Operations Management, Goods And Services, Productivity And Meta-Design Methodology: A Critical Analysis

Operations Management

TESCO is a multinational grocery and merchandise store located in the United Kingdom. Jack Cohen in London founded the organisation in the year 1919. At that period, the company was developed as a collection of market store for helping the consumers  with their requirement. The company was renamed as “Tesco” in the year 1924. From then the company has scattered their present all across the world with its stores functioning in almost 12 countries across the international boundary. Currently, the company has almost 30% of the share in the market in grocery industry and operating with over 60,000 stores internationally.

Save Time On Research and Writing
Hire a Pro to Write You a 100% Plagiarism-Free Paper.
Get My Paper

In this context, the major products of the company include, cash, warehouse, superstores, departmental stores used for the sale products associated with the grocery and generalised usage. Moreover, the company employs almost over 500,000 staffs over all its different stores along with a generating profit revenue of almost 64 billion. However, all the resources of the company is effectively managed by the company and has successfully spread with a good speed over the time that helped them to become a leader within the functional market.

 However, the points ushered in the study is associated with the policy an processes implemented by the company in terms of Human resource department and finance department. It is the urgency of the Tesco while applying towards the implementation of the new policy and procedure. As a result of this, the employee motivation and morale have reduced owing the cutting down of labour wages and changes within the industry. In this aspect, the most essential duty of the employees of the staff union and accountability of the line managers is to manage the human resource department. As applied in the study, it discusses primarily on the significance of the leading and managing reousrces as well as people as a set up that supporte the junior managers in making well informed economic decisions prvided with new insights and learnings.

These also help to improve the learning capability of the upcoming leaders within the organisation. In this context, it can be said that success of any organisation I reliable on the allocation of leadership management. Moreover, the organisation change-taking place is al needed to be a part of management since leadership is associated with flexibility. Specifically, the study has successfully affirmed that organisational change along with leading, managing resources are associated with each other, and it adds value for the employee growth along with the concepts available for the workplace. The inevitability of the company allows them to change their operations and processes for the wellbeing of the organisation insulted.

However, the main purpose of the study is to critically evaluate the internal and external factors influencing the business of TESCO while managing and leading the resources. The study will also highlight the perspective affecting the structure of the strategic direction of the company along with workforce. The changes within the supermarket and grocery industry, the changes within the social life of the customer provided with the external and other pressures on the business has been highlighted to show the steps taken by the of management while implementing the changes.

Save Time On Research and Writing
Hire a Pro to Write You a 100% Plagiarism-Free Paper.
Get My Paper

Goods and Services

Analysis 

Individual management and Human resource management

It can be said that individual management is generally a traditional approach surrounding the various activities associated with the workforce of the organisation consisting of staffing, payroll, and contractual obligation and management operations. The management of human resource is completely related to the operations of handling operations, finance as well as technology that is the major part of the organisation. On the contrary, human resource management consist of all the efforts that are required to set up for the benefits of the organisation and employees by placing the employees as the organisation is emerging as the human oriented organisation.

In prior years, it has been observed that the major task of the human resource manager was to support the HR department for supervising the working employees thereby ensuring the accomplishment of needs from all the employees, in order to help them in working effectively. However, the current system of individual management has changed, since the human resource management has become the most essential department of the entire organisation as it manages all the activities considering the employees thereby ensuring the good return on the investment   from the employees. This helps in increasing   the   profitability of the organisation while ensuring   that the employees do not have a conflict while managing the   organisational objectives and personal objectives.

Therefore, a well-developed operations and human resource helps to ensure the co-operations of all the staffs working in Tesco. The major duty of the line manager within the organisation consist of offering effective quality of working environment for the employees and adoption of policy that are employee friendly.

Role of the Human resource Management and operations‘

The Human resource of the organisation plays the major role as it helps in the accomplishment of the organisational objectives by turning in to the part of strategic decision making of the organisation. The organisation illustrated their goals, which they are required to achieve within a specific duration of time. There are various resources available within the organisation that helps to ensure that the organisation achieves the objectives and human resources ply an important role in accomplish the goals of being the major resources for the organisation.

