Example Of The Dimensions Of Operational Management Report

Introduction

Richard Chase, Robert Jacobs and Nikolas Aquilano define operational management as administration of all the recourses that are necessary for manufacture of goods and services by any company (2005). Other researchers say that operational management is a science about concepts, methods, procedures and technologies, which are used by manager while creating and ruling operational system. All in all, one cannot but encounter the fact that the term operation management incorporates such five performance objectives as quality, speed, dependability, flexibility and cost; for all that, one can witness a variety of discrepancies in terms of whether it is vital to focus one’s thought on one particular objective or on all the above-listed and why. As for this essay, it argues that, in view of many experts basing their decision on a number of conducted surveys, it is necessary to focus on one particular objective, which is flexibility. The further case study aims to indicate the evidence of the significance of flexibility from the perspective of running successful business.
Considering the operational management of an enterprise, it is obviously a process of designing, planning, coordinating and controlling all the resources, methods and kinds of activities, which are necessary for transforming labour, capital, material, energy and professional skills into goods and services to satisfy the demands of society.
Operational management belongs to the system of planning and control that has the following structure: marketing situation, corporate strategy, operational strategy, and finally operational management (Slack., Chambers., Johnston 2010). In its turn operational management also is divided into several constituents, which are staff, departmental division of an enterprise, components of a good that is manufactured or service that is provided, and economics processes (Lovelock & Wirtz 2007).

External Factors Affecting the Industry

Undoubtedly, modern business institutions are operating on the extremely competitive and changing market where the use of the modern marketing strategies is considered to be a key to success. That is why community relations are considered to be one of the most significant activities that are performed by the organization. The management of the company is extremely interested in an ongoing, reliable and trustful external communication process as this is the priority of the entity attempting to survive in the community. All in all, it is necessary to make mention that there is a variety of external factors, which are also likely to impact the enterprise. Obviously, the external factors are likely to drive change in industry. Basically, it is worth saying that any kind of business is influenced by external factors. Thus, taking into consideration all the external factors belongs to the most important components of the company’s strategy.
The majority of the organizations are concerned with the necessity of the good relations with the community while the others overlook this opportunity that usually leads to success. Nevertheless, the community in which the company operates reflects its perspectives and values for the other audiences. Therefore, the main objective of the PR department at the firm is to develop, shape, transform and update the public opinion. Basically, this opinion accumulates the ideas of the individuals that are related to particular issue. It is not stable but dynamic and its components are all depend on each other (Wells & Sprinks 1999).
The reputation of the organization usually depends on its employees, customers, investors, creditors and the media resources, which provide necessary information about the firm within the community and shape the perception of the company by the representatives of the internal and external levels. From this perspective, media performs the news-reporting function of the press to the individuals who are reading the newspapers and magazines, listen to the radio, watch their television sets and surf in the Internet. Therefore, the company has to ensure that all the information the people read, hear and view is favorable for the company and emphasizes its strong sides. The organization should have positive image within the community and it must be positively featured in the mass media sources that are available for a number of citizens. This may be achieved by different approaches and with the use of various media types, especially the Internet-based ones, which are considered to be modern and very useful nowadays.
In particular, the organization’s policy should be focused on ethical, moral and honest attitude of the company towards the other institutions, employees, customers, investors and creditors because these virtues will be beneficial for the company. Thus, good communication with these participants of the market will enhance the media coverage and the company will be positively reflected by the media sources. Besides, the management has to provide the media with the full, reliable and updated flow of information about all the important activities of the company in order to communicate with the surrounding environment. It is necessary to mention that the members of the enterprise should be involved into the civic and community affairs in order to increase the flow of positive information associated with the company and create its favorable image (Victor 1992).
Indisputably, modern world is influenced by the drastic changes in the traditional understanding of the marketing communication due to the appearance of the Internet-based technology. It is proven that they make great contribution to the marketing process and the majority of companies attempt to implement the new policies and strategies in order to encompass larger amount of the customer and affect their habits and visions in the web environment. Basically, modern approach to the successful communication in the sphere of business in general and marketing in particular is constructed on the mixed use of all the available means of media: press (newspapers and magazines), radio, television and the Internet. It is believed that such a strategy is vital for the organizations that are performing on the global market and are influenced by the modern tendencies of globalized community.
Particularly, marketing communication theory is dedicated to the discussion of various channels of marketing communication from the prospective of the creator and the consumer. In order to have deep understanding of the issue, one has to engage with the new channels and show the outputs that are characteristic to the media. Moreover, it is important to critically reflect on the channels in the conditions of the developing marketing communication theory. The essay includes the discussion of the web media where special attention will be paid to the blogs as it is considered to be one of the most successful ways of the communication with the marketing purpose. Moreover, physical and virtual evidence from the channel are also presented in the article in order to demonstrate the engagement and annotate the paper. Thus, the essay is aimed at providing theoretical and practical examples of the marketing communication process within the organization.

