Answer :

MANAGEMENT AND OPERATION

Introduction

This paper described the various aspects of the Soft Company. The objective of this paper is to evaluate the depth analysis of the quality and efficiency of the mobile unit of the Soft Company. It enables to determine the distinct between leader and manager and help to grow the business success. This paper covers the various tools, principles, value to determine the Soft Company leader and manager performance in the business environment. Operation management plays vital role to understand the production capacity of the mobile unit of the Soft Company. It helps to analysis the factor that affected business environment and community in direct or indirect manner. It would help Soft Company business to sustain in the long-term business world. It is successfully spelled out the role of leader and function of manager in the task 1, application of leader and manager in the task 2 and relationship between leadership and management determined in the task 3.

Report

Introduction 

This part of the paper provides the analysis of the factors according to the given scenario to understand the role of leaders as well as the function of the manager. This section provides the suitable view regarding the various activities performed by the leaders to deal with the situation and provide some of the most valuable activity within the field. 

TASK 1 (LO1): Differentiate between the role of a leader and the function of a manager

P1: Define and compare the different roles and characteristics of a leader and a manager.

Joan Pearson was army lady that appointed in the Soft Company as production head that presented the difference between the role of leader and function of a manager in their leadership skills and attributes through below points:

A leadercreatesa vision, managers create a goal:Leader inspire people to turn that vision into reality. So, Joan Pearson tried to lead their production team to deliver their maximum effort to get higher production while manager creates goals whatever Joan Pearson set for production team. Vision has big scale that determines the value of the Soft Company while goals set for the specific organization to handle routine work (Arruda, 2016).

Leaders are a change agent, managers maintain status: Leaders has the risk-taking capacity that requires changes in the decision-making process while manager maintains a simple method to complete the task. So, the soft company has managed to maintain a production system to reduce conflict among parties (Bass and Bass, 2009).

Leaders are unique, manager copy:Joan Pearson set a unique strategy for the production team to handle the difficult situation that is possible by the managerial skills of it while leaders focus on their skills and attributes. Unique is necessary for the leadership quality because developaninnovative strategy to make a milestone for the public (Marquis and Huston, 2009).

Leaders take risk, managers control risk: Leaders can risk executingtheplan while the managercontrols the risk if any difficulty occurs in the production team. So, both are interrelated each other. But, a leaderrequiresrisk-takingcaliber to handle it (Arruda, 2016).

Leaders are long hair, managers think short term:Leader focus long-term gain whilethemanagerhas short term gain strategy. Leaders know the failure is the second step of success. So, the leader has the caliber to handle long-term benefit gain strategy (Bass and Bass, 2009).

Leaders grow personally, manager’s reply on existing:Leaders have individual skills and born qualities while manager follows other rules and regulation. So, the leader has the caliber to do something new for the society whilethemanager has limited with soft company benefit and profit. Leaders have individual skill and set theories for others while manager works on other theories and set of goals to executive in practical manner (Marquis and Huston, 2009).

Leaders build a relationship, managers build system:Leader focus to maintain the relationship among several parties such as a friend, community, and religious, cultural status while manager build system to follow for each and every person.A relationshiprequires trust that helps to grow fast in the production quality of it while the manager helps to follow specific production rules to produce a regular new quantity of product (Arruda, 2016).

Leaders coach, managers direct: Leader has a guiding approach to others while manager order to subordinates. Joan Pearson is the head of the production in a soft company that has managerial skills to handle conflict among the organization while it requires leadership skills to reduce conflict. Leaders trained the subordinates and work with them while manager just order the subordinates to handle the specific task (Bass and Bass, 2009).

Leaders create fans, manager have employee: Leaders has fans follower due to their unique skills and attributes while the manager has employees that follow their guideline to complete the specific task. The leader has the popularity for their extraordinary work. So, people prefer to follow them while the managerpaysasalary to complete a specific task (Arruda, 2016).

Compare the role and character of the leader and manager: This determination and comparison of the leader and manager presented below points:

• Leader influence the subordinate to handle their specific task while the manager is responsible for planning, organizing, directing and control.(Eagly, Johannesen-Schmidt, and Van Engen, 2003).
• Leader set the direction while the managementplans the detail of the direction to execute in an effective manner (Vroom and Jago, 2007).
• People follow leaders while employees work for the manager to complete a specific task. It providesa guideline to subordinate that what is a parameter to achieve the target and must follow by subordinates(Eagly, Johannesen-Schmidt, and Van Engen, 2003).
• The leaderfocuses on the growth of the Soft Company while manager focused to achieve the desired result (Vroom and Jago, 2007).
• The leaderfocuses on people while the managerfocuses on people as well as the procedure to handle production in the Soft Company (Eagly, Johannesen-Schmidt, and Van Engen, 2003).
• The leader works for effectiveness while manager works for efficiency. Soft Company mobile unit production department require leadership skill their manager to increase the efficiency of the product to make an effective product that would attract new customer of it(Eagly, Johannesen-Schmidt and Van Engen, 2003).

