Comprehensive Learning and Development Plan for Operations Role

This document presents a comprehensive learning and development plan for an individual aspiring to become an Operations Manager. It includes a self-introduction outlining career goals and the importance of a structured professional development plan. The plan addresses megatrends and challenges in the business environment, such as political events, economic shifts, social trends, technological advancements, demographic changes, and environmental concerns, and how these impact the role of an operations manager. Specific SMART goals are defined for short-term, mid-term, and long-term achievements, focusing on interpersonal skills, teamwork, analytical skills, problem-solving, and decision-making. The plan also covers ethics and professional values, a competency assessment identifying areas for improvement, and a strength and weakness analysis. The document includes appendices with personal competency skills, job descriptions, and advertisements relevant to the operations management field.

Running head: LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT PLAN
Learning & Development Plan
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

1LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT PLAN
Table of Contents
1. Self-introduction..........................................................................................................................2
2. Megatrends and challenges..........................................................................................................3
3. Goals............................................................................................................................................8
4. Ethics and Professional Values..................................................................................................12
5. Competency Assessment...........................................................................................................14
5.1 Improvements......................................................................................................................15
6. Strength and weakness analysis.................................................................................................16
References......................................................................................................................................18
Appendices....................................................................................................................................22
1. Personal Competency Skills..................................................................................................22
2. Two Job Description and Two Advertisements.....................................................................24
Job Description and Advertisement (1).................................................................................24
Job Description and Advertisement (2).................................................................................26

2LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT PLAN
1. Self-introduction
I am currently pursuing a bachelor in supply chain management. My dream job role or
the ultimate goal is to become a successful ‘Operations Manager’. After completing my
bachelor, an associate level membership with APICS can help me to understand the real-world
situation. In addition to this, few certification courses from APICS will familiarise me with both
the theoretical and the practical level. However, to achieve so, I need to ensure that I must follow
a structured and proven path for a career build-up. It means a structured professional
development plan is worth a value for such situation (Stewart, 2014). The purpose to have a
structural growth towards the career-oriented goal, I need to follow the APIC’s chart of
professional competencies.
My personal goals can be divided into three categories such as short-term, middle-term
and long-term goals. The short-term goals will comprise of foundational and occupational
competencies where I will specifically focus on the basic skills required to be in the retail
industry. In the middle-term goals, I will particularly focus on profession-related and
foundational competencies. In the long-term goals, priorities will only be the profession-related
skills. The following table shows the kind of skills I am interested into for the short, middle and
long-term goals:
Short-term Interpersonal skills and teamwork
Middle-term Analytical skills and problem solving skills
Long-term Decision making skills
Table 1: List of My Foundation and Professional Skills

3LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT PLAN
The modules being covered during the semester are largely focussed upon the
fundamentals of operations management. I get to know the various operations models, theories
and frameworks which can be applied in different situations. Moreover, I also had the
opportunity to go through a few case studies which provided me the opportunities to apply the
theoretical teachings on real-world circumstances. Case-studies, in particular, can be an effective
guide to me as these had taught me a variety of ways to deal with different situations. It had
everything from leaders facing the challenges and resolving the issues by using the set of
creative skills.
2. Megatrends and challenges
Macro-Element Explanation Reference
Political 1. Political events such as
Brexit and the United States
separation from Paris
Agreement and Iran Nuclear
Deal is an emerging issue
now (Zheng, Singh &
Mitchell, 2015).
2. Political challenges
include, but not limited to,
fluctuating foreign currency,
changing trade policies,
incrementing taxes on
imports and the oscillating
1. Zheng, W., Singh, K., &
Mitchell, W. (2015).
Buffering and enabling: The
impact of interlocking
political ties on firm survival
and sales growth. Strategic
Management Journal, 36(11),
1615-1636.
2. Wang, D., Ma, G., Song,
X., & Liu, Y. (2016). Political
connection and business
transformation in family
firms: Evidence from

4LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT PLAN
legal policies (Wang et al.,
2016).
China. Journal of Family
Business Strategy, 7(2), 117-
130.
Economic 1. The latest economic trends
are SMEs are going global,
freelancing work is booming,
business coaches are
following the mainstream
ideas and employees are
being replaced with Artificial
Intelligence (AI) (Mensi et
al., 2014)
2. Some of the biggest
economic challenges include
financial management,
adherence to compliance
policies, technology,
customer service, exploring
the use of large-scale data
and performance monitoring
(Sierzchula et al., 2014).
1. Mensi, W., Hammoudeh,
S., Reboredo, J. C., &
Nguyen, D. K. (2014). Do
global factors impact BRICS
stock markets? A quantile
regression
approach. Emerging Markets
Review, 19, 1-17.
2. Sierzchula, W., Bakker, S.,
Maat, K., & Van Wee, B.
(2014). The influence of
financial incentives and other
socio-economic factors on
electric vehicle
adoption. Energy Policy, 68,
183-194.

5LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT PLAN
Social 1. A few of emerging social
trends are unpredicted buying
attitudes, enhanced focus on
customer service, virtual
reality, importance of
analytics and customization
of service (Godey et al.,
2016).
2. Few of the challenges are
customer loyalty,
increasingly growing
numbers of educated
customers, getting the skilled
staffs and maintaining a pace
with the rapidly shifting
consumer behavior (Zeugner-
Roth, Žabkar &
Diamantopoulos, 2015).
1. Godey, B., Manthiou, A.,
Pederzoli, D., Rokka, J.,
Aiello, G., Donvito, R., &
Singh, R. (2016). Social
media marketing efforts of
luxury brands: Influence on
brand equity and consumer
behavior. Journal of business
research, 69(12), 5833-5841.
2. Zeugner-Roth, K. P.,
Žabkar, V., &
Diamantopoulos, A. (2015).
Consumer ethnocentrism,
national identity, and
consumer cosmopolitanism as
drivers of consumer behavior:
A social identity theory
perspective. Journal of
international
marketing, 23(2), 25-54.
Technology 1. The Industry 4.0, IoT, Big
Data, Artificial Intelligence
1. Lee, J., Bagheri, B., & Kao,
H. A. (2015). A cyber-

6LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT PLAN
(Robotics), 3-D Printing in
Manufacturing and others
(Lee, Bagheri & Kao, 2015).
2. Identifying the correct
managerial skills to support
the implementation of
different emerging
technologies is one of the
challenges. Effective
coordination and
communication between
shared partners in an Industry
4.0 business environment
(Qin, Liu & Grosvenor,
2016).
physical systems architecture
for industry 4.0-based
manufacturing
systems. Manufacturing
Letters, 3, 18-23.
2. Qin, J., Liu, Y., &
Grosvenor, R. (2016). A
categorical framework of
manufacturing for industry
4.0 and beyond. Procedia
Cirp, 52, 173-178.
Demographic Trends impacting the current
business include ethnically
diverse customers,
Millennials are different from
other age-based generations,
increased participation of
women in the workforce,
changing families especially
Pulles, N. J., Schiele, H.,
Veldman, J., & Hüttinger, L.
(2016). The impact of
customer attractiveness and
supplier satisfaction on
becoming a preferred
customer. Industrial
marketing management, 54,

7LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT PLAN
in the Western countries,
changing landscape of
different religions and the
aging world (Pulles et al.,
2016).
129-140.
Natural Few of environmental
challenges of concerns are
effectively shifting to
renewable energy resources
such as solar panels, reducing
the environmental impacts of
products, production of
healthy foods, polluting
environment, biodiversity,
managing the wastes and
deforestation (Chen et al.,
2014).
Chen, Y., Wang, Y., Nevo, S.,
Jin, J., Wang, L., & Chow, W.
S. (2014). IT capability and
organizational performance:
the roles of business process
agility and environmental
factors. European Journal of
Information Systems, 23(3),
326-342.
Table 2: Megatrends and Challenges
Impact on my career:
Being the operations manager, I will continually expect the different kinds of political
challenges such as those mentioned in the table. Operations manager nowadays are not just
limited to effectively selecting the suitable business models and the strategies, they are rather

8LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT PLAN
needed to think beyond this. The political challenges and the emerging trends are irreversible;
however, effective ways can be used to make a difference and thereby attaining the competitive
edge (Kernbach, Eppler & Bresciani, 2015). I being the operations manager will follow how
successful companies are dealing with the rising political challenges. Moreover, I can also
approach the consulting agency to have a better understanding of the situation and get some
useful ways out of it. I will also support the brainstorming sessions as this will produce a good
amount of different solutions for the identified political challenges.
The same process goes in terms of economic trends and the challenges. The most ideal
way would be to follow the footsteps of successful companies that have already resolved the
similar economic challenges. The other way would be to take the help of the consulting firm to
get the most valued solution (Slocum, Lei & Buller, 2014). Some of the economic challenges
keep on repeating where I can be benefitted from following the mentioned strategies. However,
in other situations, I will have to use my own skills to tackle the economic challenges. Notably, I
would specifically be responsible for making the plans, communicating the plans with
stakeholders, accumulating the required resources, implementing the strategies and finally,
monitoring the performance.
The social environment is also not the same now. It is being fuelled with changes due to
the emerging trends. There is no better way to deal with this than to follow the successful
examples of firms that had already dealt with such challenges and also focussing a lot on data
and its analytics (Parés, 2015). Data alone will not be handful; I am also needed to enhance my
capability as a data analytic. This will ensure a proper utilization of a large-scale data.

9LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT PLAN
I am well equipped with technologies. This should assist me in making decisions while I
will be needed to consider the emerging technologies. Here again, consulting firm can really be
handful. In addition to this, I would encourage the brainstorming session. The intention would be
to bring out a set of creative ideas and also encourage the workforce to become innovative
(Viloria, 2016).
The demographic factors are changing and as such the consumer behavior. The
mentioned factors in the table simply mean that I would largely be dealing with a diverse
consumer base. It also means different strategies would be needed to attract the participation of
diverse customers (Nulkar, 2014). I will be needed to think about the ethnically diverse
workforce. I would also be needed to take care of the generation-based gaps.
Environmental challenges will be testing my managerial skills. In context to the
environmental challenges, consulting firms can be the handful option. They will suggest on
different legislation and policies which are compulsory to follow in order to avoid the negative
consequences (Saebi & Foss, 2015). My duty would be to strictly follow the various policies to
ensure that the adverse impact of environmental pollution is reduced.
3. Goals
SMART goals
Short-term S M A R T
Interpersona
l skills
Ability to
interact with
employees
and clients
I should be
able to
progress in
terns or
I will be
required to
seek the
assistance on
A proper
interaction
with
employees
3 years
from now
onwards

10LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT PLAN
making
impactful
sessions with
both
employees
and the clients
critical
situation from
my respective
managers. I
would also
follow my
managers
taking the
sessions as
this will help
me to
understand
the strategies
they use in
tricky
situations.
and clients is
achievable;
however, I
will be tested
for making an
impactful
interaction.
Employees
especially
have a lot of
expectations
which when
not fulfilled
they tend to
disobey the
management
instructions.
Teamwork To be able to
work with
employees
and clients
A better and
progressive
trend for
collaborate
working
Working with
employees
and clients is
difficult in
terms of
managing
An
effectively
working with
shareholders,
suppliers and
other
3 years
being into
the industry

11LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT PLAN
conflicting
thoughts and
harmonising
the
workforce.
stakeholders
is challenging
for their
distinguished
demands. The
only worth a
work would
be to keep on
working on
strategies to
make the
difference
Middle-term
Analytical
skills
Ability to
effectively
analyze the
situation
Number of
successful
handling of
situations is
more than the
failures.
I would
follow my
supervisors to
understand
how they deal
with different
situations. I
would also
seek the
assistance
Few
circumstances
can really be
tricky. I will
grow by
learning those
only. In such
cases, I would
also seek an
assistance of
7-8 years
being into
the industry