Aston Martin: Analysis of Management and Operations Strategies

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of management and operations within Aston Martin, a luxury automobile manufacturer. It begins with an introduction to operations management and its significance in achieving organizational objectives. The main body delves into the roles of leaders and managers in specific situations, such as crisis management and new product launches, highlighting their responsibilities and impact on the company. It then explores different leadership theories and models, including situational, contingency, and system leadership, as well as Fielder's Contingency Model, and their application within Aston Martin. The report further examines the operational activities of the company, focusing on production, transportation, and promotion. Additionally, it discusses various approaches to operations management, such as Total Quality Management (TQM) and Just-in-Time (JIT), and their importance in achieving business goals. The report concludes by considering the factors within the business environment that influence operational management and decision-making by leaders and managers. The report uses Aston Martin as a case study to illustrate the concepts discussed.

Management and
Operations

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................4
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................4
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................4
P1. Role of leader and function of manager in specific situations..............................................4
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................6
P2. Different theories and models for approach..........................................................................6
P3. Operational activities of company........................................................................................8
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................8
P4. Different approaches to operation management:..................................................................8
P5. Importance and value of operations management in achieving business objectives............9
TASK 4..........................................................................................................................................10
P6. The factors within the business environment that impact upon operational management
and decision making by leaders and managers.........................................................................10
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
Operations management is basically a business practice to develop highest efficiency
level within the organisation. In addition to this, it is associated with transforming of raw
materials into a final product as well as service in an effective and efficient manner. It is
important for the operations manager of a company to focus on managing all the operations and
ensure that the whole process of production is systematically take place (Ruan, 2019). It help an
entity to achieve objectives and desired goals within stipulated time period. For the present
report, Aston Martin is taken into consideration. It is an auto-mobile company that manufactured
and offered luxury goods within the market. The company was established in the year 1913 by
Rober Bamford & Lionel Martin. The report will cover the roles of leaders and qualities of a
manager in business context. In addition to this, there is discussion about manager qualities is
specific situations. Further, approaches of operations management along with its importance in
attaining business objectives is described. In the last, there is discussion about factors of business
environment that influence in operational management as well as decision making by managers
and leaders of an organisation.
MAIN BODY
TASK 1
P1. Role of leader and function of manager in specific situations.
In every organisation, some of the situations is arise that has direct influence on the
performance of an entity. It is determined that Aston Martin is facing two situations at the
present time that is crisis management and new product launch as well. The situations are
describing below along with the role that leaders and managers perform at this particular
situations:
Crisis Management: It is defined as how an entity manage particular situations which is wrong
and inefficient for the company (Blossey, Eisenhardt and Hahn, 2019). Crisis management is the
detection of risks to an organisation and its members, and the organisation's means of coping
with such risks. Since global trends are unpredictable, companies need to be able to deal with the
possibility for dramatic shifts in the way they do business. Handling the situation frequently
involves action to be made within a limited time period, most often after an incident has already
happened. Companies also develop a crisis-management strategy to minimise confusion in the

case of a crisis. In relation to Aston Martin, its higher authorities and leaders face issue at the
time of recession. Due to this, the staff members giving resignation because of decline in level of
pay scale. This impact directly on the profitability and productivity of respective organisation
which in turn impact on market performance and share of the company.
 Role of Leader: Herein, the main role of leader is to influence its staff members and
focuses on providing positive working environment to employees. Eventually, in these
types of conditions role of leader becomes more crucial and important (Xu and Feng,
2019). This is so because leader is only person who is liable to assure proper
implementation of prepared plans and policies in an effective manner. In the context of
above mentioned company, this is important for leader to manage all strategies so that
team members can direct themselves to overcome from complex situations. In addition to
this, it helps company to maintain good rwelati9on with staff members due to which they
did not think to leave the organisation.
 Role of manager: The managers’ importance is similar are leader in relation to crisis
management. The role of manager is to manage different kinds of functions and activities
in a manner so that negative impact of crisis can be overcome without harming the
overall objectives of a company. At this situation, the manager's role of Aston Martin is
to gain insight about the major cause of issue and then discuss it with leaders (Thomas,
Deblecker and Ioakimidis, 2018). In addition to this, managers can assign activities in a
team’s so that all the team members focus on implementing activities and did not leave
the organisation.
New product Launch: The managers of Aston Martin identifies that adoption of electric
vehicles in market is increasing rapidly. For this, the company is decided to produce electric
vehicles as it help them to attract large number of customers by offering something new at
marketplace. In addition to this, it also assists company to enhance its performance level and
sustain in market for longer time period. In this situation, the role of leader and manger is given
below:
 Role of leader: In launching a new product it is the leader only who sets the areas where
the product needs to get introduce and makes the strategies accordingly (Liao, Tang, and
Lev, 2019). In the absence of contribution of a leader, this can be difficult for a company
to make successful launching of a product. This is so because leader is only person who

