Executive Summary
This report provides the strategy De Mar’s current strategy to achieve competitive advantage, their three most important operations management decisions, and what they can do improve their most important operations management decisions.
De Mar distinguishes itself from other HVAC and plumbing companies through customer service, cost, and response. This gives De Mar a unique approach to their service industry.
While each of the 10 Operations Management Decisions are important, De Mar utilizes design of goods and services, human resources and job design, and scheduling to improve their strategy of unapparelled customer service. Improving the three Operations Management Decisions will ensure that they can maintain their
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Competing on response can help establish a competitive advantage, which provides the customer with a perception of increased customer service.
Companies like De Mar that offer differentiation, low cost, and response to their customers can establish a competitive advantage. With the proper execution, their business will become sustainable and have perceived added value from a customer.
Three Important Operations Management Decisions
Design of goods and services is very important for De Mar. De Mar is in the business service sector of HVAC or plumbing. Their differentiation is provided through the service of being available that day or even at two a.m. in the morning if needed. The design of their afterhours and same day service provides the customer with a guaranteed product quality and integral customer value.
Human resources and job design in De Mar is established around the policy of solving the customer’s problems and leaving them satisfied with their product and service. De Mar establishes a high level of competence in their personnel through selective hiring and continuous education. There is also extra compensation and promotions for personnel who include this strategy of service to the customer (Heizer et al, 227). You must have reliable personnel to go to a house at three a.m.
Scheduling is imperative to provide the service De Mar aims for. They must schedule properly to meet the demands of the customer. Implementing short term or intermediate
From the response of the consumers, companies make enhancements in their products as per the necessities of the consumers. From the approach or the associations with the consumers, companies get a chance to gratify their consumers and build up a competitive edge. This mechanism facilitates companies to stay with and goes ahead from their competition. Therefore, consumer relationships help the companies to make a competitive edge. (How to build a customer-centered organization to gain competitive advantage)
| A consumer would be interested in DFS, as they want them to produce high-quality, value-for-money products and the after-sales service in order to make any future sales. As they are the purchaser of the good, the business is essentially interested in the needs of the consumer. They can have a huge impact on the business as if they receive a poor quality product it would lead to any future sales being lost. This is vital as like every
Operations management is essential for the survival and success of any organization. According to Heizer & Render (2011), operations management (OM) is the set of activities that creates value in the form of goods and services by transforming inputs into outputs. Operations managers today contend with competition, globalization, inflation, consumer demand, and consistent change in technology. Managers must focus on the efficiency and effectiveness of processes such as cost, dependability, distribution, flexibility, and speed. The intent of this paper is to discuss the processes and operations management of the Kroger Company.
The 10 decisions of Operation Management are: Service and Product Design; Quality; Process and Capacity Design; Location; Layout Design; Human Resource; Supply Chain Management; Inventory; Scheduling; Maintenance.
Competition being one of the major issues that often must be addressed in the business world, it is important for a firm to learn on ways to reduce the impact of the competition. Competition is definitely an important factor in helping a business
A company needs to create a series of programs to differentiate their product from those from its competitors and to appropriately price the product to achieve the maximum demand, in order to set up the dynamics of its competitive strategy (David, 2007). The competitive strategy of a company is also expected to offer better products or services to its customers, at a reasonable cost. Due to the mass influence of the external environmental on the customers’ preference, it is vital for the company to develop an available competitive strategy to be able to solve a series of problems, and ultimately to improve the company’s performance. Those problems include: how to differentiate its products or service from competitors, how to create market segments to maximize demands, and how to offer a wider range of products or services to better meet the customers’ needs at more acceptable costs (David, 2007).
This analysis delves into the company’s operation management principles to interpret its successful strategies and offer future recommendations.
Competitive advantage is that a company has better ability in earning profit and profit growth compared to its competitors for the same group of customers in one industry.
Competitive advantage(CA) is an advantage competitors gain by providing or offering customers or consumers greater value for their money through product and service differentiation or through lower prices. Maintaining competitive advantage is crucial to many businesses or organizations' success in order to survive in the market. Competitive advantage is characterized by superior performance which could be an attribute to outperform the competitors whether current or potential; or gaining a higher market share in a particular industry thereby ensuring market leadership; or ultimately, maximization of profit.(JOBBER 2010)
has successfully incorporated all ten areas of focus and developed them into a legacy of quality
Brown, S., Lamming, R., Bessant, J., & Jone, P. (2005). Strategic Operations Management. Burlington, MA: Elsevier.
To remain competitive a company must consider who their biggest competitors are while considering its own size and position in the industry. The company should develop a strategic advantage over their competitors’
Different organization looks at the level of technology that competitors used in production of their services. Another crucial thing is the evaluation of what the competitor’s customer are complaining about and takes it as an advantage of attract customers to the organization (Matthew, 2010).
The case study illustrates the challenges met by a newly established company i.e. Rio Bravo IV in a high performance and quality demanding Industry. It shows how the best operations management strategy is important and how customer focus is a key feature in the success of an organization. We also see how building the right team for the right job will be key in the success of projects in today’s result oriented world.
Strategic planning is central to management study. It defines the long term direction for the company and all other business functions orbit around their established strategies. This article studies how a company formulates business-level strategies, optimize their competitive positioning and obtain a competitive advantage over their rivals.