TASK 2: (LO2): Apply the role of a leader and the function of a manager in given contexts

P2: Examine examples of how the role of a leader and the function of a manager apply in different situational contexts

Joan Pearson management and leadership style: Joan Pearson came from army background that presented in their management and leadership style that is strict what they want to achieve. It doesn’t take people opinion on how to achieve desire mobile unit production target. Joan Pearson was unable to convince the people how to achieve the target. Joan Pearson gave instruction to carbon-date to follow their management style to achieve production target (Martin and Cashel, 2006). In the business, Joan Pearson must follow a flexible approach instead of military strict schedule because business is customer oriented. So, it requires to the satisfied customer by the innovative idea and production varieties. Pearson must listen to their subordinate because subordinates are directly connected with a customer that has a better approach to understanding the customer desire or demand about the mobile unit product (Coder and Spiller, 2013).

Example: if the leader wanted to increase the Soft Company production mobile unit efficiency that requires system leadership to achieve the desired target. It is possible by the system leadership because it provides tools to enhance the production capacity within limited cost and time. Further, system leadership help subordinate to achieve target as per set by the manager and strictly follow the rules and regulation of it. It requires flexibility in the management approach to fit in a different situation because it would help the satisfied customer (Murray, 2012).

Reason to not appropriate of Joan Pearson approach: Joan Pearson adoptedprevious management style in the production mobile unit of the Soft Company that doesn’t feet due to not updated as per the current market demand. Joan Pearson came from a military background that applied previously settle approach in the Soft Company production unit (Konradt and Hoch, 2007). Joan Pearson was unable to make relation among subordinates because it was not flexible as per the need of the production team. So, it harms the production efficiency and quality of the mobile unit. Joan Pearson must focuslisten to production team opinion before applied their management style to subordinate that could improve the production of the mobile unit (Coder and Spiller, 2013). Further, it determines the strength and weakness of the Joan Pearson approach that used in the Soft Company to handle the mobile unit department that presented below:

Strength:Joan Pearson has the experience to apply the previous management style that would help to easilyexecute in the mobile unit. Previous experience was the main strength of it. Joan Pearson was aware of the benefit of the leadership style that adopted previous military services. So, it would be easier to applytocurrent business growth and development. Management stylerequires research before applied in the market. So, it would be easy for the Soft Company that applied previously tasted management style that would help to sustain in the long-term business world (Martin and Cashel, 2006).

Weakness: Joan Pearson was unable to coordinate among subordinate due to strict follow previous leadership style. Business requiresa flexible approach due to customer varieties of customer desire or demand. Joan Pearson was failed in the department that is the main weakness of it. Joan Pearson did not take any suggestion from the production team before applied their management style that is the main weakness of it.Businessrequiresan updated management style that was not used by the Joan Pearson. Lack of innovation in the previous leadership style was the main weakness to the executive in the mobile production unit of the Soft Company (Callan and Thomas, 2006).

P3: Apply different theories and models of approach, answers must include situational leadership, systems leadership and contingency

Theories and model of approach:This section depicts the theories and model of leadership approach throughthe following points:

Situational leadership: This theory helps a leader or manager to adjust his style to fit the development level that desire to influence. It has a flexible nature to adjust management skills to complete the specific task.A leader must change their leadership style from one to another style to fulfil the organization needs or desires. It is one of the significant leadership approaches that help to take decision as per business nature. So, it became more popular in the current competitive market. There is two types of situational leadership models such as Daniel Goleman and Ken Blanchard. The Goleman model of situational leadership contains coaching leaders, pacesetting leaders, democratic leaders, affiliate leaders, authoritative leaders,and coercive leaders while Blanchard model contains telling leaders, selling, participating and delegating leaders (Northouse, 2010).

System leadership: This theory of leadership style helps to create a system that people can work to increase production efficiency to deliver better services to clients.System leadership talks about how to lead across boundaries such as organizational and departmental. It providesa structure that how to influence othersrather than management level. It helps to handle a difficultsituation in the business conflict. Its key factors are mechanisms for making, training leaders, communicating and executive decisions. It helps to fulfil the task with the proper procedure that set for the specific project. It is significant leadership approach that helps in big scale business that requires systematic approach to handle the routine work (Martin and Cashel, 2006).

