You will prepare and submit a term paper on The Importance of Operations Strategy to Operations Management. Your paper should be a minimum of 500 words in length. Operations Management

1. Introduction

In any company, operations management plays a key role in achieving the desired set of goals and objectives properly. Operations management is one of the main departments of a company, which deals with all operations needed to run the business. Operations managers use appropriate strategies designed by the top management of a company in order to run the company.

1. Importance of Operations Strategy

An operations strategy is of critical importance not only for the operations management but also for the whole organization. It is a plan, which makes an organization utilize all available resources in an effective way. “Operational strategy begins with defining your business in terms of the present opportunity in relation to the customer and product of the business” (Wasmund 2006). Managers need to develop operations strategy by focusing on many important factors, which include corporate strategy, business strategy, operational experience, and emergence sense of what ideas should be included in the strategy. An operations strategy holds extreme importance in the overall organizational functions because it drives the organization towards the achievement of desired goals in an efficient manner. An operations strategy needs to be comprehensive, appropriate, consistent, coherent, and all-inclusive in nature in order to move the organization towards success. Operations management includes complete processes whereas operations strategies include the plans to assist managers in the management of those processes.

The management of operational activities, which accepts inputs in order to deliver usable outputs, is called operations management (Sankaranrayanan 2011). Operations management incorporates the use of both operational strategy and operational efficiency to manage business activities. The operational strategy includes a proper set of plans developed to achieve a competitive advantage in the market. The development and implementations of appropriate operations strategies is a step-based process. In the first step, the managers identify the requirements of the market-place and assess the performance of operations against competitors. In the next step, the managers assess the manufacturing operations in order to determine the strengths and weaknesses of the current practices. In the last step, the managers overcome the deficiencies in the current practices and implement an improved operations strategy.

A key point regarding operations strategy is that takes a long-term perspective of all operational functions. For example, it ensures quality in the development of all products in order to make the organization improve customer satisfaction and increase productivity. Operations strategy can develop the strategic capability of a business by providing the company with an effective and efficient set of plans to gain a competitive advantage in the market. Therefore, operations strategy is key to business success because it makes the operations management department of a company accomplish its goals in an appropriate manner.

1. Conclusion

Summing it up, an operations strategy includes a complete plan to make the organization get the best use of all available resources. Operations management, on the other hand, is the management of operational activities. The operational activities play their role in making the organization achieve a competitive advantage in the market. Therefore, operations strategy is key to the success of a business because it makes the operations management department fulfill its responsibilities in an effective manner.

References

Sankaranrayanan, S 2011, Operations Management – Introducing the Basics!, viewed 18 April 2011, &lt.http://ezinearticles.com/?Operations-Management—Introducing-the-Basics!&id=5834746&gt..

Wasmund, E 2006, Operations Strategy and Leverage: Don’t Go Wrong, viewed 18 April 2011, &lt.http://ezinearticles.com/?Operations-Strategy-and-Leverage:–Dont-Go-Wrong&id=302720&gt..