marketplace at the year
of 1949 and the organisation has stores at 600 other locations. However, it has been
observed that their overall revenue generation reaches €21.666 million, which is much
lower than their previous year revenue. They have more than 150,000 employees,
which clearly indicate that they belong from large organisation category.
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LO1
P1 Define and compare the different roles and characteristics of a leader and a
manager.
Basic ideology behind manager
A manager can easily be described as such an individual who is solely responsible for
conducting or allocating a bunch of different tasks in context to their respective
organisation. Managers generally have different types of subordinates who report
towards them for supporting their works. In any organisation, there are different types of
managerial roles and responsibilities. As an instance, in Asda department heads
incorporates the post of manager and there are also team leaders who also
incorporates the post of manager. However, the overall role and responsibility of these
two managerial posts is entirely different from each other (Ferguson et al., 2016). The
team leaders are responsibility for leading different teams such as production team or
marketing team whereas department heads mainly manages the overall functional
departments such as HR, marketing, finance and many more.
Despite the fact that different managers have different organisational roles and
responsibilities, they have some common attributes in between them. It has been
illustrate below-
Planning- Managers mainly select some effective aims and objectives so that they can
make an action plan for their subordinates so that they can further reduce chance
getting into confliction.
Organizing- By organizing functionality, managers are able to define a particular
process that can be followed for achieving the goals and objectives.
Controlling- They can monitor the overall performance schemes of their employee
base while conducting the controlling function (Saucedo-Martínez et al., 2018).
Directing- They can motivate their subordinates through this function.
De Bono’s Six Thinking Hat
This model is based into managerial functions and manager can use the model at
meetings and conferences. Each of those six components has different thinking style.
Those are white hat, red hat, black hat, yellow hat, green hat and blue hat.
Figure 1: De Bono’s Six Thinking Hat
(Source: Gibson and Parkman, 2018)
White hat mainly puts focus towards availability of adequate data; on the other hand,
red hat is the emotional factors that are associated with managerial function. In addition
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to that, black hat provides the chance at analyzing potential negative impacts that might
disrupt the functionality of organisations like Asda. Yellow hat let the managers to think
positive outcomes and green hat increases managerial creativity. Lastly, blue hat is the
representation of process control.
Differences between managers and leaders
Base of
conducting the
differences
Leader Manager
Meaning Leaders influence people for
achieving a particular goal
(Gibson and Parkman, 2018).
Manager on the other hand is solely
responsible for directing, planning,
controlling and coordinating.
Approach They just set the direction for
getting success.
Managers plans for getting towards
the direction.
Attribute Leaders generally have
foresightedness attribute.
Mangers on the other hand have
mindful attributes.
Decision
making
They facilities the entire
decision making process
They make the actual decisions in
organisations like Asda.
Key Focus They mainly take the
responsibility of their
workforce.
Mangers of Asda mainly focus into
their organisational procedure as
well as process.
Classical
theory
Classical leadership theory
mainly incorporates with
leading people with extensive
efforts so that their employees
can follow that to become
even more productive.
Whereas, classical management
theory incorporates the fact that
mitigating the economic and
physical needs of employees can
lead towards increased productivity
(Chiarini and Vagnoni, 2015).
Behavioral
theory
Behavioral theory states that
leaders have not born as they
made their leadership
qualities by thriving into real
situations.
On the other hand, behavioral
theory describes that movement
into human relation has the ability of
leading towards solving the
problems of employees, which is a
major function of managers.
Table 1: Differences between leaders and managers
(Source: Created by the learner)
Despite the fact that leadership and management have a range of differences, they also
inherit some brief similarities. Description of these similarities has been described
below:
The main similarity of leadership and management is that both of them work alongside
with each other for achieving similar organisational goals and objectives. In addition to
that, both leaders and managers supervise a group of different team members.
Moreover, both the leaders and managers of organisations like Asda are accountable
with gaining positive outcomes (Uhl and Gollenia, 2016). Additionally, both of leaders
and managers are responsible for making effective communication and performance
measurement of their subordinates. Lastly, it can be described that both leaders and
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managers are solely responsible for managing the motivation level of their employment
base.
Basic ideologies of leaders
Transformational leadership- This leadership approach mainly assists the leaders to
inspire, motivate and encourage their subordinates so that they can get success at
future context (Lawrence et al., 2015).
Transactional leadership- The leaders of Asda mainly follows the leadership approach
so that they can make effective compliances for their overall employee base and those
compliances are followed by punishment and rewards.
