Operations Management in Northern & Shell: A Leadership Analysis

This report delves into the realm of operations management, exploring the differences and similarities between managers and leaders, along with their respective roles and characteristics. It examines the functions of a manager based on Henri Fayol's principles, providing a comprehensive understanding of managerial responsibilities. The report then analyzes various leadership approaches, including contingency, situational, and system leadership, and how they apply within the context of Northern & Shell. Furthermore, it explores different approaches to operations management, identifying those employed by Tesco. It also outlines the roles of store managers at Tesco, the importance of operations management, and the impact of external factors on operations and decision-making processes. The report concludes with a synthesis of the key findings and insights gained from the analysis.

Operations management

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
a) Various similarities and difference of managers and leaders depends on their roles and
characteristics..............................................................................................................................1
b) Functions of a manager according to Henri Fayol..................................................................3
c) Contingency, situational and system leadership approach that uses in the Northern & Shell.
.....................................................................................................................................................4
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................5
1. Explain different approaches to operations management and identifying what is used in
Tesco...........................................................................................................................................5
2. Different roles of store manager at Tesco...............................................................................7
3. Importance of operation management in Tesco......................................................................8
4) Effect of outside factors on operation management-..............................................................9
5) Impact of outside factors on decision making-.....................................................................10
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................12
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................13

INTRODUCTION
Operations management describes functions and duties of manager who works in
company's operation department to develop, design and manage the production of outputs in
order to fulfil organisational objectives and goals. It is mainly concerned with the planning,
supervising and organising products and services of the company (Albrecht and Dasigi, 2016).
This report is based on Northern & Shell company which is situated at Lower Thames Street,
London, EC3 United Kingdom. It provides various types of television and publication services.
This report covers difference and similarities in between managers and leaders with their
characteristics and roles. It includes functions of manager and different approaches of leadership.
Further, it contains approaches to operation's management and role of retail store manager. It
also includes major importance of operation's management. Furthermore, it includes key outside
factors that have an effect on the organisation and impact on store manager's decision making
process.
TASK 1
a) Various similarities and difference of managers and leaders depends on their roles and
characteristics.
Leaders and managers play a great role in the company. A manager is an important
person who make a connection between the company and its stake holders that are staff
members, customers, share holders, government and many more (Ando and et.al., 2018). In the
other hand a leader always encourages, inspires and influence to his or her team to do work
willingly in order to reach certain targets of company. Manager is the head of department and
leader is requires at each level of organisational structure to help employees. Leadership is a
personality treat whose willing is to try different things in different situation even there are a
possibility of go wrong in that situation because they understand that failure is always a step
ahead on the path of success. While managerial work is to reduce risks and they control
problems with effectively. Leaders are focuses on persons who require for influence towards
realize their vision. Managers are mainly focuses on the necessary structures to fix and achieve
objectives and goals.
In this context, major differences and similarities between them are describes as below:
Differences in their roles and characteristics-
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Basis of difference managers leaders
Meaning A person who manage all tasks
and make planning, direction,
coordination, organising.
The leader influence to his or
her team and achieve the
organisational goals.
Creation The manager always create
and develop the processes as
well as systems (Anvari-
Moghaddam and et.al., 2016).
The leaders often focus on
people and build relationship
with them.
Setting Manager set the plan for
growth and development of
company.
Leaders set directions and give
order to their subordinates.
Conflicts Manager always avoids
conflicts and issues.
Leaders use different conflicts
as a tool.
Style They often use transactional
style in the company.
Leaders use various
transformational leadership
styles for enrich their goals.
Quality Managers are committed to
work, have patience and use
effective decision making
process.
They have ability to inspire,
sufficient confidence and also
have positive attitude.
Importance They are important because
they give right direction to
their supportive employees.
They understand that team
members who work for their
common goal, are able to find
solution of any problem
(Bahmani-Firouzi and
Azizipanah-Abarghooee,
2014).
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Similarities between leaders and managers -
Base Managers Leaders
Work with people Managers work with his staff
members and employees to
fulfil departmental needs.
Leaders also work with his or
her team members to achieve
certain goals.
Representative Manager represents as the
head of department (Deihimi,
Zahed and Iravani, 2016).
They are also the
representative of company.
Socialists Manager are make a contact to
every person of the enterprises.
