Operation Management Practices, Efficiency & Tech: Marks & Spencer

This report analyzes operation management practices at Marks & Spencer, a UK-based clothing and food retailer. It identifies key practices such as production planning, control, and quality control, and critically examines their impact on organizational efficiency, including maintaining quality, ensuring customer satisfaction, and reducing operational costs. The report evaluates how technology, including advancements in communication, productivity software, and security systems, has been embedded in these processes to enhance collaboration and employee efficiency. Furthermore, it discusses supporting functions like monitoring daily production and their role in ensuring organizational success by linking management practices to effective operations. The analysis also touches on the internal and external impacts of operational management on finance, human resources, and technological changes, highlighting Marks & Spencer's strategy of leveraging high-quality materials and convenient store locations to achieve business objectives.

Operation and service
management

Executive summary
Operation management is the Process that is mainly concern with the planning,
organising and supervising the activities of the the production and the manufacturing department.
This report has been made in the context of operation management practise in the organisation
and how operation management maintains quality and services, ensures customer satisfaction
and builds effective production activities. The role of technology in changing communication
process, makes change the process of manufacturing and keeps business secure. Then it contains
supporting functions of the operation management that made impact in organisational success.
Table of Contents
Executive summary .........................................................................................................................2
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................5
TASK...............................................................................................................................................6
Identify one operation management practice within a organisation.......................................6
Critically analyse how this operation management practice impacts the organisation in
regards to efficiency....................................................................................................................7
Evaluate how technology could be embedded in this process or evaluate how this has
already been achieved.................................................................................................................9
What supporting functions are linked to this operation management practice and evaluate
how can they assist with ensuring organisational success?......................................................10
CONCLUSION .............................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................13

INTRODUCTION
Operation management is the department of business practices to build the higher level of
effectiveness in the organisation. It is related to organise and manage things in the organisation
and concerned with transforming raw material into finished goods to maximize the profit of the
organisation. Whereas service management refers to work on a desired aim to provide the quality
service to the customer that adds value in their life. Both the terms service and the operations
works in delivering effective service to the buyer with better understanding of needs of the
customer and better management process. This report is being made in the context of Marks and
Spencers a UK based clothing brand which have its headquarter in London, UK(Choi, Guo and
Luo, 2020) . The aim of this report is to highlight the impacts of the operation management in
the organisation with the evaluation of how technology plays its role in operation and service
management. And the function of operations management in business and its role in the success
of the organisation.
TASK
Identify one operation management practice within a organisation
Marks and Spencers is one of the biggest retail company in the UK selling clothes and the
food. The company started in 1884 in an open market. They are selling their products in online
as well as offline platform and having wide rage of products such as clothes, beauty range, food,
home appliance and furniture. They are having more than 1,037 stores in the UK and 472 other
stores around the world. Marks and Spencers are are making their brand unique by merging
traditional concept with the new and innovative ideas (Choi, Wallace and Wang, 2018). The
company has been making the most out of the heritage and classic British ideas without losing
the modern taste and mix both of them to make their product stand out in the market.
Their main functions includes selling brands to the customers in the variety range of
products and services. They are providing wide choice of great value and quality in food,
clothing and home products. They are continuously improving their product and offering
products that provide real practical benefit to the customer. They have their own brands in their

range of products internationally. Their main goal is to engage in the selling and manufacturing
the products.
Operation management is the process of administration in doing business practice to maintain
higher level of efficiency in the business. An operation manager perform tasks that designed to
improve the business productivity and helps in the growth of the business. The most important
business practise done by operation department is the management of the production activity in
the organisation (Guha and Kumar, 2018) . Operations management theory is the analyses of the
strategies that is being used in structuring and administering business activities in the
organisation to perform its functions as effectively and efficiently as possible. The theory is
concentrated on analysing and maintaining workflow in the organisation. Operational department
perform many functions in the production department some of them are discussed below:
 Production planning- In the process of production planning , managers examining and
evaluating how goods will be produced, the place where production take place and the
activities of manufacturing that laid out.
 Production control- In this process of production it contains that the operations
management must monitor the activities that scheduled in the manufacturing process.
With the monitoring they must provide the required feedback and make the improvement
that is needed (Torlak, Demir and Budur, 2019). This the stage which also include the
purchasing raw materials and the management of the inventory.
 Quality control- Operations department is directly controls the activity of the the efforts
that involved in the quality control with that they also ensures that goods are produced in
accordance to the specifications and the given quality standards.
In the context of the Marks and Spencers, they are providing best quality products with
respect to their reputation in the market . They innovate and provide sustainability in building a
great long term relationships with the customers. They source their raw materials from different
countries such as Bangladesh, China, Cambodia, Vietnam, Turkey and Sri Lanka.
Critically analyse how this operation management practice impacts the organisation in
regards to efficiency
Operation management contains the managing the organisation which includes the whole
process cycle of management which includes planning, organising and supervising the
production of products and services (Tortorella, Narayanamurthy and Cauchick-Miguel, 2021).