Use of Media in marketing Communication

Basically, effective communication process is essential in the world where globalization is presented in all the sectors of business, public and private organizations. The companies negotiate with each other and the communities and this process needs to be supported by the media sources. There are many multinational companies aimed at negotiation on the international level. Thus, the implementation of the new approaches of the marketing communication is very important to their successful growth and development.

The Influence of Media on Multinational Corporations

The modern investigation demonstrates that the process of the economic globalization is of main interest in explaining the increased focus on multinational corporations. Generally, the multinational corporations contribute into the movement of the capital without any barriers and trading across the national boundaries. They are involved in the process of the economic globalization as the activities of the multinational corporations usually result in the growth of imports, foreign direct investments (FDI) and increase of the capital market.
Furthermore, the increasing number of the multinational corporations and their specific role in the global market suggest that these business entities intend to become even more international and control the world economics. As the result, the internationalization of the production process lead to the extension of the production and distribution networks across the boarders in search for the beneficial financial, environmental and political conditions. Media plays the most important role in this process and the entire activity of the multinational corporations as it contributes to the processes of internationalization and globalization.
The main aim of the corporation is operation on the international market and media is an integral component of the system. Particularly, mass media sources (newspapers, magazines, websites and blogs) are actively involved in the advertising campaigns worldwide. They inform people from different countries about the existence of a particular multinational corporation and its goods and services. The advertisement located in different societies with the help of media provides necessary information for potential customers and manipulate their wishes and preferences.
Therefore, the media is very important for the multinational companies that are involved into the international communication and are aimed at successful marketing strategies. Nevertheless, the issue of the marketing and communication within a particular community should be better investigated by the scholars.

Changes in PR Communication

The era of television is in stagnation and people are active receivers of information because they have the possibility to comment any postings and also add their own data. Therefore, modern social media is interactive, sharing swapping ideas, interests, recommending things for friends to watch read or consume. That is the main reason for its use in the business sphere because the individuals have the tools to communicate with the company and record their comments on goods and services. According to statistics, Guardians had 10,000 postings per day in 2008. Nowadays the customers are involved in PR campaigns because of extension of the traditional contacts beyond journalists. The media have changed the way we perceive brands and the corporations started to use imaginary, another language and the new approaches in PR.

Political and Legal Factors

In many cases, severe state policies, sly economic steps, tax reforms, social performance and international conflicts have the detrimental effect on the quality of life and welfare. As a result, what one can see now in rapidly-developing countries is a fair trade. Due to the fact that, for instance, Australia is one of the most powerful states in the world, it has already established mutually attractive trade relations with other countries, and it is respected worldwide. There were two major factors for the development of trade: proclamation of Independence and social unification and post American civil war industrialization. After American Civil War, Australia, despite being far away from the conflict, was still affected. Fortunately, the impact appeared as a motive force on the way to positive restructuring; Australia chose the attractive economic position. It charged high tariffs in order to protect domestic manufacturers from severe foreign competition.
This way, high import duties helped Australians expand their industrial employment and numerous plants and factories were established. On the agricultural sector, there was a wide range of social reforms, which essentially boosted domestic farming. The early government created the demand for food and raw materials that were produced at farms. So, on one hand, industrial workers received high wages and could buy domestic agricultural products. This way, industry and agriculture were both prospering and economy was fueled (Harris, 1990). After the establishment of solid domestic trade based upon balance between agriculture and industry, Australia quickly managed to launch and expand its international trade.

Social Factors

Although it is believed that one of the fundamental issues about business is making money and gaining profit, the society expects that companies follow all the moral and ethical principles regarding the employees, suppliers and other interested groups. Despite various scandals and difficult situations related to the violation of corporate social responsibility, the number of business institutions which manage their companies in accordance with all the norms of international trade law is rather small. There are many cases involving international corporations which locate their production capacities on the territory of the Third World countries and their activity result in the violation of human rights, negligence of safety conditions at the workplace environmental degradation. The society has already used to the exceptional value of money by the majority of people. The leaders who care about the personnel are perceived as something out of this world. That is the main reason for the great interest and heated debates connected with the case of Malden Mills.
Undoubtedly, the company gained more than 100 years of experience on the textile market, invented fleece Polartec and was making great contribution into the development of local community and local budget. However, it is strongly recommended to the leadership to implement innovative approaches and advanced technologies during manufacturing process. It is envisaged that proper investments of research and development department will enable the company to mechanise the majority of processes and lower the production costs as compared to the competitors.
Consequently, the case of Malden Mills is not typical for the today’s business here the ethical behaviour of the leadership is perceived as nonsense. However, this company and its CEO proved that employees are really the main asset of the organization and they should be valued even in the situation of emergency and crisis. According to Narva (2001) “most companies would have shut down and moved”, possibly taking their operations overseas to save money on the rebuilding process. However, this way is not for Feuerstein and his family business because he preferred to stay, rebuild and reopen Malden Mills in the same place as before and also return all the displaced employees back to work. Threfore, Feuerstein handled the crisis perfectly but he may have failed to see the long-term consequences which should have been taken into account.

