Operations Management

Swapnil S Thakur

Poly Id 0465074

Sub: Operations Management- MG 6303

Learning Log 1

Dear Professor,

This is my first learning log. Before initiating it I would like to thank you for introducing this unique idea of documenting the learning experiences in our own words that makes the studying process more easy. Also, I think it'll help us all to explore our inter-personal skills as well as the business applications in day to day life. The essence of this log seems to be informal than the conventional learning processes and that enables us to express our ideas more effectively and broadly. I am glad that I've got a chance to educate myself in a way that I wasn't acquainted with anytime before. I will try to put my best through the series of such logs and being true to self so that I can make most out of it.

Learning Log 1 - Chapters 1-2-3:

Chapter 1

I was very excited about the first session of the OM course and that was totally justified by the end of this session. This was the step, a stimulus towards being a future Business person. And for which it was very vital for me to know how a business organization manages the various processes associated with its goods and services. As a future Operation Manager it's my responsibility to be cognizant about the know-how of what exactly my roles would then be.

I learnt that OM in simple terms is a collection of processes that helps creating a service or a good starting from its input phase giving us the most appropriate output. The basics learnt were the fundamental difference between Goods and Services. Good is a tangible entity while Service is intangible. And sometimes service can also be a later phase of a good, for example, Customer support or a service in the form of Warranty. But to sell these it important to understand HOW can we sell them? So here comes Marketing, Operations and finance as the important functions of an organization that determine their progress and help them evaluate their position in the market. Also the different way in which organizations function enabled me to understand that though a firm may have a wide array of business activities, Operations are the ones that are associated with relatively tangible processes comparing Marketing and Finance. For example activities like Product design, Supply-chain management, Inventory management, Human resource and job design etc are solely associated with the product's evolution.

A realization that studying OM which is the most exorbitant division of an organization was ample enough to understand the criticality of it as a subject and the role of an Operations manager towards his/hers firm. This serenity puts the job profile on one of the most lucrative jobs for an individual.

However, if we dream big, even our efforts must be fair enough to realize them. For example, the critical decisions like Planning, Organizing, Staffing, Controlling, and leading are all involve into OM. So now this tends me to work towards the qualities associated with these functions. I may have good planning and organizing skills but I need to hone the leadership skills. For this I eventually will work upon my communication skills. Because an effective communication plays an important role when you are managing an organization or while working as a team.

Deciding what new services can we come up with and keeping up the quality of the goods produced only helps in providing the right customer value, ultimately giving greater profits to the company. So here decision making is the key. Deciding what the product must be, how will it affect the sales in the market, and where should it be marketed are all the basic functions of OM strategies which also requires a research oriented approach, which I feel I always possessed.

Concentrating on the Costing of a product here I relate myself from a customer's perspective, wherein a customer bargains for a price if he isn't satisfied with the product. So here, OM tells us that it is of utmost importance that as a manufacturer we need to focus upon the precise pricing and the correct quality of a product to increase its sales. Because ultimately the sales will redeem the revenue invested in the form of profit to the company. This market should be diverse in terms of segmentation for greater money generation opportunities. "Customer is the king" as they say, is totally being proved by Hamish Dodds, the CEO of Hard Rock Café. Their dedication towards providing their customers with a unique musical environment had made them develop a standstill into the Hotel Industry. The video case showed many hidden aspects associated to them that lead them as a Pioneer service provider.

During the course of time I observed that the market is becoming more service oriented than before, hence, I think the future operation managers need to be more creative than logical. Because service is more knowledge based. Also improving productivity is the need of time. The example of steps taken by Starbucks towards increasing their that, by just not taking the signatures of the customers, reducing the size of Ice cubes, and installing new coffee vending machines improved their productivity almost five folds! Also here I remember an example given by Mr. Prentice Dees, The Sr. Vice President VP of The Bank of America recently in his lecture on Cloud Computing, wherein he explained how a certain company eventually came with the solution of placing a huge fan just to blow off the cartons that were left empty due to some operational spoof. This shows how simple ideas can solve major problems sometimes.

The challenges that a company meets in terms of its resources, productivity and growing demand from user's end depend upon factors like Labor, Capital and Management. This prepares me to taken proper measures in my personality so that in future I am able to face these challenges and also tackle them successfully. Also the increasing scope towards the Ethical businesses makes me realize that it can only be developed and maintained when we lead a life with morals. Adhering to one's ethics is the most difficult part of the life and so it becomes critical in business too.

Finally the introductory session provided me with the guidelines towards not only becoming a successful Business person but also a disciplined and moralistic individual.

Chapter 2

One of the most logical chapters uptil now. Here I got introduced to the two chief ideas associated with an organization - Mission and Strategy. When I relate these terms with real life, I come to the conclusion, without