Contingency leadership: This theory of leadership style helps leaders how to take a decision in the conflict situation that occurs in the business world.Contingency theory believes that behaviour cannot be changed. It has a complex combination of three factors such as leader-member relation, task structure and positional power (Callan and Thomas, 2006). Contingency theory depicts that there is no fix set way to handle business. It requires own style of leadership as per the right situation. There is no fixed method for it because the decision could be change as per the situation. It is necessary leadership style of the current competitive market because customers demand are changing day to day that could be fulfilled by the innovative product features that require contingency decision to satisfied customers (Northouse, 2010).

Out of them, situational leadership style is best suits for the Soft Company because it has the option to take a decision as per business requirement. Joan Pearson came from a military background that has previous experience of management that wanted to apply in the Soft Company that was negative impact on the Soft Company mobile unit production department (Callan and Thomas, 2006). It requires situational leadership style because it helps to update policy of the organization as per the situation of the current business status. It requires innovative and creative in the current competitive business that could be managed by the situational leadership style (Martin and Cashel, 2006).

D1: Critically analyse and evaluate the different theories and approaches in the given context,

Analysis and evaluation of theories and approach: Management and leadership theories are almost universal in the business world along with positive and negative aspects of it. Management theory approach will apply in the Soft Company mobile unit production department (Ruan and Fedrizzi, 2012). It providesa clear overview of the various theories approaches and model that could help to take further decision about the business conflict. Further, it requires leadership quality that came from born to handle the business situation. So, various kinds of management and leadership theories used in the as per the business risk and potential of growth and development (Covello, Menkes and Mumpower, 2012).

Conclusion

This section effectively concludes the fact that the Soft Company leaders maintain their value and their working function effectively within the market. The organisation witnesses the numerous challenging roles and the activities within the market for the betterment of the firm and also to develop the value of the employees within the market. 

TASK 3 (LO4): Demonstrate an understanding of the relationship between leadership and management in a contemporary business environment

Introduction

This paper presented several aspects of the Soft Company. The objective of this paper is to evaluate the depth analysis of the Soft Company in the perspective of quality, efficiency, and responsiveness and cut costs in the production of the mobile unit. This paper successfully spelled out the approaches to operation management, the role of leader and manager, the importance of operation management, evaluation of business efficiency; a factor that impacts operation and management decision and factor that affect business environment and community.

P4: Explain the key approaches to operations management and the role the leaders and managers play.

Key approaches to operation management: These are the key approaches of the operation management that depicted below:

Top-down/ERP centric manufacturing strategy: ERP set up mediocre functionality of the Soft Company that helps to buy better software for the business. ERP system helps to handle accounting data and provide proper planning tools for the Soft Company (Chen, 2001).

Lean production: It is one of the most frequently operation management to emphasize on the reduction of generation of the waste to maintain the standard of the product quality. The Soft Company operational management team for delivering the efficacy as well as the suitable activity within the field to maintain the value of the process. The manager of the firm effectively implements the lean production approach for considering the reducing of the operational expense then to optimizing the utilization of the organizational resources that are eventually making the business quite effective and productive within the market. 

Center-out/MOM software-centric manufacturing strategy: Manufacturing operation management (MOM) is a holistic solution that improves manufacturing operation performance in the Soft Company mobile unit (Cable, and Judge, 2003). MOM system consolidates all production process to improve the manufacturing execution system, quality management, advance planning, and scheduling and R&D management. The digitalization of manufacturing production could improve efficiency, flexibility, and time-to-market (Gifford, 2011).

Just-In-Time Inventory management: It is also a preferable approach of the operation management where the production is done according to the immediate creation of the demand. It can be effectively seen that the application of the JIT operational management approach help the organisation to maintain their value and their situational activity within the market. The Soft Company needs to effectively develop their market development process for maintaining the value of the firm in term of the optimizing rate. The JIT theory of the Soft Company effectively helps to optimize the efficient rate in term of the mobile units that has been manufactured in the better way for the management team to maintain better capacity within the market.

Bottom-up/Industrial automation system-Centric manufacturing strategy: Industrial automation is a key approach in the operation management that use to control systems such as computer or robots and information technologies to handle various process to replace a human being. It is a substitute system to use of machinery instead of human being in the industry. It would increase high productivity, high quality, high flexibility, high information accuracy and high safety in the Soft Company mobile unit production department (Thomesse, 2005).