They are always connected to
their respective staff members
and they also build a
relationship with other person.
b) Functions of a manager according to Henri Fayol.
The French engineer Henri Fayol made a theory that known as principles of management.
These principles are depends on his experience as a board of director of a mining company. Such
principles are known as functions of a manager in the company which has different departments
that are financial, commercial, accounting, managerial and technical (Jin and et.al., 2015). He
demonstrates the five kinds of functions that done by a manager in order to achieve
organisational goals. These are discusses as follows:
 Planning – It is refers as looking one step ahead. A manager's first task is to create a plan
of all action which is conduct in future for achieving organisational goals. There is a need
of an active participation of all employees. Plan should be link with the goals of company
and it should be considers that it implement with timely. This process can take different
organisational resources that are available for accomplishing various tasks. Planning is
essential process because in this process, there is a huge number of persons come
together and set a common goal. It is a pre action stage task and also known as an
intellectual process.
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 Directing – A manager give command to his or her supportive team members to fulfil
organisational needs. These commands are the clear instructions about working and
employees will understand that what are the requirements of company (Kavousi‐Fard,
Niknam and Baziar, 2015). A successful manager has personal integrity and
communicate clearly to their staff members on regular basis so the staff members are
capable to do work effectively. It is also known as actuating and its major aspects are
supervision, motivation, lead and communication. By conduct this function a manager is
able to impel, inspire and encourage people to do work willingly and achieve desired
objectives.
 Organising – It is an essential function that use for organise all activities and people and
conduct work from them. It is applicable where sufficient raw material, capital fund and
employees Keahey, Riteau and Timkovich, 2017). It describes the organisational
hierarchy structure and if number of business activities are increases then the structure
also expand both vertically and horizontally. This function is originates from two
different word organ that means components so organising refers as a system which parts
are works with each other.
 Controlling – It is conducts to check whether everything is going on according to pre
plan. In this context, the manager knows about the all activities are carried out in
conformity with the plan (Mohammadi, Soleymani and Mozafari, 2014). It starts with
establish performance standards, report or measure, compare outcomes with standards
and performance and take preventive and corrective measurement that are required for
the organisation.
 Coordinating – It uses when all above activities are harmonised and it is important for
positive influence of employees behaviours. It is the process where managers are
responsible for executive germinate an orderly shape of group effort among his or her
subordinates and secure integrity, of action in the movement of common purpose or goal.
c) Contingency, situational and system leadership approach that uses in the Northern & Shell.
In a company, there are different types of leadership approaches that apples by a leader in
order to achieve organisational objectives and goals. The leadership style demonstrates the
different approaches that a leader can use in the Northern & Shell company's context. Leaders
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are born not made and they lead their team in the best way that are profitable for them to achieve
a common goal (Parisio, Rikos and Glielmo, 2016). There are many approaches to leadership to
build up an awareness of framework and useful in development and growth. In the organisation,
these leadership styles play an essential role to reach at certain height of success. In this context,
main approaches to leadership describes as follows :
Contingency Leadership Approach – It is developed by the Fred Fielder in his experience and
study about leadership. This type of style demonstrates a scale which name is Least Preferred Co
worker. It is use for measure the capabilities and efficiencies of a leader in the company
(Radosavljević, Jevtić and Klimenta, 2016). The LPC Locate a position of a leader based on his
or her personality trait and it can be measured using LPC Scale. In this scale, it includes 1 to 8
ratings for the specific leader of the individual with whom the leader may work the least well. It
is complicated to interpretation of the LPC Scale seemed as controversial.
Situational Leadership Approach – It is based on a theory that assume that the leaders require to
perform changes in their nature. It is depends on the willingness or readiness of the team
members. In this context, there are two type of dimensions that influence the behaviour of a
leader and considered to be independent (Ribeiro and de Sousa Jabbour, 2017). These are task
and relationship behaviour, the task behaviour is a specific term that engage a leader in sorting
duties and responsibilities in the organisation. In the other hand the relationship behaviour
engaged in more than one way communication.
System Leadership Approach – This type of leadership style is direct influence to the failure or
success of a company. It is recognise that a leader may use different set of skills in his or her
workings and make growth of company. It is views a company as an main organic and open
system of different sub systems that are maintenance, production, adaptive managerial and
informal groups. The leader use this approach in order to achieve organisational aims and
objectives.
