DAM762 Strategic Operations: Zappos' Culture, Holacracy, and Lean

This presentation delves into Zappos' strategic operations management, focusing on its organisational culture and the implementation of holacracy. It examines Tony Hsieh's adoption of holacracy to balance productivity and innovation during organizational expansion and his approach to accelerate its progress. The presentation further explores Zappos' customer-centric strategy, termed "WOWing," and its impact on vendor and customer relationships. Additionally, it addresses the importance of customizing product offerings and creating a sustainable operational strategy to achieve corporate objectives efficiently. The analysis draws parallels with Toyota's lean management system, highlighting its effectiveness in achieving customer satisfaction and streamlining production. The presentation concludes by underscoring the successful implementation of lean production principles and their contribution to achieving desired organizational outcomes.

Introduction
•The study mainly focused on the organisational
strategic operations management.
•Through the discussion, the researcher has
analysed the Zappos organisational culture, its
holacracy strategy for the operational
management and Zappos business level strategy
(Gelei, Losonci & Matyusz, 2015).

Q1 (A)
•Holacrcy is the automated operating system
which is self governed (Rinehart, Huxley &
Robertson, 2018).
•It helps to inspire the employee to work more
actively. In Zappos, Tony Hsieh adopted this
strategy to balance the productivity and
innovation when organisation is in expansion.

Q1 (B)
•Tony observed that the implementation of
holacracy organisational cultural paradigm was
not enough going fast as expected (Teich &
Faddoul, 2013).
• Then Tony adopted approach of ‘rip the ban aid’
to accelerate the progress.

Q2 (A)
• Zappos adopted customer centric strategy and
this Tony termed it “WOWing”.
•This strategy was also called “Weird” culture. This
strategy was fruitful for Zappos (Warrick, 2017).
•In this process, Zappos was treating its vendors
and customers with respect.

Q2 (B)
•In order to implement successful business level
strategy in Zappos, it is necessary to customise the
product offerings and the marketing mix in the
different market segment.
• It is also needed to create a sustainable
operational strategy so that the corporate
objective is achieved efficiently and most cost –
efficient manner.

Q3 (A)
•Lean management helps Toyota to manage its
production systematically (Gelei, Losonci &
Matyusz, 2015).
•It helps them to achieve customer satisfaction
and in manufacturing cars.

Q3 (B)
•Lean management is the most helpful process for
the organisational operations and productions
(Teich & Faddoul, 2013).
•It generates automated system which saves
organisational extra costs and reduces waste.

Conclusion
•Through the analysis it has been identified that
Zappos adopted holacracy organisational culture
in their organisation and how the how the
employees responded to it.
•Also, successful implementation of lean
production system helped the hospital to reach to
its desired objectives.

References
Gelei, A., Losonci, D., & Matyusz, Z. (2015). Lean
production and leadership attribute–the case of
Hungarian production managers. Journal of
Manufacturing Technology Management, 26(4),
477-500.
Rinehart, J., Huxley, C., & Robertson, D. (2018). Just
another car factory?: Lean production and its
discontents. Cornell University Press.
Teich, S. T., & Faddoul, F. F. (2013). Lean
management—the journey from Toyota to
healthcare. Rambam Maimonides Medical Journal,
4(2), 43-77
Warrick, D. D. (2017). What leaders need to know