Therefore, it is significant for the operations of human resource of the organisation to handle all the employees  in such an way that the organisation is able to achieve the objectives within the given time and the employees working within the organisation have no conflicts with their personal objectives.

This will help to ensure that the skills are available with the employees that are used in a best way while delivering them with the environment in increasing their skill base. On the contrary, in terms of operations Tesco initiates a cross docking operation with an application of a cooperative plan to as site its managements of inventory. In this context, it has been seen that inventory-handling operations are the major operational issue that is required to manage with the help of strategic leadership.

Technology is also a major component through which Tesco implements the concept of lean managements. The process of lean managements is used to simplify the method of operations, to remove the unnecessary elements, and to ignore waste products. For example, under the assistance of Booth, the supply chain directors of Tesco and is cola manufacturer, introduced a comprehensive study to evaluate its cola chain of supply. From the observed resulted it has been found that these have helped in reducing the cost and enhance the efficiency within organisation thereby reducing the touch points, increasing the machine using the rate.

Productivity

 Apart from these, Tesco also launches cross system of docking and implements a cooperative plan for assisting the supply chain process. For instance, Tesco tends to evaluate the pattern truth the process CPFR process by which they share data on the internet.

In this context, Tesco is a staff-oriented organisation owing to the through interaction with the consumers and the employee’s that help them in the fulfilment of the customer’s requirement. However, being a merchandise organisation, the organisation is highly reliable on the employees for achieving its goals and objectives. Tesco ensures that all the staffs of the organisation are properly managed in such a way that they are able to work in an effective way thereby meeting the organisation objectives while accomplishing their personal goals as well

The Michigan Model

Fombrum founded the Michigan model that helps in evaluating the existing position of the internal and external environment of Tesco. It is because, without acknowledging the influence of the environment, Tesco will not be able to recognise the fluctuations and changes taking place within the industry. According to issues of economic and financial situation that is, putting pressure on the company to restructures its high risks on the culture of sales. It can be stated that changes within the regulatory policy could have a huge impact on the retail industry throughout the next decade.

On the contrary, the retail industry is playing in safe way under the reformed system of regulation where the system is consistently pushing them to function like a flexible organisation. By doing so, the company is able to reduce the risk of failure within the company. In this aspect, the Michigan Model emphasis on the manners that is needed to deal with different people within the organisation. This is because; employees are the most essential asset of the organisation and is required to be obtained as cheaply as possible for managing the raw material and inventory of the manufacturing organisation.

However, the existing culture of Tesco is quite distinctive as the manager of the company is more drawn from outside of the retail industry. Therefore, delving in to the internal factors of the organisation, the mission of the company is to offer the customers with more differentiating products and service as most of the retail institutes are delivering similar services.

 The accountabilities of the line manager in Tesco consist if designed designation of line managers that lead the employee is while operating in the stores. Moreover, the line managers of the company helps in ensuring that they are able to take the appropriate decision that can help in providing support to the colleagues while working in an effective way and are helpful for the customer while visiting the store. Along with it, the line managers of the company also make an effort to apply effective care for all the operating employee is in the stores and ensures that all the consumers are properly getting out of the stores after they are provided with the services.

Meta-Design Methodology

For example, they offers coaching to the team working under the line managers is another duty managed by them including leading the team members. By doing so, these managers’ help in ensuring that all the needed resources are available at time in accordance to the illustrated standards. Based on these studies, they come to conclusions that could assist the team in managing their regular tasks while ensuring the process, schedules and structures within the store.

The human resource managers also plan various type of actions such as skill pouring, advertising and periodic offers for achieving maximum influence from these practices on the productivity of the organisation. Therefore, the operational managers are the major resources for Tesco as they subsidise more for the achievements of the objectives of the organisation.

Legal frameworks for the Human resource management 

Organisations working within reduced needs to survey various regulations that are essential for the specific economy. These regulations are appropriate in a diverse way for various subdivision within the organisation. However, the human resource department of any organisation cannot be set aside from this legal regulation. For example, they uses different regulation such as employment law, health and safety law have a direct influence on the actions of the human resource department. Moreover, these laws are associated with the safety security and job satisfaction of the staffs working within the company.

