Leadership, Management, and Operations in Toyota's UK Expansion

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BUSINESS MANAGEMENT AND OPERATIONS
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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
LO1............................................................................................................................................4
LO2............................................................................................................................................7
LO3..........................................................................................................................................11
LO4..........................................................................................................................................16
Conclusion................................................................................................................................18
Reference List..........................................................................................................................19
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Introduction
Business process of an organisation requires major implications of management and
operations within organisational premises for business expansion in the global scale. In order
to increase the productivity in operation of business and management of organisation,
efficient decision-making and strategies should be taken by leaders and managers of
organisation. In this discussion, Toyota has been selected for an organisation who is
expanding its business in UK. This discussion comprises of different strategies and decisions
taken by leaders of organisation in order to achieve the business goal and competitive
advantage over global context. For better understanding of strategies and decision-making
adopted by leaders and managers in organisational premises, a business scenario of
automobile industry has been considered. In this discussion, all relevant leadership
approaches is analysed and evaluated aligning the business of Toyota, UK (Toyota UK,
2019).
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LO1
P1 Define and compare the different roles and characteristics of a leader and a
manager.
Management is a process, which is carried out in an organization to control, plan, and lead
and organise the operations along with other organizational functions. Whereas leadership is
defined as the ability or act of the professionals working within the company to lead,
influence and guide the co-workers of the business unit to fulfil goals and achievements of
the business unit (Chiu et al., 2017). Leaders and managers hold important position and they
are the representatives of the business unit. Since, both are having dissimilar role towards the
workforce and the business unit. The roles and responsibilities of the leaders are dissimilar
from managers in an organization. A set of contrast roles and functions between managers
and leaders are explained in order to understand the area of their significance and
responsibilities towards the business and organizational productivity. The roles and functions
are:-
Base of comparison Leaders Managers
Definitions They are responsible in
motivating and influencing
the workforce of an
organization to achieve
specific goals. They motivate
co-workers to perform under
pressure and give beneficial
outcomes.
Managers follow their roles
in controlling, planning,
managing and directing
operations that occurs within
the organizational premises
(Yukongdi, 2016).
Approach Leaders hold the
accountability within the
premises of the organization.
They are also responsible to
The managers of Toyota
organization, UK are being
advised to plan the functions
to be carried out, so that the
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provide directions to the
business unit in coordination
with the objectives and goals
of the organization.
goals and objectives of
business unit are fulfilled
(Barron et al., 2017).
Characteristics Anticipation is one such
characteristic, which a leader
must possess in order to
achieve goals of an
organization.
Linguistic in nature is one
such characteristic a manager
must possess, in order to plan
the operations of an
organization in a wise
manner (Monden, 2018).
Subordinate Leaders of Toyota, UK
within its organization lead
and influence their followers,
which aims towards
productivity of organization.
It is said that managers of the
business unit are connected
with the coworkers to bring
out productivity and
managing the employee
performance within the
business unit.
Style and Decision In order to make significant
business decision, the leaders
are advised to acquire the
transformational leadership
style.
Managers are required to
follow transactional
management style through
which they are able to
propose decisions that are
effective for the business
unit.
Aim and Focus The prime aim of the leader
of Toyota, UK organization
is the growth and
development of the people
that works in the company
premises (Iwao, 2017).
The managers are having
vital roles like improving the
operations, processes and
productivity that are carried
out in accomplishing
departmental goals. They are
also responsible for attaining
business unit goals.
Change and conflicts The leaders of the business In order to minimize the
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unit are advised to encourage
and lead the changes, which
affects the respective
individuals within the
premises.
conflicts within the
organization, the managers of
Toyota are said to act
according to the changes and
manage the co-workers
within the company.
Endeavors Dedication and effectiveness are
the two qualities leaders must
possess
On the other hand the managers
are focused to aim for
increasing the efficiency both in
culture and operation
Table 1: Roles and functions of Leaders in an organisation
(Source: Created by learner)
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LO2
P2 Examine examples of how the role of a leader and the function of a manager apply in
different situational contexts
In the context of Toyota, UK business, it has been said that organisation is subjected to three
kinds of situations. In these three situations, it has been mentioned that overall organisational
productivity and profitability depends upon approaches and strategies implemented by
leaders and managers within organisational boundary. These three situations are described
below:
Stable Situation
In the organisational premises of Toyota, UK the changes in the operation of its management
and the workforce of organisation happens at a very least level. Management of company
assumes this least change in the complex operation and workforce of organisation.