The efficiency of the organisation depends on how well the management is. If there is effective
management of the employees and the activities done by them then the results are always
efficient. And operation management plays a very important role in increasing efficiency of the
organisation. It made important impacts in maintaining efficiency in the company by performing
different task such as discussed below:
 Maintains quality products and services- In order to produced top-notch products ans
services operations management examines the reliability of each and every products
before it get delivered to the customers.
 Ensures customer satisfaction- Happy customers are the main aim of the organisation
by making sure that each and every customer is satisfied by the quality and the price of
the goods and services and making continuous improvement according to the feedbacks
provided by the buyers.
 Productivity- Operations management mainly works in maximizing the production with
the given criteria and by making sure the availability of adequate resources that can be
used effectively in the production process. And by this operation management makes an
impact in increasing the efficiency of the organisation.
 Reduced cost of operations- By managing activities effectively makes reduction in the
cost beard by the organisation in the whole process. Reduced costs will results in the
increment in the revenue. They also make technological advancement in the company
and ensuring the proper functioning of the machinery results in reduction in the costs.
 Supply chain management- It consist the organising the process of transferring raw
materials into the finished goods with the proper distribution and the shipping process of
the products. Making the supply chain smooth with the low cost increases the revenue of
the organisation.
 Making process coordinated- Carry out specific activities one after another and
switching between the activities without making a negative effects on any process of
working is what required to make things coordinated. All the activities, time and the
resources should be adequately integrated towards each other in order to achieve the
desired goals.
Internal and external impacts of operational management

 In finance management- Decisions by the operations department includes investment
and cost. The financial position of the company directly affects on the company's
profitability and liquidity.
 In human resource- The quality and the capacity of the employees directly affects the
operational goals of the company and to target productivity, business needs to manage
their human resource effectively.
 Technological change- It is important for a product to be updated according to the
current market situation and all the things in this process is done by operational
management.
In the context of Marks and Spencers, their operations activities are aimed to achieve the
strategy of business (Volochienko, Falko and Postnikova, 2019) . Their operations management
ensures that all the products are being made with high quality of materials and the stores are
located in the locations which are convenient for customers to reach.
Evaluate how technology could be embedded in this process or evaluate how this has
already been achieved
Operating business in an unsecure environment is one of the most challenging aspect of
every business and competition with the fellow businesses makes the monitoring and evaluation
of the organisation by the operations management makes it more challenging. Many
development in the technology provides various set of opportunities to the organisation and
evaluate business on the way of growth (Helmold and Samara, 2019) . Technologies makes
many changes in the company in terms of products and services and to adopt these technology
also brings certain kind of changes in the organisation. The changing technology reshape
workplace in many ways such as:
 Changing the communication process- Technology changed the process of
communication in the workplace. The arrival of smartphones and socila media brought
the communication level up. In organisation communication process between employees
and management becomes very easy with the help of technology.
 Makes business more productive- Technology provides many productive software that
enables business to overcome many complexities and to executing strategies. It enables
mangers of the company to monitor progress during completion of tasks.

 Keeps business secure- Business at its every level demands security for the safe
environment and working. And it plays crucial role in providing hardware and software
to protect the company from fraud transaction. Technology such as fingerprints and
facial recognition are the security systems at the workplace.
 Increasing collaboration- Technology has completely change the perspective of
collaboration, it brings flexibility in communication and enhance understanding. That
helps in improvement in the collaboration because leaders and the employees can stay in
touch and manage things better.
 Improves efficiency of the employees- With the help of the technology time
management becomes a easy process. Various tools are helping in optimizing the daily
routine of the employees and influencing them to focus on the important aspects of the
organisation.
Fourth revolution has impacted the operations practices of the organisation in innovation
information and in the communication technology. These changes results in bringing new
operations as integration sets a technologies innovation that helps in making smart industries and
organisation inter-connect with other organisations at a global level. Interconnectivity and
exchange of information results in organisation adapting new business model and concepts and
made businesses capable of facing competition. It also provide wide scope in digital
interconnectivity.
Theories of paradigms of technology and society states that the general use of technological
development is right and beneficial for the organisation and technology can helps businesses in
overcoming risks (Lee, 2018). It also states that progress in the technology will rectify the
problems caused by past technology.

