The Strategic Objective of Operational Management

In an organization a professional manager should be able to fulfil the strategic roles with in

the company and to achieve this strategic role a manager cannot neglect the need of the

successful operational management strategy. Operation management is the heart of every

organization which controls the system of operation. Operation management has to work on

the systems like design, operations and change in the process that produces and deliver the

company’s primary services. Like the other part of the organization as Marketing and

Finance, operation management is a functional field with the responsibilities of the

management.

The role of the effective operation management is to successfully transform the company’s

raw in to the finished service that is required for the delivery to the customer. The effective

operation management includes the inputs from manpower like workforce and managers,

facilities and process like the proper place to work and equipment, materials and technology.

A proper operation management is the aspect for transforming the inputs and the output and

to implement it in a more successful way, to get the best output the customer feedback plays a

major role in the operation management. The good and planned operation management has

led many companies to the success and achieving targeted result for their customers. For

example in the 1994 the Dell Inc. is recognized as the second tier computer manufacturer like

the other computer manufacturer in the industry. To make their image changed, Dell

implemented a new operational management process a new and innovative way for their

business model that completely changed their brand value. Dell introduces the innovative

way of managing their operations functions that is now become of the major practices of

companies these days. This new operation process makes Dell to provide quick and effective
delivery of customized product to their customer and that too on the lower cost other than

their market competitors.

With the operation management a company has to sort out many strategic objectives within

the organization which relates to the growth of the organization, customer satisfaction and the

objectives and target achieved with in the organization.

The strategic objectives which relates to the performance of the organization are corporate,

business and functional objectives which depends upon the Customers, suppliers,

shareholders, employee and society.

Customers are the first person, who is affected by the performance of the business, and the

performance relates to the quality of the work a company or an organization is delivering.

With the presence of supplier in the operation process, they effect the operation process in

both ways like how the supplier is working and how effective and good they are in supplying

to the operation process so the suppliers plays a major role in reaching the objective of the

organization and there are strategies which are made especially for the suppliers in the

operation Management to achieve their objectives.

When the strategic objective for the operation management are made the shareholders of the

organization has to be considered on priority, the strategies are made in such a way that the as

how better the better the operation process is at providing the service to the customer for their

services, the more the complete business will grow and in the end the shareholders are the

major beneficiaries of this and shareholders play a major role in the growth and support in

nay organization. So while considering the strategic objective for the operational

management process the organization has to think about its shareholders.

Employees play a major role in any organization and are integral part of the operation

management process of any organization. There are organizations where the whole of the

strategic objectives in operation management of the organization revolve around the

employee. If the company is doing well then the employee the employee has the chances of

working and giving their best. But operation responsibilities and strategy for the employee

like the working condition and how the employees are treated in the organization. Employees

are the integral part of any organization and an organization should be strategically active to

have the operational management placed in such a way that it creates a working environment

for their employee that satisfies all their needs and motivate them to perform and deliver

according to the need of the business.

The one other strategic objective of the operation management is the society, although the

society is not directly connected to the company and the society don’t even have the direct

impact on the economy of the company, but the individual and groups in the society are well

affected by the operational managers of the company behaves. While making the strategy for

the operational management the responsibility for the environmental aspect for the society

should be taken care of. These are the various aspects of the strategic objectives of the

operational management which plays a major role while making the strategies and process of

operation management in an organization weather a small organization of the big

organization like Dell Inc.

Operational objectives are placed at the lowest level of the organization management and it

normally applied to some specific employee and subdivision in that organization. It focuses

on the individual responsibilities of the worker in the organization.

There is various aspects to determine the success of the operational objective in meeting the

organizational objectives.
Implementation: - Each organization has its own strategy but it is the operational process

which is applied in the organization. We cannot change or touch the strategy, what only can

be checked and applied is how the operation works in that process. The implications on the

operation process are very useful in the implementation of different organizational objectives

of any organization.

Support: - The operational objective is developed in such a way that the resources are capable

to achieve the goal of the organizations which are need. For example: companies like dell is

known for their innovation in marketing and bringing new product to the market that makes

them one step ahead of their competitors, then to be able to perform the same way and

bringing new products and marketing strategies their operational process has to be capable of

delivering according to the constant changes which are implemented be the new innovations.

They have developed a process which is flexible enough to support the different part of the

organization.

Driving:- The third part of the operational process of the business is the driving strategy

which gives the business a long term competitive edge. Either its long term success or the

short term success of the business it comes from successful operational process. The

operation function which is the base behind the both long term and short term business

advantage is the business strategy which is the driving strategy behind the every successful

business and it is the major factor for the competitiveness.