TASK 2
1. Explain different approaches to operations management and identifying what is used in Tesco.
Operation management will be helping managers at Tesco which is one of the biggest
retail stores to plan and manage their working and supervising process so that profitability is
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been improved (Shabanpour-Haghighi and Seifi, 2015). In this regard there are many approaches
to operation management and they could be used by managers of Tesco like that of TQM, Six
sigma and JIT as well.
JIT
Just in time approach is helping organisation to lower down their risk of managing
inventory or stock in stores directly with production process. This JIT approach is majorly used
within companies so that they could increase their efficiency and wastage could be highly
reduced (Shidaganti and Prakash, 2017). So this will be helping in reduction of cost of inventory
for company which is the most important part of production process. Toyota is the company
which is using this JIT approach so that their wastage could be reduced and efficiency is
improved as well.
Six Sigma
In order to eliminate defects into products, service and process at time of manufacturing
six sigma method is used which is based on data and statistical form. This form of improvement
will be representing population of standard deviation that is measuring all data which is collected
throughout the process. In year 1980 this six sigma was developed in Motorola which then
become popular approach of operation management within General Electric (GE).
Lean production
Under this approach focus will be on be on lowering down of waste with ensuring proper
quality and is easily applied in all aspects and departments of company from production to
distribution (Szewczak, 2016). This is the systematic approach of minimising wastage into
manufacturing system and not decreasing quantity or quality of production. This will be adding
up into value of production that is helping in reducing of all things which are not at all adding up
into production process. This lean production is been derived through Toyota Production System
which is applicable in focusing on waste improvement.
Kaizen
This approach is mainly used within business or manufacturing units of Japan as where it
was invented. Kaizen would be meaning continuous improvement of all functions of company
thus involving all employees and management at various level (Wakui and et.al., 2016). The
process on which it is been applied could be those related to purchasing, logistic and supply
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chains as well. In order to improve standardised programs and process Kaizen will be aiming at
eliminating wastage with maintaining quality.
Total Quality management (TQM)-
This is been defined to as that approach to management which is describing managing of
quality of process, products and operations of company like that if Tesco. All the members of
company could be helping into participating into improvement of process, products and service
within company (Montalvo and et.al., 2017). Thus it will be described to as summarised to as
managing systems in order to focus on customers involving employees into continuous
improvement bases. Thus this TQM will be using strategy, data and effectiveness of
communication which is integrating quality into activities and culture of Tesco.
2. Different roles of store manager at Tesco.
The store manager is a specific person who handle different situations and operate many
types of function for growth and development of the store department in the company. In this
context, he or she conducts different functions and responsibilities that are as follows :
 Selecting better persons for working in the store department – It is the duty of a store
manager that he or she recruits the best person for right job and assigned them various
tasks.
 Maintain of overall image of the store department at Tesco.
 Manage all equipments and assets of the company.
 Inventory holding for productions (Albrecht and Dasigi, 2016).
 Overall care of staff members and their well being.
 Show the perfect image of store and advertising displays.
 Recruiting, performance management, and workplace scheduling.
 Product management, including price changes,, receiving, ordering, handling damaged
products, and returns.
 Facilitating staff learning to train, Team Development and development.
 To understand the customer service principles.
 To handle problems and questions to customers.
 Problem solving, handling unusual circumstances and situations.
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3. Importance of operation management in Tesco.
The main aim of Tesco's Operation management is timely delivery of the products and
services to their customers and determining the needs and wants of customers and operating
accordingly for satisfy those needs and wants (Ando and et.al., 2018). Below described are the
importance of operation management in Tesco are:
 Operation management in Tesco manages the day to day activities in a smooth manner. It
helps to manage or make appropriate use of the resources in the store like their
employees, products, money or other resources and also the effective management of
facilities such as buildings, computer systems, lighting, etc.
 Operation management helps in to increase the productivity of the store as it looks for
best ways for utilising the available resource within the store. It adopts or determines the
best possible method or techniques for achieving the determined goals and objectives. It
also measures the efficiency and skills of both manager and the employees.
 Operation management helps in handling the cash in the store. Operation management
tracks or records the daily cash flows in the Tesco for determining the profits and loss in
the store (Anvari-Moghaddam and et.al., 2016). It also makes budgets for different
activities in the store to meet the different requirements.
