Operations Strategy/What is operations strategy?/Operations strategy

Operations strategy

Companies and organizations making products and delivering, be it for profit or not for profit, rely on a handful of processes to get their products manufactured properly and delivered on time. Each of the process acts as an operation for the company. To the company this is essential. That is why managers find operations management more appealing. We begin this section by looking at what operations actually are. Operations strategy is to provide an overall direction that serves the framework for carrying out all the organization's functions.

Understanding operations

Have you ever imagined a car without a gear or the steering wheel? Whilst, what remains of an utmost importance to you is to drive the locomotive from one location to another for whatever purpose you wish, but can only be made possible with each and every part of the car working together and attached.

Organisations behave in the same manner. The company has an ultimate goal of delivering goods to a client, but the processes of designing, manufacturing, analyzing and then finally being delivered are the driving forces for the company's success. All these chunks of works processes that collectively define a bigger purpose, the operations for that particular organisation. The more effective these processes or operations would be, the more productive and profitable the business would be.

Note: Goods, the ultimate by-product of a company, can be a product or a service. Take for instance, a car manufacturing company. For it, all operations would lead to the development and enhancement of a car, a product, something physical. But, to a therapist, the service he/she provides to their clients is the much needed result or required output.

1- Corporate Strategy: - Environmental scanning. - Developing core competencies. - Developing core processes. - Global strategies. 2- Market Analysis. 3- Operations Strategy: - Operations strategy implements corporate strategy.

A formal definition

According to Slack and Lewis, operations strategy holds the following definition:

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Operations strategy is the total pattern of decisions which shape the long-term capabilities of any type of operations and their contribution to the overall strategy.

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Operations strategy is the tool that helps to define the methods of producing goods or a service offered to the customer

In this section that follows, we'd be performing a surgery of the given definition in order to know what operations strategy actually means.