Action-centric leadership- This leadership model can be described as such template
that can also be refereed as three circles model. Those three components of this model
consists attributes like task, individual and team. As per the leadership model, leaders
belonging from organisations like Asda need to achieve their particular tasks by
managing a group of different individuals. They are also associated with the
responsibility of making up effective teams where members of the team can conduct
work in effective and efficient manner (Reid and Sanders, 2015). Moreover, the
leadership theory and trait also identifies the fact that creation of effective plan and
delegating work with other individual falls under the roles and responsibilities of leaders.
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LO2
P2 Examine examples of how the role of a leader and the function of a manager
apply in different situational contexts.
Any kind of retail organisation like Asda might face three different types of situation
while conducting their normal and day-to-day operations. Those are stable situation,
fast changing situation and slow to moderately changing situation. Managers and
leadership functions of organisations like Asda can differ in these changing situational
aspects. A brief description has been represented below, which will show the
accountability and credibility of different managers and leaders in these changed
situational contexts.
Stable situation- In context to organisations like Asda, stable situation means there is a
subsequent and stable demand of different products and they are successful at
maintaining the overall demand and production level at certain extension. Stable
situation also simplifies the fact that leadership, management operation of organisations
like Asda is stable, and it does not need any major changes (Schönsleben, 2018). While
going through stable situation, the leaders and manager can incorporate themselves
with behavioral leadership theory so that they can solve the current problems of their
overall employment base. In addition to that, in stable situations the leaders and
managers do not need to make extensive change at their organisational functionality.
Slow to moderately changing situation- Asda might have to face this kind of situation
when they face a slightly increased demand of different products and services from their
consumer base. At the situational context, the demand and supply ratio of different
organisations as Asda is conflicted and resulted into disrupted situation. In order to
thrive at this situational context, the leaders and managers belonging from the same
organisation have to make positive amendments at their production and demand level
(Bromiley and Rau, 2016). It has been observed that managers focus into their
organizing functionality so that they can make their employees coping up with the
increased demand.
Fast changing situation- From the perspective of this situational context, it has been
anticipated that organisations like Asda might face a high disruption among the
demands and supply of different products. For coping up with fast changing situation,
situational leadership theory can be taken into consideration. Moreover, for minimizing
different negative aspects of fast changing situation, the leaders and managers has to
make effective communication channel between their functional departments, which is
also their primary function. In addition to that, both leaders and managers need to
measure the performance of their subordinates so that they can find the gap at their
employee performance.
P3 Apply different theories and models of approach, including situational
leadership, systems leadership and contingency.
Situational leadership theory
Application of the exact theory suggests the leaders of Asda that there are no particular
approaches of leadership styles and traits as it mainly depends into the current situation
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of the organisation. As an instance, the leaders of Asda need to take different actions as
per the current requirement of their situation.
As per the leadership theory, effective leaders are those who have the capability of
adopting a well-suited strategy that is helpful at conducting some particular task.
Different factors such as nature of employee group, type of actual task and many others
can directly contribute towards changed leadership approach and traits at some
extension.
Figure 2: Situational leadership theory
(Source: Ravindran, 2016)
This leadership theory can also be described as Hersey Blanchard’s leadership style
and it also describe that there are four primary leadership styles, which are telling,
selling, participating and delegating. Description of each style has been described
below:
Telling- As of the leadership style, leaders mainly tells their subordinates what and how
to do a specific task.
Selling- The particular leadership style has some back and forth relationship among the
actual leaders and their subordinates of organisations like Asda a certain extension. In
the leadership approach, the leaders mainly sell their ideas towards their subordinates
for enhancing the overall functionality of the organisation.
Participating- In the leadership style, the managers does not direct their employees
frame by frame as they allows their subordinates to take active part at the decision
making part of their organisation.
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Delegating- This is such a leadership style that helps the other workers of the
organisation to take active part at the decision making process.
However, it has been observed quite frequently that situational leadership theory has
some brief positive and negative impact. Description of advantages and disadvantages
has been described below:
Advantages
 It mainly recognizes the overall needs of flexibility in terms of organisational
context
 It helps at creating comfortable workforce in context of their overall employee
base
 It can also take diversified business phases for the development process of
entire organisation
 Moreover, the leadership theory also increases awareness into the employee
base.
Disadvantages
 Since it put more focus into immediate needs, it is natural that it neglects different
long-term need at certain extension.
 In addition to that, sometimes it creates confliction towards the overall
functionality of leaders, which is a disadvantage of the leadership theory.