In the context of Marks and Spencers, they use technology transformation programme to
change its tradition to digital first business and helps them to become more agile and responsive
to the more customer. This also helps in the commercial running of the business.
What supporting functions are linked to this operation management practice and evaluate
how can they assist with ensuring organisational success?
Supporting functions of the operational management defined as the functions which help
operational department to perform their functions better in context of management. There are the
functions that build effective working of the operational department (Lohmer and Lasch, 2020)
. They act as the link between management practises and their working. The supporting functions
are given below:
 Monitoring the day to day production of goods- Management in the context of the
daily production is very much essential in the for the long term sustainability of the
business because these activities builds business base and results in profitability.
 Management of inventory- Correct management and control in the inventory system
cuts the extra cost and the problem of space management in the business. Excessive or
less inventory brings loss in the company and that decreases the profitability and success
ratio.
 Monitoring team member performance- By checking regularly to the employees as
whether they are performing well or not and in accordance to the goals or not. With the
performance keeping tabs on their well-being is a supporting function of operational
management.
The supporting functions plays important role in operation management practice. Some are
given below:
 Helps to met the objectives- The operations management department provides processes
and strategies to achieve desired goals and the objectives. These functions ensures that
the activity are going in accordance with the plan.
 Improves goodwill- Building or creating well-planned operation management techniques
will help in giving rise to more quality products. It directly make impact on customer
satisfaction and increases the goodwill.

 Resource utilization- The supporting functions of the operations management is the
make sure that there has been proper utilization of resources. They sets up different
strategies and methods to make good use of resources without wasting.
 Employee motivation- Operations management professionals will guide the employees
with feedbacks and proper assistance and as a result employees remain motivated and
energetic to perform their tasks well.
Operating management theory and practice explains the set of practise companies use to
increase efficiency in production. This management is concerned with the activities such as
controlling the production process and business operations in best possible way(Sarvaiya, Eweje
and Arrowsmith, 2018). These theory involves certain responsibility and ensuring that the
business will operate efficiently in terms of managing resourcing and meeting requirements with
high standards.
In the context of Marks and Spencers, their operation management considerately works on the
the four aspects such as making strategies in cost cutting to remain profitable with respect to low
prices, making company update with the technology and the market, providing product and
services to the customer with high quality at premium pricing and at last criterion is based on the
flexibility and availability of the uniqueness in the cloths with new auto range.
CONCLUSION
From the above report it has been concluded that operations and service management
brings the high level of effectiveness in the business. This report contains functions of
operational management and the main function which is production. In the production they
control production planning, quality control and the control over production activity. Than it
adds operations management impacts on the efficiency of the organisation and these impacts are
maintaining quality product and services , customer satisfaction, productivity, reduction in the
costs, smooth supply chain and making processes coordinated. The internal and external impacts
of operational management includes finance management, human resource management and
technological changes. Then it contains how technology impacts in the effective working of the
organisation and the impacts it made contains improves communication, makes business
productive and secure, increases collaboration and increase productivity of the employees. At
last there is an evaluation of what is the supporting functions of the operational management and
how it make impacts on the company. The functions are monitoring daily production goals,

inventory management and monitoring team member performance. It plays important role in
operational management which is managing goodwill, resource utilization, employee motivation
and helps in meeting objectives.

REFERENCES
Books and Journal
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management. Production and Operations Management, 27(10), pp.1868-1883.
Guha, S. and Kumar, S., 2018. Emergence of big data research in operations management,
information systems, and healthcare: Past contributions and future roadmap. Production and
Operations Management, 27(9), pp.1724-1735.
Helmold, M. and Samara, W., 2019. Progress in performance management: Industry insights
and case studies on principles, application tools, and practice. Springer.
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management. Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence, 76, pp.1-12.
Lohmer, J. and Lasch, R., 2020. Blockchain in operations management and manufacturing:
Potential and barriers. Computers & Industrial Engineering, 149, p.106789.
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