Operations and Service Management of Tesco

Operations management is the administration process of a business organisation that creates the highest level of efficiency (Hill, 2005). Operations management focuses on materials and labour to provide better products or services to customers, maintain a better process, and maximise profit margin. Moreover, Stevenson et al. (2014) suggested that operations management development plans for the organisation help control and supervise better service delivery. Hence, it is the reasonability of the operations manager to maintain the appropriate process of the organisation.

Tesco is a British multinational grocery and retailer with operations in many other countries (Tesco, 2021). Founded in 1919, Tesco maintains its operational business process focusing on product quality and satisfaction. 

Quality standards are an activity of operations management that helps evaluate the quality and control them to increase profit margin (Krajewski and Ritzman, 2002). Moreover, the quality standard links other functional areas of Tesco, such as finance, operations, sales and marketing, and operations. The finance department provides the budget and is responsible for all the finance-related activities that help enhance the proper decision-making process. The operations department evaluates the service quality and adopts new strategies essential for overall service development. The sales and marketing team increases sales through better customer interaction and quality standards. Proper operational processes and advancement in quality are helping to maintain smooth sales of Tesco. This article focuses on the quality standard impacts and the importance of operations and service management. 

Impact of quality standards on the efficiency of Tesco 

The quality standard allows us to evaluate the overall situation and enhance the best services for the consumers (Ponte and Gibbon 2005). Hence, it is essential to assess the quality standard and maintain the effective practices of Tesco. Besides, quality standards develop a framework for business operations. As such, identification of these processes is helpful to manage or better service activities. However, there are specific implications of the quality standards that impact the operations process of Tesco; below are these: 

Speed: Quality standard is helpful in the speed process of different services and better customer integration (Frydenberg, 2002). For instance, the customer looks for better quality products as they are helpful for them and most matters. Moreover, quality is not just offering a product or service that Tesco provides; enhancement on the speedy service to the customer are automatically helpful to maintain better standard in Tesco and manage the overall process. Besides, the appropriate quality standard also provides competitive advantages and increases the overall profit margin. Hence, Tesco can attain a better competitive advantage and maximum benefits than competitors through a speedy process on the quality standard. However, lacking the quality standard can reduce the speed process, automatically impacting Tesco's operational strategy. For instance, slow customer service makes a negative impression on the customer, and they might switch to other retailers, which can impact the profit margin of Tesco. 

Flexibility: Better quality standards and evaluating different activities are helpful in the management of flexibility. Poortman and Schildkamp (2012) suggested that the customer seeks the flexibility of the services that Tesco provides. Hence, they always look for service improvement and overall quality development in their different activities. Flexibility is also related to the operations management process. As such, customers get better services when they purchase products or services. On the other hand, lacking the quality standard disrupts flexibility and damages the operations management. For instance, the customer might face difficulties collecting the product efficiently or take time. 

Cost: Maintaining a better-quality standard also helps get a cost advantage. As customers are happy with the service quality, it also impacts the marketing or other promotional activities. Hence, the cost of the different activities and the budget for the operational process is reduced. Low prices in the various areas automatically impact Tesco's profit margin and appropriate service process for all the regions. Also, lacking the quality standard increases the cost margin, requiring a high advertisement and more customer integration processes. Ecchia and Lambertini (1997) suggested that service disruptions, lacking in the commitment process and evaluations of the different activities, also increase costs. 

Dependability: Quality standard is helpful to the smooth process of the operational process and makes a better position in the market. Hence, Tesco can attain a better place in the market than others and better integrate with their customers. Moreover, evaluating different aspects of the operational process is also helpful in maintaining better practices for Tesco and enhancing the customer integration process. Lacking the quality standard negatively impacts the dependability process as it reduces the integration and increases the cost of the operational process. 

Quality: Maintaining better quality is the primary requirement of the consumers as they always look for better quality and connection with them (Armistead, 1989). Evaluation of different aspects and enhancement of the quality standards are helpful to operate all the tasks swiftly. Quality not only relates to the products provided by Tesco, but evaluation of the customer service process and enhancement of all the areas are also helpful in effectively integrating different activities. Comparatively, lacking the quality standard automatically impacts the sales margin of Tesco, which impacts the overall profit margin. Besides, customers switch to other retail stores, which reduces the reputation of Tesco. 

Read more about Tesco PESTLE Analysis

Importance of embedding technology into quality standard 

Technology is an important aspect that helps maintain overall quality standards (Berry, 2016). Technology use in different areas automatically increases the quality standard and attains competitive advantages. Technology is an integral part of the business development process, reducing business challenges and opening better paths. The operational strategy of Tesco is mainly focused on the customer satisfaction process and evaluates different tasks with a proper update on the process. Enhancement and updates on all the areas are helpful to maintain advancement in technology and support consumers effectively. 

Strengths

Below are the ways in how technology is being used to improve the quality standard and quality standard for Tesco: 

Customer support: Technology in Tesco is helpful in the customer support process. Customers can use services such as self-scanning, secure payment, online purchases, easy distribution, electronic self-edge, and many other techniques. It automatically helps them get the best services. Galloway et al. (2012), when customers get the best support while purchasing different products, it helps to maintain profit margin. Moreover, whenever customers face any issues with Tesco's services, they can get permission from the apps and websites that are made things easy and convenient. 

Promotions and customer relationship: Using technology such as push notifications, target marketing, emailing, phone notifications and many other processes, Tesco can maintain its promotional function and communicate better with the customers. Besides, if there are any products or discounts, customers can get updates and purchase their needs per the demands. 

Cost advantages: Using different technology in the quality standard, Tesco gets competitive advantages. For instance, customer can attain their products without contacting any representatives or others at Tesco. As such, Tesco reduced employees and focused more on technology development. The modern technology that Tesco is getting is helpful in its operational process and proper management activities. 