 Operation management ensures the management of the inventory and stock of the store. It
takes adequate and appropriate steps for preventing loss from inventory and stock from
avoiding from being out of stock.
 Operation management develop and conduct training programs for their employees to
motivating them. Training of their sales representatives, cashier and other team members
for a happy satisfied customers, which would increase the productivity and the
profitability in the store.
 Operation management in a store is being responsible for the safety and security of their
employees as well as their customers. Through installing CCTV cameras to have a close
watch over their customers and for the safety of their products and people in the store.
This would create a feeling of safety for the customers inside the store.
 Operation management also provides customer services to their customers. Help their
customers to choose and buy merchandise as per the needs and wants and in the budget of
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the customers (Bahmani-Firouzi and Azizipanah-Abarghooee, 2014). Giving customer a
true and honest feedback and suggestions for the products they are buying. Collects the
feedbacks and suggestions from the customers for improving the products specifications
and the services of the store.
 Operation management also functions the marketing or promotional activities of the
store. They use different marketing or promotional strategies for creating more customers
and retain the existing customers (Deihimi, Zahed and Iravani, 2016). Advertising
through print media, television, online media, etc., helps to increase the customers for the
stores of Tesco.
 Operation management controls all other functions in a store. It makes sure that the
products are been provided for the customers according to their needs to satisfy them,
which would increase the productivity and profitability of the store.
4) Effect of outside factors on operation management-
Operation management is the administrative of organization to set higher level of
efficiency within an industry. Its convert raw materials and manpower into products and services
efficiently to make maximum profit of organization (Jin and et.al., 2015). It is the overall
organization plan to observe how an organization operate daily basis production activities.
Outside factors which make effect on operational activities generally out of control. Some
outside factors are below- Commodities and Natural Resources- If an organization deals with beverages and foods
product and services at small business scale, it requires relay fill up on continuously
basis. Let's tamight be depend on coffee beans imported from other countries and milk
might purchase from so ke an example, a local coffee cafe far dairy farm house, should
be thankful to dairy milk supplier transport industry. Coffee beans and milk both are
commodities and their price fluctuate with market fluctuations. Small scale businesses
have control on the commodities value (Kavousi‐Fard, Niknam and Baziar, 2015).
Natural resources' scarcity like petrol, diesel make impact on cost of lorry fuel. Import-
export commodities products cost and lorry fuel cost influenced the organization
production.
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 Natural and Man-Made Disasters- Operational plan activities are on hold, if an
organization or its suppliers desire to a natural disaster. For an example, an auto mobile
manufacturer, generally buy assemble components from other party and because of heavy
rain organization becomes place of water, the all organization's machine and equipments
are now useless. Owner of the organization and management have no control on nature of
nature, they cannot stop natural disasters. But they can foam a plan against this natural
loss (Keahey, Riteau and Timkovich, 2017). It has no control on nature but its operation
manager can makes such kind of plans which useable under natural destroying situation.
This natural losses create unexpected situations which influenced organization's delivery
system. Government policies- Governmental environmental affects the small or large business
environment. Government regulations and policies of state, central impact the
organizations. Organizations have to follow high government tax policy, health policies,
sure and safety policies for employees (Mohammadi, Soleymani and Mozafari, 2014).
Every organization has government involvement in its business affairs. Operational
management has governmental involvement. Its management know their role and
responsibilities against the law. Operational management produces products and services
according to law.
 Physical Location- Product market physical location also effect the operation
management. Location of market decide product selling graph. Some retailers have their
shop in supermarket. Supermarket is a place where a huge numbers of buyers fulfil their
daily basic requirements (Parisio, Rikos and Glielmo, 2016). For the business success
point of view retailers operate their stores from supermarkets and shopping centres.
5) Impact of outside factors on decision making-
Business environment affected by internal factors and external factors. Outside factors
influenced organization's operation management as well as their decisions too. Natural disasters
might be destroy the organizations assets and tools and because of this reason plans of
operational management keep on hold. In this unexpected situation implantation of plans is quite
difficult. As a store manager I have to form a plan against disasters in advance. Natural losses
cannot be stop by anyone (Radosavljević, Jevtić and Klimenta, 2016). Future forecasting against
natural things is the best option for manager. Natural resources and commodities also affect
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