Superior Essay Writers | Operations, Strategy, and Sustainability

Operations, Strategy, and Sustainability

Assume the role of the business unit manager with overall responsibility for the outsourced function(s) of your company. Create a case analysis for the Chief Operating Officer (COO) that critically evaluates a previous
decision to outsource or provide a rationale to consider outsourcing. Be sure to structure your paper in a way that clearly addresses the following five elements:
• Introduction – Summarize the internal and external factors leading to the firm’s decision to outsource the function(s) offshore. Remember, this exercise offers you the opportunity to demonstrate a high level of critical thinking in all aspects of the assignment.
• Literature Review – Identify published opinion that substantiates your support of the decision to outsource.
• Analysis – Review the decision to outsource the function offshore. Discuss potential long-term impacts of this
outsourcing decision, including the impact on employees based in the U.S., quality of the outsourced
product(s), and company sales, profit, and reputation.
• Synthesis – Identify and recommend strategies to move the company not only to a position of maintaining
current levels of quality and sales but toward improvements in each of these measures of success.
• Conclusion –Summarize the essence of the information discussed and recommend solutions that incorporate
the outsourcing decision into an overall successful corporate strategy for sustainability and implementation.
Note: If it is unfeasible to use your current employer for this assignment, you may choose another company.
This course focuses on major operations-related developments and concepts that have become increasingly
more popular since the 1980s. You are witnessing a revolution in management philosophies that enable rapid
acceleration in business growth, aided by technology, and characterized by innovations in products and
services, refinement and improved process control, and improved levels of quality output. Companies that are
willing and able to rapidly respond to changes in the global market are best poised for long-term success.
You will be challenged to internalize these advances and accurately align the concepts presented with the realworld application. “How do I use this?” and “Why do I need to know this?” would be good questions to ask
repeatedly as we work through this course. Another question that must come to mind is “Should I use/do this?”
Just because something works in one company does not mean it works for all companies. Right choices in business depend on knowing your company, knowing the idea, and being able to determine its relevance to your company’s unique situation. Outsourcing has been a hot topic in the manufacturing and service industry with strong positive and negative feelings.
Companies, such as Wal-Mart, have changed the retail industry through the use of heavily outsourced product manufacturing. This has potentially benefited poorer communities by providing products at a much lower cost,
but it also comes at the cost of manufacturing jobs. With this outsourcing comes concerns about jobs leaving the U.S. In recent years, some companies are beginning to bring manufacturing jobs back to the U.S. for a variety of reasons.

Sample Solution

siness organizations can achieve a sustainable competitive advantage by integrating total quality management and business process reengineering. TQM seeks continuous improvements in product/service quality over time, while BPR takes advantage of information and telecommunication technology to achieve dramatic changes in organizational processes that facilitate performance improvements. While the two management approaches both seek to enhance performance and quality, they are often perceived as complete opposites because of their dissimilar pace, time requirements and change initiatives” (Lee and Asllani 409). Lee and Asllani however, argue that the two philosophies and approach to management control the course of the business “have many similarities and can be combined to form the ‘endless quality improvement’ management approach” (Lee and Asllani 409). Similarities between reengineering and TQM out number differences, both; are initiated by senior management, focus on enhanced quality, seek the contribution of all employees, are team oriented, allows the blurring of pre-existing departmental boundaries, and both requires full management commitment. However there are some differences between these concepts. “Quality programs work within the frame work of a company’s existing processes and seek to enhance them by means of what the Japanese cal Kaizen, or continuous incremental improvement” (Hammer and Champy 52). The idea here is to do what you already do, however only do it better. With QTM the process is never truly completed, whereas with BPR the process can be quickly called completed. Also with QTM the process is evolutionary and utilizes a democratic management style, however with BPR more measurable results>

GET ANSWER