Environmental Factors

Modern society is highly concerned with the problems caused by the human mismanagement in the sphere of natural resources preservation, contamination of air, water and soil and the ways for improvement of the situation. The usage of the natural components as a resource base, impact of industrial activity, pollution of resources, population pressures - all of these factors affects the nature and cause major environmental problems of today. The most significant environmental effect of global atmospheric pollution is the global warming ("greenhouse effect") and a destruction of the ozone layer. Many environmentalists advocate the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions and encourage people to be more attentive to the problem of ecology.
Indisputably, atmospheric pollution is playing a significant role in terms of worsening the ecology. As for the reasons for this kind of contamination, they are usually associated with the human activity because the evolution of technologies and sciences led to the growing amount of various emissions. In the majority of cases, they consist of hazardous substances and have negative impact on nature. Not surprisingly, that air pollution also contributes to coastal water contamination because they belong to the same ecosphere.
However, people have the possibility to manage and control the emissions and other negative results of their industrial activity. Undoubtedly, natural disasters are difficult to predict and response to them but human sources should be strongly monitored by special institution on the national and local levels. It is crucial for the mankind to eliminate the issue of atmospheric pollution because the increase of the industrial areas, nuclear factories, irrigation and other modern practices result in contaminated air. It is harmful for people because they inhale toxic substances but it is also very dangerous for the environment as air may interact with water, soil and this will lead to the global catastrophe. Consequently, preservation of the natural resources and taking care of the water and air quality belong to the most responsible and important goals of the global community and local governments. It is crucial for the authoritative bodies to establish some lows and special infrastructure that will monitor the activity of the companies in order to reduce the pollutants release in particular area. It is envisaged that this solution and will help to restrict the emission of gases and other toxic pollutants that are harmful for both marine and human life.

Conclusion

Operational management emerges as one of the pivotal principles of all the enterprises; and no matter whether its focus is on private, public or voluntary areas. It is basically about the design and management of products, processes, services, and supplies (Campbell 1966, p. 99). It considers the acquisition, development and use of resources, the firm must provide the goods and services that their customers want.
Supply agents range from the strategic to the tactical and operational levels. The representative of the strategic issues include determining the size and location of manufacturing facilities, determining the structure of services or telecommunications networks, network design and technologies of power. Operational management is one of the most widely used ways to provide any company with success. Not high technologies and significant investments, though they are also notions of great importance, make the company powerful and successful, but strategic thinking and mathematics lows. Strategy matters, because without it a firm does not have direction. Consequently, any successes that it may gain will be by fluke (Brown., Blackmon., Cousins., Maylor 2001). Hypothetic case that happened to Sowa Industries can be a real challenge for any company, where basic principles of operational management have not been implemented.
Deep review of the case has shown us that quite often the real situation is rather different from what it seems to be; not always the most profitable decision is the best one. Also, it is important to have as many plan variants as possible, because every alternative increases company flexibility, which is determinant factor of the efficient business model.

Reference list

Brown, S., Blackmon, K., Cousins, P., and Maylor, H 2001, Operations. Management Policy,
Practice and Performance Improvement. Planta Tree. Italy Retrieved from: http://grabebook.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/operations-management-policy-practice-and-performance-improvement.pdf
Campbell, D.T 1966, Pattern matching as an essential in distal knowing. In: Hammond,
K.R. (Ed.), The Psychology of Egon Brunswik. Holt, Rinehart & Winston,
New York, pp. 81–106.
Chase, R., Jacobs, R., Aquilano, N 2005, Operations Management: For Competitive
Advantage (10th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.
Harris, S 1990, “Agricultural trade and agricultural trade policy”, in Williams D.B.
(ed) Agriculture in the Australian Economy, 3rd edn., Sydney University Press,
pp. 342-360.
Lovelock, C and Wirtz, J 2007, Services Marketing: People, Technology, Strategy, Pearson
Prentice Hall.
Narva, R 2001 The Real Story of Malden Mills. Genus Resources, Inc.
Slack, N, Chambers, S. and Johnston, R (2010) Operations Management (6th Edition) FT
Prentice Hall.
Victor, D.A 1992, International Business Communication, HarperCollins Publishers, New
York, NY.
Wells, B. and Spinks, N 1998, Organizational Communication: A Strategic Approach, 5th
ed., Dame Publications, Houston, TX.