Effective Operations Management: Operation plays an important role within the organization

and it can be measured by the target which the organization aims for. The operational

management model is the central strategy of the organization for any operational process and

it is the part of the competitive strategy of the organizations operational objectives. The

competitive strategy of the operation management can be derived in 4 steps.

Internal Neutrality: - This is the lowest level that contributes to the operations function. The

other functions of the operation management regard the internal neutrality as the process that

holds them back from competing effectively. Even the high performing organization can be

bring down by their operation functions.

External neutrality: - After coming out of the stage 1, the best thing a operation function can

do is start comparing itself with the organization in the similar area of interest or working

environment. In the external neutrality the organization takes the ideas from their competitors

when they compare it-self form the other organizations. This is the practice that always

results in the favour of the organization as it brings the organization to give their best and

innovative result.

Internally Supportive: - These are the operation processes which have achieved their first

stage in their market. In this operation strategy the organization may not always perform

better than their competitors but they are not much far behind them, this operation process put

organization with the best organizations.

Externally Supportive: - After the 3rd stage which is taken as the limit of operation function

contributes to the better functioning of the externally supportive organization, which perform

better than their competitors and always put the organization on the top.

Appropriate systems

There are various systems that are used to ensure the quality control of products in an

organization, few of these systems are like TQM, Six Sigma and ISO9000/EN29000.These

system ensures that the product that comes out finally is of the appropriate standard and to be
there with the best in terms of quality and service. The two of the main techniques for the

quality control are TQM (total Quality Management) and Six Sigma.

TQM: - Total Quality management is the integrated system with the principles, methods and

the best practices of the management that provides a blueprint for the organization to give the

best performance in everything the organization do, either it is the product delivery or service

to the customer.

There is a model for the TQM when it is applied in any organization with the primary focus

on the customer requirement, than there is the planning process to have the process that how

the best product and services are being provided to the customer. If there is any lack or

discrepancy in any of the step of the TQM then this has to be improved and a proper step has

to be taken. Every member or team of the organization should take the participation in

delivering the best product and services to the customer.

Six Sigma: - Six sigma is a statistical quality control limit giving to the process of execution

of a job or assignment, in part or in whole, a confidence level of 99.9997%. This means that

the chances of the process or product failure is only 3.4th part per million.

Six Sigma follows the main organizational objective of the maximization of customer

satisfaction and maximization of the return of the investment. It incidentally has the two

business objective. Six Sigma should be taken as a philosophy by the organization to

transform the organization to transform the organization and change the people’s mind-set.

Six Sigma ensures that company has the rapid growth with the reduce cost and with the

increased productivity and it can also provide the option of rework.

Quality control like TQM and ISO9000/EN29000 are the standards used to ensure and

monitor quality to the satisfactory level. Let’s look at how the TQM and ISO9000/EN29000

works.

First step of the TQM has the Customer focus with the study of needs and requirement of the

customers, in which the customer’s requirement has to be identified, and then the product and

services are gives to the customer according to their requirement and with the best quality.

The second step is the planning process which is used to manage the day to day activities and

then to achieve the future goals. Plans for the implementation are reviewed after a particular

interval and necessary changes has to be made as per the requirement. The process of the

TQM is managed in such a way that it should be stable and meets the customer requirement.

Organization which has the TQM knows that the current exceptional work may become

unacceptable and out-dated in the near future so the organization has the concept of process

improvement. TQM involves the total participation with the involvement of people with the

top management taking the personal responsibility for implementing and nurturing all TQM

activities.

ISO9000/EN29000 is the series consist of the five levels of standards providing a model for

the organizational structure, responsibilities, procedures and resources to implement quality

intentions that concerns to the production of the goods and delivery of the products. TQM

and ISO9000/EN29000 are complimentary to each other, each of the standard provides a

structure which provides the continuous improvement and providing the quality product and

services to the customers.

QUALITY CULTURE: - The term quality culture relates to the managing with quality in a

organization, this relates to the working of organization on more quality oriented task and

products for the customers.

The company based in UK is very much different in terms of the quality control from the

companies based in the East or more specifically different from Japanese companies.

European companies have failed to develop quality models further than the quality control

system, such as ISO9000. The factor that contributes to this situation is the autocratic

perspectives which stop the European companies to completely implement the Total Quality

Management (TQM). Whereas the companies based in Japan has given major importance to

the implementation of the TQM practices in their organization. Even the Japanese

government has announced a quality award for the performance excellence in terms of

Quality control

This is the major difference in the approach of the companies based in UK and companies

based in Japan. UK based companies have failed to implement the TQM, because of which

they have to suffer in terms of their quality in comparison to Japanese companies who are

very strict for their TQM.