System leadership theory
In accordance with system leadership theory, it clearly indicates the fact that
organisations like Zara mainly create such a workplace that is well suited for their entire
employee base. Moreover, system leadership assist an organisation at creating such a
workplace that has been made out of natural human behaviour at certain extension
(Radnor and Bateman, 2016). While implementing system leadership theory, it will be
quite easy for the leaders belonging from organisations like Asda to understand the
basic preferences and needs of their employee base.
Figure 3: System leadership theory
(Source: Kopardekar et al., 2016)
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Advantages
 System leadership can radically increase the morale of employees that will
ultimately result towards decreased employee turnover rate.
 It can increase the entire productivity of organisations like Asda.
Disadvantages
 It fails at curing corporate related problems.
 In addition to that, crises of workplace cannot be minimized while accumulating
system leadership theory.
Contingency leadership theory
The contingency leadership theory implies the fact that complete effectiveness from the
perspective of a leader is entirely contingent upon the leadership style that he/she has
been thriving (Grant et al., 2017). However, contingency theory does not disregard the
personality of a leader belonging from different retail organisations like Asda. The
advantages and disadvantages of contingency leadership theory has been analysed
below:
Advantages
 Contingency theory is quite dynamic in nature, which can change in accordance
with the chanced organisational situation.
 Moreover, contingency leadership theory also has the ability of enhancing
decision-making skills.
Disadvantages
 The main disadvantage of contingency leadership approach is its complex nature
can increase confliction among the management as well as the employees.
 Additionally, since it is quite reactive in nature, it has been observed that some
situations become quite hard for the manager to handle.
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LO3
P4 Explain the key approaches to operations management and the role that
leaders and managers play.
Operation management from the perspective of different retail business organisations
like Asda generally looks after towards the overall business related operations of the
particular organisation. The key motive regarding operation management is closely
related with the assessment and procedure of raw materials towards existing product
base. In recent context, it has been observed quite radically that organisations are
failing at improving and stabilizing their organisational efficiency, which ultimately lead
them towards decreased profitability and revenue generation (Fu et al., 2015).
Therefore, diversified retail organisations like Asda can incorporate a range of different
approaches for further increase their organisational efficiency in recent context.
Different approaches regarding TQM (Total Quality Management) can be taken into
consideration by the retail organisations like Asda at improving their overall efficiency.
Description of these approaches has been described below:
JIT (Just-in-time)- JIT is such a management reacted process that is quite useful and
constructive towards meeting up with the current demand of the consumer base while
minimizing delays. Overall concept of JIT can be implied towards the organisations like
Asda at enhancing their competitive advantage while minimizing most of their waste and
they can improve the efficiency and quality of products.
Figure 4: JIT
(Source: Haksever and Render, 2017)
The approaches of JIT prevent retail organisations like Asda to identify and correct the
key obstacles that resulted towards decreased efficiency. It also has the ability of
improving the overall storage option of retail organisations like Asda. Moreover, JIT can
limit the usage rate of inventory from the perspective of retail organisations like Asda so
that they can further move up their efficiency. The leaders of organisations as Asda is
responsible for conducting the JIT approach of improving efficiency.
Continuous improvement (Kaizen)- Kaizen is such an approach that can be
considered by the leaders and managers of retail organisations like Asda at
incorporating a continuous improvement method that will inevitably lead towards
increased production and moved up profitability (Mahadevan, 2015).
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Figure 5: Continuous improvement (Kaizen)
(Source: Mahadevan, 2015)
The basic concept and ideology regarding Kaizen is surrounded of myriad
interpretation. Kaizen mainly uses a broad range of tools and other approaches such as
value stream mapping and other mapping techniques in order to be adopted with
documentation, improvement and documentation.
Six-sigma- Six Sigma is a statistical based, data driven and disciplined approach that is
adhere of some continuous improved methodology so that organisations like Asda can
minimize different forms of defects from their entire product base. It can be illustrated as
a basic principle of operational quality management and maintaining the particular
approach can help organisations like Asda at improving the overall satisfactory rate of
their employees as well as their consumers (Addo-Tenkorang and Helo, 2016).
Figure 6: Six-sigma
(Source: Lu et al., 2018)
Sigma mainly implies the facts and statistics regarding standard population deviation. It
is a measurement variation for a set of different data and information regarding
conducting a particular process. Such a defect has been defined by some specific limit
regarding separating good products from bad products at certain extension.
Six-sigma might also pose as a process performance as well as measurement
technique that has been quite helpful towards measuring the overall improvement
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