Japanese management culture is the process that can be effectively aligned with the working principle as well as the method that is evident with the working professional in the country Japan. The management concept is quite inclusive as it provides several approaches for dealing with the management activity and leading some of the best and the effective working function within the market. The Soft Company might considered the Japanese management culture that also in the production procedure to produce the effective mobiles and the suitable activity within the field for providing the best value to the customers.

Total Quality management: It is one of the globally accepted approaches in term of operation management that help to maintain the intention of each of the organisation within the world. It can be also seen that maintaining the product quality standard is highly essential for dealing with the situation and market condition of the firm and also for developing the value of the business within the market. 

Role of leader and managers: These are the main roles of a leader in the Soft Company that depicted below:

Require at all levels: Leadership is necessary for all type of management of the Soft Company that helps to get co-operation in the formulation of plan and policies at the top level of management (Cable, and Judge, 2003). In the middle and lower level, it requires execution of plan and programs for the Soft Company mobile unit. So, it plays a significant role in the top to middle management of the Soft Company mobile unit (Cable, and Judge, 2003).

A representative of the organization: Leader is known as a representative of the organization. The leader is responsible to represent the seminars, conferences, general meetings. Leader main role is to communicate with stakeholder of the Soft Company that helps to grow the organization in the competitive market (Stevenson, Hojati and Cao, 2007). Leader representation quality helps to sustain in mobile unit business in the competitive market and able to generate more revenue for the Soft Company. Therefore, it is an essential role of a leader(Marquis and Huston, 2009).

Integrates and reconciles the personal goals with organizational goals: Leader helps to reconcile the staff goal with organization goal. It helps to fulfill the Soft Company purpose in the perspective of personal goal achievement. The leader helps employees to achieve organizational goals with their guidance through the innovative idea and leadership quality and attributes (Dong, and Halevy, 2005).

He solicits support: a Leader is a person that supports subordinates and his personality, maturity, intelligence, and experience help to provide a positive result. In this procedure, the leader must invite suggestions to implement the plans and programs of the enterprise. So, it plays a vital role in the Soft Company to achieve its objectives in the mobile unit. Leader supports a colleague to handle the complicated situation of the organization to achieve the production target of the Soft Company (Marquis and Huston, 2009).

As a friend, philosopher and guide: Leader must possess the three-dimensional traits. The leader could be a friend by sharing the feelings, opinions, and desires with the staff. The leader could be a philosopher by utilizing his intelligence and experience (Marquis and Huston, 2009). The leader could be a guide by supervising the staff plan and policies of the top management. The leader plays a vital role as a counselor by the problem-solving approach. A leaderlistens to the problem of the staff and tries to solve within the timeframe to achieve mobile unit production target to enhance the quality and efficiency of it(Cable and Judge, 2003).

P5: Explain the importance of operations management in achieving business objectives at SoftCompany and evaluate how the leaders and managers can improve efficiency to meet the business objectives

Importance of operation management: These are the importance of operation management that depicted below:

Product quality: Operation management ensures the quality of the product into two aspects such as reliability and durability. Product quality attracts new buyer as compare to another substitutefor the products. So, it is beneficial for operation management to deliver the best quality to the product and services (Bamford and Forrester, 2010).

Customer satisfaction: Customer satisfaction is the main key to increase the sales of the Soft Company mobile in the competitive market. It helps to evaluate the need or desire of the customer to fulfill the customer requirement to sustain in the long-term market. It used various tools to satisfy the customer to enhance the sales and profit margin (Stevenson, Hojati and Cao, 2007).

Revenue increase: Quality of the product and consumer satisfaction will provide positive reputation of the Soft Company mobile unit. It would help to attract more new customers for the business that would increase the revenue of the mobile unit business. The constant increase in revenue is necessary for the organization to execute the innovative idea and make further planning to sustain in the business world(Marquis and Huston, 2009).

Waste reduction: It is one of the significant elements of the operation management. It includes lean manufacturing system to reduce waste. Waste reduction will help to save money by unnecessary cost and overall production within the operation(Bamford and Forrester, 2010).

Evaluate the leader and manager skill that improves business efficiency: Leader and manager can improve the business efficiency through play a vital role in the Soft Company mobile unit management section. It requires an appropriate system to enhance the quality of the product and customer satisfaction that is possible by the leadership quality of it (Marquis and Huston, 2009). Leader and manager must follow the innovative idea to enhance customer satisfaction to deliver the best quality of it. A leader must coordinate among top to the down hierarchy to achieve the mobile unit production target to enhance the profit margin of it. A leader must conduct a seminar and program to guide the manager and subordinate to handle the contingency situation of the Soft Company mobile unit to deliver a better quality of mobile to their customers (Dubrin, 2008).