In this context, most of the government have illustrated various lawful backgrounds for the judgement of gender, employment relation unfair treatments of the employees. However, these regulatory policies are necessary for all the employees and the company in ensuring the appropriate working environment within the organisation and in managing the satisfaction for the employee. Tesco monitors all the regulatory guidelines illustrated in the aspect of human resource of UK for managing the decision and for following the regulation of the economy.

The human resource team at Tesco delivers effective structures and management for meeting the business requirements and functions of the HR team and helps the company in achieving the objectives through the following process:

Incorporation

This operation is associated with the management of healthy connection in between directors and the staffs. HR members of Tesco emphasises on developing the industrial relation with the other companies. The human resource manager at Tesco is responsible for developing the submission of the database associated with the industrial relation and activities.

Training and development:

The success fullness of the organisation is dependent on the skilful workforce that the company hires. In this aspect, it has been found that employees are required to be properly trained and established. The company provides effective training for the employee’s and the company also carry out different programs of development at their workplace premises for making their employees more established and upgraded.

Effective leadership:

It is not always easy for the employees to hold the qualities of leadership. Therefore, the human resources team at Tesco efficiently intrusts and direct the employees towards the achievement of organisational objectives. They also focus on redirecting the HR objectives from transactional to strategic ensuring effective path of innovation and forward business ideas.

Human Resource Management

Performance management:

The human resource managers at Tesco ensures that all the employees are encourages achieving the organisational objectives. The company uses different approaches to motivate the performance of the employee’s with incentives, bonus offers, and various reward system. Therefore, it has been states that providing compensation to the employees is not only achieved by appreciating the existing performance the employees but also by encouraging them to work harder to achieve the future target at Tesco.

Managing financial resources at Tesco

In order to understand the performance of the business and the resources that are needed for the future, the financial investor of the company is needed to understand the strategy of business and the plan to achieve this. Specifically, it is the capital structure of the business, which can determine whether the company has enough finance in order to achieve targets and investments demonstrating the risk involved within the system.

 The overall strategy of Tesco is growth that has helped the company in strengthening their business within the UK market. However, Tesco plans to achieve this by diversifying the dimensions of product by including financial and non-financial resources. From the current report, it has been found that shares in Tesco have fallen down by on ethics over the period of last few years, with an additional decline of 7% in the month of August followed by the profit warning and huge cut in the dividend. These shares are now at their lowest level for a decade before the financial crisis in the year 2007. Therefore, it is evident that the company continuous to lose the share in the market in UK that accounts for most of the profits along with the overseas operation that is also struggling.

In this context, it has been argued that Tesco remains a formidable competitor in spite of the current fall down in shares. The company has a consistent share of the market with 29% in comparison to the 17% for their closest competitor Walmart. In this context, several authors have argued that the shares of Tesco are in good condition, on their own and are worth the existing market capital.

Investment

Tesco is one of the largest retailer that has successfully managed to expand their business in the international market that is consistently making an effort to expand their future development in the international industry of retail. The company has launches its international strategy of expansion by venturing in to Europe, Asia, and the United states. However, Tesco manages various internal and external resources of finances. The internal financial resources are:

Retained earnings:

This is the source of finance utilised by Tesco, where they re-invest a specific percentage of their share at the end of year for getting back the profits. Therefore, each of the year the company decided the money that they are required re invest. This depends on the profit they could make.

Fixed assets:

Another type of the internal resource for Finance in Tesco are the fixed assets. Foxed assets are the assets that are not usually sold during the normal period of business. The company in the form of buildings, tools, machinery and various vehicles usually uses these assets. However, these assets are hard to transform in to cash as it takes a lot of time for being sold.

Role of the Human Resource Management and Operations

Conclusion

Therefore, from the above studies it is evident that Tesco has various types of resources that they manage in their organisation. In this HRM is the min resources that each of the organisation involves with for ensuring that all the employees have proper equipment to deal with the issues within an organisation. However, it is evident from the study that various of human resources and finances within Tesco deals with the employee and productivity related issues within the organisation including compensation, acquisition of talent, monitoring performance of the employee’s, establishment of the organisation and managing health and safety of the employees.

