Critical Review of "It's Not Luck"

Operations management refers to all levels of an organisation and how best to efficiently convene, fund, maintain and maximise its services and/or operations, both internal and external. The core goal/objective of operations management it to maximise outputs while reducing and minimising the inputs required to achieve the desired results.

The book, The Joy Luck Club, talks about the bonds mother and daughters share, and how they try to improve their relationships with each other. Waverly Jong, constantly worries

Chase, R. B., Jacobs, F. R., Aquilano, N.J. Operations management for competitive advantage (11th ed). New York: McGraw Hill/Irwin.

Chase, R.B., Jacobs, F. R., & Aquilano, N.J. (2006) Operations management for competitive advantage (11th ed). New York: McGraw Hill/Irwin

7) Importantly, Starbucks strategic planning process is developing (a mission), implementing (controlled strategies), analyzing (their environment(s), developing strategies (for business, functional, corporate levels). Shown on Exhibit 4-3.

Corporate level: where top management directs overall strategy for the entire organization, this is usually the board of directors and senior management officers.

Here, from my readings, I will define the two related terms and concepts which are the corporate strategy and Strategic Operations Management. Then, I will discuss the link between them. Next, I will provide four perspectives of the operations strategy. Finally, I will highlight some examples from the operations strategy of Jaguar Land Rover and how it is helping the company to achieve its business objectives.

A strategy is a plan that is targeted over the long run. Business level strategies refers to strategic alternatives that an organization chooses from as it conducts business in a particular industry or market (Griffin,2002). A corporate level strategy means that a company manages its operations simultaneously across many industries and markets. Netflix operates across both a business and corporate level strategy. The main areas across which Netflix operate on in their corporate level are business portfolio and partnerships.

Operations Management in an organisation is repsonsible for managing and in making decisions concerning the activities that convert inputs into outputs , that is goods and services. This covers both short term actvities as well as longer term activities to meet strategic goals. Inputs can be the raw materaials need to manufacture goods such as furniture or the computers needed to create a service like online shopping site. Operation management’s role is to make decisions to improve how operation activities function, for example, to improve the final quality of the output or to change production methods to be more efficient in terms of cost and in time.

Operations management (OM) is that phase of an organization where inputs are put into operations to acquire required output (services) without compromising on quality. In other words operations management is also described as combining and transforming various resources in the operations sub-system into value added services in line with formulated policies of the organization. (Kumar and Suresh, 2009)

Operations Management Process is the central arteries within the organization because it produces the planning process for goods and services, which are its reason for existent. Operations management is linked to all organizations as every organization is producing either a product or a service. However, it cannot be said to be the most important function since there are other functional areas and boundaries within an organization. In today's fast changing world, organizations have to have a tendency towards being efficient, effective and innovative to the changing environment to succeed. Operations Management has to use metrics in order for them to accomplish their task and be successful with

It’s Not Luck by Eliyahu M. Goldratt was published in 1994 by The North River Press Publishing Company, Massachusetts. It’s Not luck is a sequel to The Goal that follows the fictitious character, Alex Rogo, from becoming a plant manager to executive vice president of three diversified companies owned by the group UniCo.

Organisational strategies: This level is concerned with how different parts of organisations deliver effective corporate and business level strategies by proper allocation of resources, people and processes (Johnson et al 2006). Pursuing operational excellence can be seen as organisational strategy. This level includes steps like introducing new IT systems like SAP, where a single SAP HR database can hold information of 6500 employees in 25 countries and replacing 21 scattered distribution centres with three regional hubs in the USA (Jobber 2010).

An organisation’s strategy plays an important role of providing direction of where company wants to be and how best to allocate the company’s resources to meet its objectives. The formulation of business strategies has evolved over the years and has been made more difficult in recent by the uncertain operating environments and global financial crises.

Operations management is generally described as the planning, arrangement, and control of activities that change raw materials or an organization's input into finished products and services. The overall activities covered by operations management include the creation, development, manufacture, and distribution of products. The concept also relates to various activities such as inventory control, controlling purchases, quality control, logistics, storage, and evaluation ("Operations Management in McDonalds", n.d.). Since operations management covers the entire operations in an organization, it mainly focuses on the efficiency and effectiveness of the firm's processes.