knows what need to be done about products’ successful implementation in competitive
environment. He sets the visions and mission for the product and build the path for
strategies which the company needs to follow up to attain the required objectives or
goals.
 Role of a manager: The manager is supposed to manage the employees and monitors their
performance by making sure that they all are performing at par or not. The manager also
manages the strategies which has planned by the leader and employ the employee to the
work according to his skills and knowledge (Chen, 2016). The manager also makes sure
the activities like production, marketing, distribution, sales and the like are going in the
direction which helps the company in achieving the goals set. Such as in the context of
above mentioned company, the role of manager is too crucial in order to ensure that
product has been successfully launched in accordance of STP model. As well as the
managers are also useful in the case when there is any sort of obstacles due to any
external environment factor or element.
TASK 2
P2. Different theories and models for approach
Leadership is concern with influencing the people or individual into a particular
direction. Leadership skills can get acquired by an individual through adopting the proper style
for that. Leader has a very major role to perform when it comes to achieving the task. A leader is
also a person who sets the organisation mission and vision. There are various styles or methods
of leadership is including some of them are as follows:
Situational leadership: Situational Leadership arose as one of a similar community of two-
factor leadership ideas, most of which stemmed from studies conducted in the 1960s at Ohio
State University. Such two-factor theories claim that leadership style options consist of
combinations principal variables: mission activity and partnership activity. These two principles
are defined in different ways, such as implementing structure or path for mission action and
concern, or socio-emotional aid for partnership behaviour. In this type of leadership style the
leader himself develop his skills and attitude according to the development level of his
employees. In this the leader himself changes his behaviour according to the prevailing situation.
It is the leader who brings the changes in his style instead of the employees. In the context with

Aston Martin the company's manager and leader uses this style of leadership so that they can
cope up with the change and adjust with the employees (Correa-Florez, and et al, 2018). They
surely ensure that the employees would coordinate with the managers and leaders very well
when their leader adjust their behaviour and attitude with the team. This also ensure the timely
completion of work with proper effective and efficiency. By applying an d adopting this situation
the employees get motivated and very supportive towards the organisation.
Contingency Leadership: Contingency Leadership Theory is a very specific form of strategy
which asserts that a leader 's performance does not rely solely on his ability. There are also other
influences related to the job climate, the organisational atmosphere and the staff that influence
the performance of a director in the leadership process. In this type of leadership style, the style
of a leader to lead the people gets change according to the situation arises. The leadership style
of a person does not remain constant or same through all the situation but it gets diverse and
different according to the situation applied. If in the organisation, Aston Martin the leader applies
this leadership style then they must make sure to use both internal and external factors into
considerations. This kind of leadership style helps the leader and the manager to complete the
task at time with effectiveness and productivity.
System leadership: Systems leadership is a range of skills and expertise that can be used by any
person or agency to catalyse, activate, and sustain system level change processes (Shou, Shao,
Kang and Park, 2019). It integrates collective leadership, building coalitions and analysis into
processes to drive creativity and action through a broad, decentralised network. In this type of
leadership style, the leader or the manager creates such an environment which enables the
employees to work with their full potential. In system leadership style the leader analyse and
evaluate the external as well as internal environment and then they form or implement the proper
leadership structure. As in the context with Aston Martin company, it is the leader who establish
this style, they establish it by performing the proper market environment so that they can know
about the trend and taste of the customer and accordingly they instruct the production department
so that they produce the same.
Fielder's Contingency Model: In this leadership style the leader uses the characteristics and
behaviour both of an employee in handling the situation. This style includes 3 factors which are
relation with leaders, task structure, and positioning of power (Desai and Verma, 2017). As in

the Aston Martin company, it is the leader only who optimally utilise the characteristics and
skills of the employees according to situation.
P3. Operational activities of company
The operational activity is performed by every company so that they can attain their
settled results and growth into market. The major operational activity which takes place in Aston
Martin are as follows:
Production: In this head the manager makes sure the resources and the raw materials are
available with the company so that they can pursue their operational activity. The production
activity of the company is concerned with manufacturing the high quality luxurious cars for the
high class customers.
Transportation: It is very important factor which a manager takes care of. Transportation here
implies that the product I.e. the vehicle gets transported to the final and ultimate customers. This
is the duty of manager to make the proper arrangements for the company and regularly monitors
the movements.
Promotion: The manager task is also related to getting the product promote in the market so that
the customer gets to know about it (Fu and Zhao, 2020). Promotion is a vital activity for any
business as it helps the company in educating the targeted customers about the product or service
which they are about to bring up into market place.
TASK 3
P4. Different approaches to operation management:
There are various approaches to operation management some of them includes:
Total quality management: TQM can be described as a customer-focused organisation's
management system that includes all staff in performance development (Eyers and Naim, 2019).
It uses policy, evidence, and good communication to incorporate the philosophy of value into the
organisation's culture and activities. Many of these principles are present in new, TQM-
successor quality control systems. In this type of operational management the company tries to
maintain the high standard for the product and putting the fine quality. The major purpose of the
organisation is to attract the customers through offering them quality products and services.

