Course Completion Tracker
|
|
Wraps & Scribbles
Session 1: Operations Strategy, not Operational Strategy
We established the need to consider operations strategy as an important element of the overall business strategy of the firm. We looked at the various decision areas or levers that available to play around with while determining the operations strategy of a firm. Session 2: Reconciling customer requirements with firm resources
In this session, we established the various determinants of a firm's operations strategy. In the context of which we discussed about the product process matrix. Biz Buzz: Beer Cafe & its current focus on minimising costs and cash burn. Session 3&4: Blitz the inefficiency please!
The Blitz company case is a classic depiction of how company's go wrong with their operations strategy. We learnt the importance of focussing on your core competency and resisting the temptation to get into markets for which your operations are not designed. We also explored how the the company could come out of the problem Biz Buzz How Allen Solly and other garment manufacturers are winning using a geographical focus on the Indian Market. Burger King is catching up with McDonald's using a flexibility focus. Bajaj Allianz General Insurance's move to cloud based systems might not impact customer experience directly but will still add value to the customer. Session 5&6: Substitutes for Operations Strategies We looked at the fundamental principles of TQM, Lean, Six Sigma, BPR and finally TOC and applied these to the context of the Blitz case that was discussed in the previous session. Kudos to all of you for coming up with reasonably good presentations in limited time that available. We saw how these approaches while helpful didn't constitute the entirety of what can be defined as Operations Strategy. Session 7&8: Capacity strategy
Capacity is one of the most fundamental decision areas in operations strategy. During this session, we saw all the factors that influence the level & location of capacity of a business. We also saw the factors influencing the timing of capacity change investments. Finally, we also saw how the role played by suppliers and customers in determining the capacity of a company. Biz Buzz: Kia's "strategic" capacity, Reliance's Retail foray and Intel's chip woes! |
Session 9&10: Purchasing &
Supply strategy No firm can operates in isolation. Every firm is a part of a larger ecosystem consisting of suppliers, buyers, competitors and complementors. Firms have understood the value of moving from a transactional to a contract based to a trust based relationship. We considered the determinants of good supply relationships and the perception gaps that could exist between companies in a supply chain. We examined Zentrill and Aaren's cases which were two extremes of supply chain cooperation. Biz Buzz Amazon and future group partnership for a phygital future. Apple's measured online store launch deferral Session 12: Process Technology Strategy Technology plays a very crucial role in today's operation's strategy. We started off discussing about the differences and similarities between process and product technologies. Using the product process matrix as a base, we discussed how apart from product variety, scalability, automation and coupling play an important role in determination of process technology choice. Session 13&14: Backbay Disruption Successful technology transition from established to disruptive technologies is an art many companies have failed to successfully master. Using the the backbay batteries simulation, you managed the R&D expenses of a battery company under fairly realistic market conditions. The key learnings included: There is always too much data. Focus on what data is important and what data is not. Improving product attributes requires sustained, not sporadic investment over multiple years. Keep the core business healthy for as long as you can by investing in process innovation. Start investing in disruptive technology when the core business is still healthy. Session 15: Improvement Strategies Making the right set of operations strategy choices is one thing. However, constantly updating these strategic choices based on market inputs is altogether a different ball game. The improvement strategy of a firm as it navigates the direct, develop and deploy steps of the strategic operations improvement cycle was the key point of discussion during this session. We discussed the importance performance matrix that helps prioritise improvements in an organisational context. We also discussed the sandcone model of improvement of operations strategy. Session 16-19: Product & Service Development These sessions were taken by Ms. Debleena Majumdar. The sessions mainly dealt with product design and how human behavior has been playing an increasingly important role in acquisition, conversion and retention of customers. The sessions also discussed how data science can help identify customer pain points to develop products that possess sustainable competitive advantage. |