Effective Communication: - People in organization need to communicate as maximum

problems in the organization occurs because of the lake of communication in between the

employees. Effective communication provides a change in the quality of service and products

comes out from the organization.

Change: - A company has the changing mind-set to implement the change and run according

to the latest technology and trends.

Organizational Performance
Problems in the quality management can be identified by the various processes which

contribute in the betterment of the product and the quality of the service of the organization.

The steps like,

Customer response :- A company has to take the opinion of their customers, this can be

done by asking the staff, and other employee to take the opinion of the customer and then

improve their services.

Internal Review: - a very simple and effective way to find out the problem is the internal

review of the process in the organization and how the organization is performing in

performing the quality product, this provide the best opportunity to perform the improvement

in the organization.

ORGANIZATION PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENT PROGRAMME

Introduction: - When an organization is not performing according to the expectation and not

giving the desired result there is the need of the change in the process, quality and

performance of the staff and organization. Then the performance improvement programme is

applied in the organization to improve their quality of work. This will bring the change of the

technology and the new working environment for the employee that will motivate them to

produce a more effective product and deliver according to the requirement of the

organization. We will take the example of a small company providing the security solutions

the name of the company is optimum security solution .

Benefits of the Performance Improvement

The Optimum Security Solution (OSS) established in 2004, with the 4 members in the

company, now the company is having 200+ employees. So now the company need bit of
restructuring and the performance improvement programme for employee to motivate them.

The organization performance improvement programme will benefits the OSS at the various

level of the organization. The purpose of the performance improvement in the OSS is to

change their strategies for the quality management so that OSS can provide the better service

and product to their customers.

1) This is the best way to measure and implement the improvement in the organization

and to apply those changes for the better service delivery and the quality product for

their customers..

2) The internal data of the OSS is utilised in making the decisions for the improvement

and the decision is strategically focused for the resources working in the organization

so that they can deliver customer centric quality service.

3) Performance improvements provide the opportunity to the staff of the OSS to get

them involved in the performance improvement programme. The employee and the

other staff member of the OSS are the best person in the organization who can

provide their ideas and thoughts to their respective managers. To implement those

ideas and suggection in the improvement programme of the organization and this will

help them to a very well strategically made process.

How the Performance Improvement Work

A organization performance improvement programme implemented in the Optimum Security

Solutions (OSS) is the five step process, which is based on the Plan – Do – Check – and Act

cycle. The steps involved in the programme are.

Step 1- Reporting: - In this process the OSS managers gathered the information regarding

the departments and different operational areas where the change is required on the priority
and what are the key performance objective and indicators of the OSS. Which when changed

or reapplied with the better response and then they can perform in favour of the organization.

Step 2 – Review and Analysis: - Organization analyses performance oriented result and

other important data of the OSS to identify the strengths, opportunities of the organization

which can provide the improvement and priorities of the OSS. That in the end make the

organization more performance oriented and customer catered and this is what the customer

require from the company like OSS.

Step3 – Develop/Modify: - The plan of action has to develop according to the need of the

OSS. That will address the important objectives of the OSS that can improve the performance

of the organization it will help them to allocate the resources needed and this changed plan is

communicated to the organization, so that the employee can work accordingly on their

priority bases for the change implemented in the organization.

Step4 – Implement an Action Plan: - When the plans are implemented in the organization,

then there a team is made which will monitor the progress of the changes implemented in the

OSS and how well they are performing. It will be checked weather they are satisfying the

customer needs on the scale of quality in product and services given to them.

Step5 – Evaluation: - Organization evaluates that how effective are the changes implemented

and what are the outcome of the changes applied in improvement programme, if there is any

flaw or draw back in the performance improvement programme and they are not working

according as expected then the process is reviewed and then required change is applied where

it is necessary.

WHAT ARE THE PRIORITIES FOR IMPROVEMENT:-

Customer Satisfaction
The Major goal is the customer satisfaction, to take the reviews of customers a department

wise process is made in the OSS to measure and monitor the customer’s response to the

changed process and the customer satisfaction is measured with this monitoring process to

give the best service and quality products.

Employee Satisfaction

To develop effective and a very simple process to take care the result of the employee

beneficiary schemes applied in the new process. The employee satisfaction survey is

conducted to gather the information that how effectively the employee is reacting and

responding to the new programme of the organization.