MANAGEMENT

Strategic and Operations Management

Strategic and Operations Management

Introduction

An effective process design sets the base for the successful operations of a business. It involves the critical aspects of a business that need to be managed and designed carefully to help business achieve its objectives and profit goals. Efficient operation and supply chain management enable an organization to earn desired profit margins and sustainable growth, but also helps the management to built stronger relationship with its customers and suppliers.

This paper is aimed at critically evaluating the process designs of a business from two prominent aspects, the strategic level and the operation level. It further divides the strategic aspect into product, process and supply chain designs of strategic level. The operational aspect is explained from the point of design for layout. The concerned topic is emphasized with the use of relevant example to highlight its connectivity with the success of the organization.

Discussion

Process design is an activity used to determine the need of equipment, workflow and the requirement of implementation for a process. Numerous tools are used in the process design that includes the scale models and flowcharting (www.businessdictionary.com). In a business setup, process design comprises of logically related business activities that are combined to deliver something of value to the final customer (Cousins & Stewart, 2002, p. 1).

For an organization, process design can be viewed from two main aspects that include the strategic and operational design. The success of an organizational process design is residing on the proper implementation and planning of these two aspects. The recent pace of technological advancement and the increasing need of developing a competitive advantage are crucial to one's survival in the global arena. The highly competitive global market and the changing customer preferences have urged the organizations to review their process design on a continual basis. This would enable them to achieve their business objectives while maintaining their cost and quality competencies to remain distinctive in the market.

Strategic Design

It pays emphasis on the designing of implications that may arise in the interaction of the products and the process used in combination with the complete user system that is aimed to be served. The highlighted areas of concern under strategic design might include the identification of an opportunity for improvement, selection of a set of goals for improvement, to design the structure of those set of tools that would help to bring this improvement into practice. To identify resources that would help to implement the change model, and will lead to recognize and advise the grand strategy of the client (Burkhardt, 2009, p. n.d.).

Strategic Aspect of Designing Product

In the growing world with technological boom, designing a product has become an important cross functional and knowledge strenuous work. Designing a new product has become a key strategic activity in many organizations due to its significant contribution to the sales revenue. Developing a distinctive product design enables an organization to ask for a premium price that customers are willing to pay.

Developing a product design has become a critical factor in the success ...