It is evident that leadership and effective management of resources are necessary for the organisation for supporting the employees within the organisation. Organisation as well needs to monitor the performance of the employee’s over the passing period for evaluating the strength of the workforce. Moreover, evaluating the performance of the employees is necessary in Tesco for improving the service satisfaction of the employee..

It is also found from various reports that intense competition within the UK market is resulting in the cut down of cost and new methods that could distinguish themselves from their rivals. Therefore, the growing competition in between the large retailers led to the war in price with the rival organisation for reducing the price, arguing within the industry. The market is effectively regulated while ensuring the competition. From the financial perspective, Tesco is at a risk. Their present situation highlights that they are presently facing high financial risk that could influence the value of the company and shareholder wealth. However, over the price, the company may have to face crucial time, as their investments are consistently going through diversification and international expansion.

In this aspect, the returns on the dividends and payment are seen to be growing with increasing target on the earners who are increasingly facing challenging for the purpose of sustainable returns. Therefore, it can be said, the study has successfully proved the relation while meeting the requirement of the objective in between managements of resources, finances, operational and technology that are, major part of Tesco which is needed to be managed with the help of effective use of leadership approach.

Despite the issues, faced by the company, it is also evident, Tesco has lot of success and they have different strategic issues that is needed to be fixed while managing all types of resources within the organisation.  Therefore, the organisations is accountable for the improvement of the employees and the employees working in this organisation are responsible for supervise the managing of resources for accomplishing the organisational objectives.

Recommendations 

  • All the employees are required to be motivated by the corporate social accountability. This is because, the integration of social, environmental and economic establishment of the organisation,
  • According to the illustrated objectives of the organisation, the requirements of the employees are needed to be recognised for accomplishing the objectives of the organisation within defined timeline.
  • All the accessible resources within the organisation are required to be evaluated for acknowledging the skills, talent and competency level available within the organisation. This will help in defining the strength of the organisation in accordance to the human assets.
  • The need and expected entry within the organisation are required to analyse by the department of human resource, and thereafter they are required to balance for bringing a number on the human resource that is needed on the defined time.
  • After obtaining the appropriate amount of incomes needed by a particular period within the organisation, the subdivision of human resource along with the planned members is needed to decide over the process of recruitment and selection of workforce in an effective way. These steps also consist of planning and training the employees.
  • Reimbursement can be seen as the major encouraging factor for the staffs. Therefore, job analysis task is required to be done by providing the effort to employees and increasing the level of competence of the employees for defining the pay of the employees. By doing so, the company will be able to manage their economic environment, financial health of the company and will be able to balance the competition within the industry.
  • Tesco is needed to effectively monitor the performance of the employees with the help of feedback for acknowledging the behaviour of the workplace. The main applicable method for evaluating the performance of the employees will be done by analysing the effectiveness of the employee.
  • Establishing employee management strategies, structures, and practices that aligns with the overall strategy of business and customer oriented business functions will help in gaining competitive advantage for the organisation and in motivating the performance of the employee.
  • All the internal and external factors are required to be appropriately analysed and the employees are needed to be properly motivated as all the employees do not share same level of skills and intellectuality.

“Financial performance”. Tesco.in, 2018, <https://www.tescoplc.com/investors/reports-results-and-presentations/financial-performance/> [accessed 22 November 2018].

“Tesco Groceries | Online Food Shopping & Delivery | Order Food Online – Tesco Groceries”, in Tesco.com, , 2018, <https://www.tesco.com/groceries/> [accessed 22 November 2018].

Anderson, N., Poto?nik, K. and Zhou, J., Innovation and creativity in organizations: A state-of-the-science review, prospective commentary, and guiding framework. Journal of management, vol.5, 2014, pp.1297-1333.

Bolden, R., Leadership, management and organisational development. In Gower handbook of leadership and management development 2016, (pp. 143-158). Routledge.

Technology and Lean Management

Bruton, G.D., Peng, M.W., Ahlstrom, D., Stan, C. and Xu, K., State-owned enterprises around the world as hybrid organizations. Academy of Management Perspectives, vol. 29, no.1, 2015, pp.92-114.

Collings, D.G., Integrating global mobility and global talent management: Exploring the challenges and strategic opportunities. Journal of World Business, vol.49, no.2, 2014, pp.253-261.