Just in time: The just-in-time procurement framework (JIT) is a distribution technique that
explicitly aligns manufacturers' raw-material demands with production schedules. Companies
use this procurement technique to improve productivity and minimise duplication by only
acquiring products when they require them for the manufacturing process, which decreases the
expense of inventories. One instance of a JIT supply chain is a car maker that works at low
operating costs but depends heavily on its supply chain to produce, as required, the parts it needs
for the production of vehicles. The dealer then orders the parts needed to assemble the vehicles,
only after obtaining an order. This approach demands that the suppliers correctly predict
demand. In this type of operation management, the company majorly focuses upon this
inventory. It makes sure that all its inventory gets delivered with the company at time so that
there is no stoppage in their production activity as well. This also helps the company, Aston
Martin in reducing and eliminating the wastage done into production activity.
Kaizen: The kaizen definition covers a broad variety of theories. By building a collaborative
culture, enhancing daily processes, maintaining employee involvement and making a job more
rewarding, less tiring and safer, it means making the work environment more comfortable and
productive. This method stands upon a believe that the small changes can lead to a big difference
in to the organisation production and performance (Inamori, 2018.). Here in the company, Aston
Martin would make their small but productive changes in their accounts, their packaging,
wastage system, motivational strategies and the like. All these small changes can create a big
impact upon the company's performance by leading a positive change into that.
So these are some key approaches which plays a key role in the context of better operational
management of various kinds of aspects. Though, it depends on companies that how well they
are adopting different approaches in their business.
P5. Importance and value of operations management in achieving business objectives
With the assistance of operation administration usefulness, the significance and principles
of operations management in achieving company purpose can be clarified. They are described as:
Process design- With the aid of this operational management approach, the layout of process will
render and shape the organization's business operations (Russell and Taylor, 2019). It is
important for Aston martin as the administration to make improvement in the production

environment and goods according to the needs of the local audience with the aid of it. It would
be effective and beneficial for the corporation in the sense of achieving market targets by
satisfying the demands of the customer and providing demand-specific goods and services. This
role assists the firm in the form of growing business venture efficiency and profit margins.
Control and distribution system- Business process management is an important role since it is
responsible for maintaining regulation over the procurement processes to ensure the efficiency of
the transfer of products and resources in terms of meeting the corporate priorities and objectives
of the undertaking. It performs that the purpose of the business that uses resource efficiently is
loco mote. The efficacy of this feature can be improved by embracing a strong comparative
method and by applying Aston martin's precondition framework to the business goals. The
operation and process of allocation is related in a calculative way to the successful management
of properties as per the various actions, so that the resource loss can be reduced as it helps to
improve the company's sales function.
TASK 4
P6. The factors within the business environment that impact upon operational management and
decision making by leaders and managers.
CSR- It specifies corporate social responsibility and describes it to all its owners as a
conceptualization of company that develops part of sustainable development by inter-house
fiscal, ethical and environmental advantages (Nair and Reed‐Tsochas, 2019). In Aston martin’s,
the company's administration devises CSR strategy that is effective for the stockholder and also
for the cultural welfare. The industry contributed a limited portion of its profit margins, which
are obtained by its corporate activities, for the benefit of the social and environmental forms of
company education services, environmental conservation measures and rehabilitation
programmes etc. It is therefore important for all businesses as and company is organised and run
in society so that the enterprise considers community and environment welfare effectively.
Culture- It shows the people of a given area 's thoughts, traditions and social attitudes. It plays
an important role in the management of operations at the stage of the organisational process, the
employee culture is taken into consideration according to which strategies are formulated to
improve the employee 's efficiency. In Aston martin, the commitment of politicians and

administrators determines whether the government cannot interpret the action plan by
understanding the nation's community so that local citizens can still successfully conduct their
job, so it impacts the decision-making process.
Value- It is described as an important element in the market world which a business company
recognises in terms of providing desirable products and services and for which target customers
are willing to pay every cost (Glock, Grosse and Smunt, 2019). It impacts managers and leader
certainty when the products and services generated have some importance and are important to
customers and allow competitiveness and profitability to be created. Although if the business
doesn't deliver quality goods and customers won't be willing to spend then it unfavourably
impacts the enterprise in the form of revenue and consumer base decline etc. It may also impact
company brand name and market place in particular business field.
CONCLUSION
From the above report, this has been outlined that service management is an important task
and method of managing company activity and function so that the operations of the company
can run in an acceptable manner. Leaders and administrators often work in a well-defined way in
terms of shaping strategies & policy and directing staff to execute their mission and delegate job
well. They can fulfil their positions and duties in various contexts without meeting any sort of
difficulties by incorporating diverse ideas and approaches. Different elements of the corporate
climate such as CSR, principles and community etc. affect the management of the processes and
the assessment of the effects of the actions of leaders and managers of the organisation.

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