Security and services: Online payment system, development of the websites and proper integration of all the technologies that Tesco uses are secured. Kumar and Suresh (2006) suggested that customers can trust the system and get the best support. In addition, online payment for home delivery, in-store payment system, and service improvement in different areas are also helpful for Tesco to maintain digitalised customer experience. 

E-commerce: Customers mostly prefer online purchases as it allows them to get products without hassle (Mollah, 2014). Moreover, due to Covid-19, online purchases have become most popular (Kang et al., 2020). Tesco provides different services, promotional activities, and customer-focused platforms that are helpful to increase overall sales margin and make the market leader on the online platform as well. Hence, Tesco focuses on improving its technology to provide better service processes and advancements in the service areas. 

Weakness 

There is a specific weakness in the technology use of Tesco; below are these: 

Lacking on user friendly: There are specific bugs in the proper management process of the online purchase process for Tesco. Hence, customer faces issues when purchasing or returning the product if there are any faults. The lacking of user-friendliness also impacts the customer purchase intention of Tesco. 

Product quality and return: Certain products shown on the websites are not of the quality that makes a negative impression on customers (Mutch, 2010). Also, customer faces issues at the time of retiring due to the lack of fulfilling the demand. Improvement of the product monitoring and return policy is highly required. 

Slow cloud management: Slow process in the cloud management process is another weakness of Tesco that impacts the quality standards of their services. Besides, this issue also lacks in the operations management process of Tesco. A slow cloud management process causes disturbance when purchasing different products that need to improve. 

Strategy formulation: Weakness in the strategy formulation of Tesco on the technology is another issue that impacts the business (Xie and Allen, 2013). Moreover, lacking the proper monitoring of the cost evaluation and implementation of the new process can be difficult for them to compete with other retailers. Hence, evaluating the strategy and maintaining the process per the current requirement is highly required. 

Impact of supporting function on quality standards and organisational success 

Human resource: Searching for the right employees, training, management and proper relationship with them are maintained by the human resource department (Reid and Sanders, 2019). The quality standard requires collaboration with human resources when searching for employees. Hence, they provide their human resource requirement and later find the appropriate employees that can enhance the quality standards of Tesco. As such, it is required to get support from the human resource department to fulfil the success of Tesco. 

Technology: The latest technology is always essential for evaluating the process and making things more accessible. Hence, technological support also improves quality standards and makes things easier to accomplish. As such, discussing new possibilities or technologies for quality improvement is essential. 

 

Procurement: Searching for the products or services per the organisation's requirement and maintaining the easy process are the responsibility of the procurement function. They also evaluate the new possibilities and control the cost margin by searching for better suppliers. Hence, the quality standard requires to attain the goal of Tesco. 

Firm infrastructure 

Organisational structure: Tesco follows a hierarchical structure, and decisions come from the higher-level management, followed by all employees (Bayraktar et al., 2007). Besides, there are four control layers in some large stores where each department has its process and destinations to follow. To maintain the quality standards, each department collaborates with others to enhance their working performances. 

Accounting and finance: This department is mainly responsible for budget, daily costs, profit or loss calculations, and engagement with other departments. Besides, accounting and finance monitor the quality standards as per the requirement and suggest if there are require any improvements. Hence, proper collaboration or support from the accounting and finance departments is necessary for the quality standard of Tesco. In addition, if quality standards are planning to enhance the current scenario, they require contacting the accounting and finance department to increase the situation and maintain an effective process. 

Management capabilities: Management team of Tesco evaluates market situations, business analysis, and competition and engages with other functions to find the best of Tesco (Reid and Sanders, 2019). This allows to enhance the possibilities and boost the performance level as well. In addition, collaboration with various departments allows for attaining the goal of Tesco through flexibility process. 

Planning: Better planning in different areas is helpful to become successful. Hence, it is essential to plan for accomplishing various important tasks for Tesco. For instance, planning for the management policy, cost margin, quality improvement, standard policy, and many others are required to collaborate with other areas such as accounting, human resources, marketing, procurement, quality control, etc. 

Efficiency factors: To maintain better functions in different areas, it is required to support various parts of quality standards (Kang et al., 2020). Efficiency factors such as speed, dependability, cost, flexibility, and quality are required to fulfil various activities of Tesco. The speed process of the management capabilities helps maintain better quality standards and increase profit margin. Besides, the cost evaluation process of all other departments increases the chances of staying in a better position for Tesco. Hence, it is highly required to evaluate the cost margin and focus on the flexibility process of Tesco. 

Weakness: However, Tesco lacks technology as they are required to update their technology process as per the quality standard. Having better technology in the online process might allow them to sell more products than other competitors. Besides, Tesco has weaknesses in the planning process. Lacking the planning process impacts the quality standard and the speed of services. Weakness in quality control is another issue of Tesco that affecting on its regular activities of Tesco. Therefore, lower quality control monitoring seriously creates problems for Tesco's business decision-making process. 

Operations management is an essential process of business organisation that help monitor all the areas and smooth the process of doing business. Besides, operations management allows us to actively plan where we are lacing and improve areas that are not going well. The quality standard of Tesco impacts the efficiency level of Tesco as it relates to speed, flexibility, cost, dependability, and quality. Focusing on these areas is helpful for better service improvement and quality management processes. Moreover, technology is an essential function of the normal business process of Tesco. Having better technology allows for maintaining competitive advantages and advancement in the decision-making process. A weakness in adopting the latest technology on Tesco impacts the online business process. Moreover, each function of Tesco relates to the quality standard and organisational success. Collaboration with each department and maintaining the business process automatically increase the profit margin. 

References 

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