Operation management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3500 words

Operation management - Essay Example This research deals with the operation management issues at Wal-Mart. The organization implemented several unique strategies in the business operation processes in order to gain competitive advantages. A primary data collection process has been adopted in this study to understand the view of the respondents who have participated in the interview process. Managers, employees and customers of Walmart have been chosen as the respondents. The respondents discussed about several reasons behind the growing operational management issues in Walmart. The report has analyzed each and every response that is gathered during the data collection process. Finally, some recommendation plans have been proposed for the operation management team of Walmart in order to improve the present scenario. Introduction Wal-Mart is one of the leading retail giants across the globe and is regarded as one of the most valued businesses in the world. The highly efficient performance of the company is mainly driven b y its state-of the art operations management and logistics system. The retail industry is a highly concentrated industry with a number of major players like Wal-Mart, Carrefour, Home Depot, Royal Ahold N.V., Metro etc. Wal-Mart has established itself as a market leader in the industry. The companies can be classified as market qualifiers and the market order winners based on the strategic perspective. The market order winners are those companies that are clearly distinguishable from the competitor companies and have more potential to be chosen as the source of buying by the consumers. The market qualifiers are those companies which have the minimum requirements to be considered as a potential source of buying by the customers. The factors driving the capabilities of a business as a market qualifier or a market order winner are given below. (Source: Kapner 51) Clearly, Wal-Mart is a market order winner because of the high quality, service and operational processes used in the busines s. The company has a robust technology system to forecast demand, supply, determine optimum inventory levels, determine efficient transportation routes and maintain customer relations efficiently. The efficient operations management in Wal-Mart has benefited the company in many ways like keeping the product cost low, reduced storage costs, ability to maintain a variety of stock and providing it at a competitive pricing. Wal-Mart continuously monitors and improves its technology so that all its operational systems function as per the demand and it does not lose out on even a single customer by not providing the right product at the right time and at the right place. The operations strategy of the company is particularly critical in driving the success of Wal-Mart as an established market order winner and is represented in Appendix 1. The main objective of the study is to find out the different operational and strategic issues faced by the operations manager in Wal-Mart. Other objecti ves are to find out the process of operations management and service delivery in the organization. Operational Issues The operations management of Wal-Mart is much superior as compared to the other players in the industry. The company has established an efficient supply chain thereby delivering excellent service quality to