Manufacturing procedure of automobile parts and services experienced complexity at the
least amount in Toyota, UK when it is assumed that organisation’s internal process is stable
and standardise for market (Koehler and Zürcher, 2018). Stability is considered for
automobile organisation when it fulfils some aspect of its business. These aspects are
fulfilment of requirement and preferences of customer belongs to automobile industry
through its benefits and services.
Slow to moderate situation
This situation describes any specific organisation’s situation where its management is facing
moderate issue in focusing strategic approach for revenue generation and enhancement of
brand value (Muenjohn and McMurray, 2018). This strategic approach is taken by
organisation to increase the sale of automobile product and services. The situation within
organisational premises of automobile is getting intense as customer changes its preferences
from slow to moderate level regarding the product and services of automobile in the global
scale. The change that happens in the organisation due to change in the preferences of
customer at moderate level would increase the customer retention for particular organisation.
Thus, it will influence at the moderate level to automobile industry.
Fast Changing Situation
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Fast changing situation refers to the changing demand of customer at the fast pace, which
affect the internal organisational strategies of automobile industry. In other words, when
customer retention increases, it becomes a threat for brand value of organisation, products
and services of organisation and process as well. Therefore, any strategic decision taken by
the organisation can be at greater risk. In this condition, the management of organisation
accept incapability to fulfil the need and preferences of customer regarding organisation
services (Hickman and Silva, 2018). Customer demand puts the organisation in a condition
where a dissatisfaction and aggression among employees and employer is created. This
situation compel organisation to change the marketing operation successively and because of
that, business professionals are worried in the organisation.
Managerial Accountability
The managerial accountability comes in scenario when roles and responsibilities vary with
different conditions of organisation business. Within the organisational premises of Toyota,
UK, the managerial accountability is subjected differently to particular organisation with
distinctive situation. Manager analyse different aspect of the internal situation of organisation
when it is said that situation is stable in the organisation. Thus, manager analyse these aspects
in order to stabilise the environment of organisation.
The manager will gain the knowledge of that factor which keeps the environment stable in
the organisation. This factor helps to analyse about the reason, which helps employee to
sustain their psychology in the current situation of organisation operation. In this way,
manager finds out reason that keeps unchanged the environment of organisation. In case of
intense situational change, it becomes responsibility of manager to keep the environment
optimistic and keep organisation’s employee motivated. Employee does not get worried with
intense change in organisation under manager’s supervision. This helps organisation to
sustain slow changes in its internal business structure.
This role of managers sustains this motivation in the environment of organisation that
processes the departmental operation and preserves the organisational vision. In the rapid
change in customer demand, organisation also changes the business strategies and its
approaches rapidly in order to meet the requirement of customer. In this situation,
management of organisation consider manager the completely responsible person for
activities of employees of organisation. The management expects a diversified decision taken
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by its manager with successive change in the business. In this way, Toyota, UK would sustain
credibility and productivity in the new market where it wants to start the business.
Leader’s Role
Path Goal Theory describes business strategy and approaches those are implemented by
leaders or managers in the different situation in the organisational property of Toyota, UK.
Thus, it convey the different roles and authorities of the leader in an organisation. In this
context, mainly four types of leadership approaches, which are termed as Directive,
Supportive, Participative and Achievement-oriented, and these has been described below:
Directive leadership is an approach of leader that provides direction to workforce of
particular organisation to concentrate in the given task (Li et al., 2018). This ensures the
extent of productivity, which a workforce of organisation understands and integrates that
extent of effort in their work to enhance the sustainability of stable situation. Leaders support
the team or employee when situation changes from slow to moderate level in order to
maintain the integrity exists in the workforce (Vashdi et al., 2019). Leaders motivate the
employee so that they can handle the changes implemented by higher authorities of
organisation. This style of leadership is termed as supportive leadership. From the perspective
of predictive leadership, the leaders are able to predict the solution with the fast change in the
business process witnessed in the premises in the organisation. The Achievement-oriented
leadership is required in each scenario of situation that is from the stable situation to rapid
change in situation within organisation premises.