Dhar, R.L., Service quality and the training of employees: The mediating role of organizational commitment. Tourism Management, vol. 46, 2015, pp.419-430.

Frese, M. and Keith, N., Action errors, error management, and learning in organizations. Annual review of psychology, vol.66, 2015, pp.661-687.

Head, B.W. and Alford, J., Wicked problems: Implications for public policy and management. Administration & Society, vol. 47 no.6, 2015, pp.711-739.

Jackson, S.E., Schuler, R.S. and Jiang, K.,. An aspirational framework for strategic human resource management. The Academy of Management Annals, vol. 8 no. 1, 2014, pp.1-56.

Jacobs, K., Lebel, L., Buizer, J., Addams, L., Matson, P., McCullough, E., Garden, P., Saliba, G. and Finan, T., Linking knowledge with action in the pursuit of sustainable water-resources management. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 113, no.17, 2016 pp.4591-4596.

Kianto, A., Ritala, P., Spender, J.C. and Vanhala, M., The interaction of intellectual capital assets and knowledge management practices in organizational value creation. Journal of Intellectual capital, vol. 15, no. 3, 2014, pp.362-375.

Kim, T.H., Lee, J.N., Chun, J.U. and Benbasat, I., Understanding the effect of knowledge management strategies on knowledge management performance: A contingency perspective. Information & management, vol. 51 no.4, 2014, pp.398-416.

Landy, F.J. and Conte, J.M., Work in the 21st century, Binder ready version: An introduction to Industrial and Organizational Psychology. John Wiley & Sons. 2016

Paillé, P., Chen, Y., Boiral, O. and Jin, J.,. The impact of human resource management on environmental performance: An employee-level study. Journal of Business Ethics, vol. 12, no.3, 2014, pp.451-466.

Popaitoon, S. and Siengthai, S., The moderating effect of human resource management practices on the relationship between knowledge absorptive capacity and project performance in project-oriented companies. International Journal of Project Management, vol. 32 no. 6, 2014, pp.908-920.

Salas, E., Shuffler, M.L., Thayer, A.L., Bedwell, W.L. and Lazzara, E.H., Understanding and improving teamwork in organizations: A scientifically based practical guide. Human Resource Management, vol. 54, no.4, 2015, pp.599-622.

Schnackenberg, A.K. and Tomlinson, E.C.,. Organizational transparency: A new perspective on managing trust in organization-stakeholder relationships. Journal of Management, vol. 42 no.7, 2016, pp.1784-1810.

Soto-Acosta, P., Popa, S. and Palacios-Marqués, D., E-business, organizational innovation and firm performance in manufacturing SMEs: an empirical study in Spain. Technological and Economic Development of Economy, vol. 22, no.6), 2016, pp.885-904.

Stone, D.L. and Deadrick, D.L.. Challenges and opportunities affecting the future of human resource management. Human Resource Management Review, vol. 25 no. 2, 2015 pp.139-145.

Tung, R.L., New perspectives on human resource management in a global context. Journal of World Business, vol.5, no.1, 2016, pp.142-152.

Zoogah, D.B., Peng, M.W. and Woldu, H., Institutions, resources, and organizational effectiveness in Africa. Academy of Management Perspectives, Vol. 29, no.1, 2015, pp.7-31.

“Tesco – Technology and Operations Management”. In,, 2018, <https://rctom.hbs.org/category/uncategorized/tesco/> [accessed 27 November 2018].

Saha, S., Nielsen, I. and Moon, I.,. Optimal retailer investments in green operations and preservation technology for deteriorating items. Journal of Cleaner Production, vol. 140, 2017, pp.1514-1527.

Fan, T., Tao, F., Deng, S. and Li, S.,. Impact of RFID technology on supply chain decisions with inventory inaccuracies. International Journal of Production Economics, vol.159, 2015, pp.117-125.

Zhao, S.,. Analyzing and Evaluating Critically Tesco’s Current Operations Management. J. Mgmt. & Sustainability, vol.4, 2014, p.184.

Sullivan, R. and Gouldson, A.,. Comparing the climate change actions, targets and performance of UK and US retailers. Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, vol. 23, no.3, 2016, pp.129-139.