1. DOES OPERATIONS STRATEGY TAKE SIGNIFICANT STAKEHOLDERS INTO ACCOUNT?

ANSWER: Operations Strategy take significant stakeholders into account. It is the pattern of
decisions and actions that shapes the long-term vision, objectives and capabilities of the
operation and its contribution to overall strategy. It is the way in which operations resources are
developed over the long term to create sustainable competitive advantage for the business.
Increasingly, many businesses are seeing their operations strategy as one of the best ways to
differentiate themselves from competitors. Even in those companies that are marketing-led such
as fast-moving consumer goods, an effective operations strategy can add value by allowing the
exploitation of market positioning. Strategies are always difficult to identify because they have
no presence in themselves but are identified by the pattern of decisions that they generate.
Nevertheless, one can identify what an operations strategy should do. First, it should take
significant stakeholders into account. They are the people and groups who have a legitimate
interest in the operation’s strategy. They include employees, customers, society or community
groups, shareholders, suppliers, and industry regulators. Second, it should articulate a vision for
the operations contribution. This is a clear statement of how operations intend to contribute
value for the business.

2. WHAT POSITION ON THE HAYES AND WHEELWRIGHT FOUR-STAGE MODEL ARE YOUR
OPERATIONS?
ANSWER: The stage 2, External Neutrality. The first step of breaking out of Stage 1 is for the
operations function to begin comparing itself with similar companies or organizations in the
outside market. This may not immediately take it to the ‘first division’ of companies in the
market, but at least it is measuring itself against its competitors’ performance and trying to be
‘appropriate’ by adopting ‘best practice’ from them. Its vision is to become ‘up to speed’ or
‘externally neutral’ with similar businesses in its industry by adopting ‘best practice’ ideas and
norms of performance from others.

3. IS THERE A RECOGNIZED PROCESS FOR TRANSLATING BUSINESS STRATEGY ‘TOP-DOWN’ INTO

OPERATIONS STRATEGY?
ANSWER: A top-down perspective often identifies three related levels of strategy: corporate,
business, and functional. A corporate strategy should position the corporation in its global,
economic, political, and social environment. This will consist of decisions about what types of
business the group wants to be involved in, what parts of the world it wants to operate in, how
to allocate its cash between its various businesses, and so on. Each business unit within the
corporate group will also need to put together its own business strategy that sets out its
individual mission and objectives. This business strategy guides the business in relation to its
customers, markets, and competitors, and defines its role within the corporate group of which it
is a part. Similarly, within the business, functional strategies need to consider what part each
function should play in contributing to the strategic objectives of the business. The operations,
marketing, product/service development and other functions will all need to consider how best
they should organize themselves to support the business’s objectives. Therefore, it is often called
the ‘top-down’ perspective on operations strategy. Although this rather neat relationship
 between the levels of corporate, business and operations strategy may seem a little ‘theoretical’,
it is still a powerful idea. What it is saying is that to understand strategy at any level, one must
place it in the context of what it is trying to do (the level above) and how it is trying to do it (the
level below). At any level, a good top-down perspective should provide clarity and connection. It
should clarify what an operations strategy should be prioritizing and give some guidance on how
the strategy is to be achieved.

4. DOES OPERATIONS STRATEGY DEMONSTRATE BOTH CORRESPONDENCE AND COHERENCE

WITH BUSINESS STRATEGY?
ANSWER: Developing any functional strategy from a business strategy is not straightforward
task. There are ambiguities to clarify and conflicts to be reconciled. Inevitably, business strategy
consists of aggregated and approximate objectives. It should give an overall direction but cannot
spell out every detail of how a function should interpret its objectives. Yet, there should be a
clear, explicit, and logical connection between each functional strategy and the business strategy
in which they operate. Moreover, there should also be a clear, explicit, and logical connection
between a functional strategy and the decisions taken within the function. In other words, there
should be clear correspondence between a business’s strategy and its operations strategy, as
there should also be between an operations strategy and the individual decisions taken within
the operations function. Although correspondence between the levels of strategy is necessary, it
is not all that is required. Operations strategy must also be coherent, both with other functional
strategies and within itself. Coherence means that those choices made across or within functions
should not pull it in different directions. All decisions should complement and reinforce each
other in the promotion of the businesses and the operations objectives.

5. DO DIFFERENT PARTS OF THE OPERATION (PROBABLY PRODUCING DIFFERENT PRODUCTS OR

SERVICES) HAVE THEIR OWN RELATIVE PRIORITY OF PERFORMANCE OBJECTIVES THAT REFLECT
THEIR POSSIBLY DIFFERENT COMPETITIVE POSITIONS?
ANSWER: The idea behind the outside-in perspective is that businesses that compete in different
ways should want different things from their operations functions. Therefore, not every
operation will apply the same priorities to its performance objectives. There should be a clear
logical connection between the competitive stance of a business and its operations objectives.
For example, a business that competes primarily on low prices and ‘value for money’ should
place emphasis on operations objectives such as cost, productivity, and efficiency; one that
competes on a high degree of customization of its services or products should place an emphasis
on flexibility, and so on. Many successful companies understand the importance of making this
connection between their message to customers and the operations performance objectives
that they emphasize.

6. IS THERE A RECOGNIZED PROCESS FOR BOTTOM-UP COMMUNICATION ON STRATEGIC

PROCESS?
ANSWER: Bottom-up communication revolves around the inclusion of all employees, their ideas,
and their perceptions of the business to make the most informed decisions. In this case, a
business invites the entire team to participate in the company's management and decision-
making process. Operations may adopt a particular strategic direction not because of any formal
high-level decision-making, but because the ongoing experience of providing products and
services to customers at an operational level convinces them that it is the right thing to do. This
is the ‘bottom-up’ perspective of operations strategy. It stresses the concept of ‘emergent
strategies’ where strategy-making can be relatively unstructured and fragmented. The important
attributes for shaping strategy from the bottom up are an ability to capture the learning that
should come from routine operations activities and being able to transform that learning into
strategically valuable knowledge.