P3 Apply different theories and models of approach, including situational leadership,
systems leadership and contingency
Several speculation and prototypes are available that can be adopt by the leaders of Toyota,
UK which enable them to provide descriptive and directive solutions toward the changing
situations of organisation. These theories are described below:
Situational Leadership
Kenneth Blanchard and Paul Hersey proposed the situational supervision where they
mentioned that effective leadership is responsible to develop an efficient workforce in the
premises of organisation (Blanchard, 2018). This leadership theory says that strategies are
considered efficient when leaders take decision based on available workforce within
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organisational premises. Situational analysis makes leader to decide the potentiality and
alertness of employee in the organisation and these are depicted below:
Scale of
workforce
alertness
Low Potentiality Low Potentiality Moderate to high
Potentiality
High
Potentiality
Commitment is
low
Commitment is
high
Commitment is
low
Commitment
is high
Option of
leadership
approaches
Leader provide
training to
employees
Leaders approach
remain directive
Supporting staff is
enough by leaders
Leaders hire
delegating
employee
Table 2: Situational analysis of Toyota, UK
(Source: Created by Learner)
System Leadership
This approach of leadership provides particular technique to leaders and managers of Toyota,
UK to carry out distinctive decision and strategies in order to achieve business goal within
organisational premises. In this context, leaders apply their problem solving skill to find out
input resources in organisation and workforce dedication toward the respective business
process of organisation. Prediction helps leader to generate better results in the business
process in the premises of manufacturing department of organisation. These outcomes created
by managers and leaders then evaluated by the experienced business professional of company
before launching the automobile product. Thus, system leadership creates variety of
automobile product in the manufacturing department of Toyota, UK.
Contingency Leadership
The contingency leadership depict the roles and responsibilities of managers and leaders
within premises of organisation in order to enhance the quality of operation for achieving the
business goal. This theory was developed by Lawrence and Lorsch, which allow the leaders
of Toyota, UK to incorporate unique approach in its business strategy to evaluate and analyse
the business environment. The internal and external analysis of business environment would
support managers to build up their strategies more efficient in business process.
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LO3
P4 Explain the key approaches to operations management and the role that leaders and
managers play.
The operation management is related to prediction, organising and tracking the various
operations of all functional units of organisation. The target of tracking and predicting the
various operations is to enhance the effectiveness of business operations in organisation.
These approaches are depicted below:
Total Quality Management
This approach of management says that employee of all departments must maintain a certain
standard in their respective operation within organisational premises (Honarpour et al., 2018).
Therefore, for standardising the operation workforce need to be committed toward its
operation. This dedication of workforce can be achieved if employees are passionate about
giving quality service to its customer. This methodology is a type of umbrella method, which
is drawn on the economic theories and process analysis.
The primary focus of Toyota, UK is customer satisfaction and customer relationship. Toyota,
UK has formed an objective to serve quality product to customer irrespective of any situation
in the organisation. Toyota has implemented three business strategies in order to apply total
quality management concept in its business. These three approaches, which maintain the
quality of operation, are standard planning, standard control and standard improvement.
Quality planning of operation comprises of project development, then identification of
customer and customer’s need. After identification of customer need, organisation produces
product with respect to requirement of customer and conduct operation according to
requirement for product. Quality control used by organisation to control the waste happens
due to its business.
Six-Sigma
Six-sigma is used by the organisation for quality control in its operation and management.
Six-sigma has four types of strategy to control the operation within organisational premises.
In this context, four six-sigma strategies used by Toyota, UK is described for quality control.
The first strategy is used by the organisation to reduce the set up procedure because set-up
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procedure does not create any valuation in its operation. The second strategy of six-sigma is
used to produce the product at minimum amount as it takes less cost for production and it is
inexpensive as well.
Toyota manufactures automobile parts in smaller quantities in order to save the cost of
organisation and to understand the quality of operation. This organisation empowers its
employee to perform quality work; therefore, training programs are conducted in the
organisation for development of employee skill (Polanski et al., 2018). Fourth strategy of six-
sigma is to make the dealer participate in organisation operations. Dealer participates by
evaluating the manufacturing defect in automobile parts, set-up times and machine
breakdown. Toyota conducts a research in the market and made statistic according to data
collected from the research. This data or market information improves the operational
procedure of Toyota, UK.
Just in Time
This strategy of business operation is implemented in order to manage the inventory of
automobile parts and reduce the extra items that create wastage in its manufacturing
department (Allahverdi et al., 2019). Toyota has made its inventory system in such a way that
whenever any automobile part is required then only management will facilitate it. Thus, it
will reduce the inventory cost of manufacturing department and all parts of automobile will
be used efficiently. Thus, Toyota is able to identify different reason of wastage in its
operation; those are overproduction waste, transportation waste and overconsumption of time.
Continuous improvement
In order to make continuous improvement, Toyota has applied the Kaizen philosophy, which
presents a fundamental concept for improvement in the organisational context. This
philosophy state that organisation can achieve breakthrough improvement if all members of
organisation contribute dedicatedly in its business with their efficient work. This will make
whole operation improving on the continuous basis. Toyota handed over the responsibility to
experienced professional to evaluate various operations of its organisation and they tackle
with those problems of operation accordingly. In this way, Toyota has removed the unwanted
steps and material from the operation of its business, which was creating hurdle in
manufacturing automobile parts.
Lean Production
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