P6: Assess the factors within the Business Environment that impact operational and management decision making by leaders and management at Soft Company.

Access the business environment factors that impact operation and management decision: These are business environment factor that divided into two categories such as micro and macro that depicted below:

MICRO

Labor inefficiency: It is one of the significant business environment factors that impact the operation management of the Soft Company. Because it is related to mobile unit production that requires labor efficiency to handle the daily task of manufacturing that is possible by the labor efficiency method. Labor efficiency determined the number of hours that worked with the organization during a specific period (Craig and Campbell, 2012).

Organizational structure: It helps to share responsibilities for various functions in entities such as workgroup, branch, department, and individual. Organizational structure affects Soft Company operation management in two ways. First, it provides a foundation that helps to operating procedure. Second, it finds out an individual that participates in decision-making procedures that help to shape Soft Company mobile unit(Cable, and Judge, 2003).

Organizational culture: It contains value and behavior that contribute social and psychological environment of the Soft Company mobile unit. Organizational culture represents a belief, principle, and value of the Soft Company staff and mobile product factors such as technology, strategy, market, product, history, management style and national culture(Craig and Campbell, 2012).

MACRO

Technology: Soft Company innovative technology attracts new customer and increases the sales of it. So, it is necessary for the management to deliver more time and effort to develop a creative idea that could fulfill the customer needs or desire. Because it is a competitive market that requires better quality product as compared to a competitive organization that is possible by the innovative technology. Further, technology provides various features in their mobile unit to attract different kind of buyers that would increase the sales and revenue of it(Hiriyappa, 2018).

Innovation: Different people have different need or desire that could be fulfilled by the innovation of the mobile product features that would affect Soft Company operation management. Because it is helpful to generate varieties of product that would satisfied customer needs or desire and bring a more new customer in the market. Soft Company must hire employees with creativity mind that bring an innovative idea for the organization to generate more features in the mobile that would all kind of generation.

Economic condition: Economic condition of the country also affects the Soft Company mobile unit business section. Because of purchasing parity of the country would be high if the country economic condition would be good that would increase the buying capacity of it. High purchasing parity would increase the sales of the Soft Company mobile unit that would bring more revenue of it. So, economic condition is affected direct or indirect to Soft Company operation management (Hiriyappa, 2018).

Governmental issues and regulations: It is one of the best factors that affected the operation management of the Soft Company mobile unit. UK government has a flexible attitude toward business and has friendly behavior to achieve the organizational objectives. UK government provides start-up loan up to 25000 pounds and Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund could provide funding to UK business person. The National Apprenticeship Service provides advice to employers onhow to employ an apprentice. UK government also offers tax relief to small businesses (Johnson, 2012).

Analyses how these different factors affect the business environment and the wider community.

Analysis of the factor that affects the business environment and community: Micro and macro factor affected the business environment and community direct or indirect manner. It has a positive or negative impact on business and community. Labor inefficiency has a negative impact on business because it increases the product cost. Organizational structure has a positive impact on the business because it increases the customer trust due to infrastructure that the community can put their feedback and get a solution (Stevenson, Hojati and Cao, 2007). Organization culture has a positive impact on business because it helps to understand the customer psychological and value that could be fulfilled by further strategy. Technology is the demand of the current competitive market that has a positive impact on business due to increase varieties of features in the mobile product. Innovation factor has a direct impact on business that could fulfill the customer needs who has a different kind of taste and mind. Economic factor has positive effects on business because it would help to judge the purchasing capacity of the UK citizen. UK governmental issue and regulation has a positive impact on the community because it provides up to 25000 pounds loan to start up business (Bamford and Forrester, 2010).

Critically evaluate the application of operations management and factors that impact on the wider business environment.

Evaluation of application of operation management and factor that impact the business environment: Operation management is related to controlling the business system that set parameter for a business that needs to follow stakeholder to achieve organization objectives. Operation management is necessary for a manufacturing organization, especially Soft Company mobile unit that desires to increase the quality, efficiency, and responsiveness of it. Three functions of the operation management such as marketing generate demand for the product, production create the product and finance collects money for pay bills, is necessary for the Soft Company mobile section business that would increase the value of the product in the competitive market (Craig and Campbell, 2012).

Conclusion

This section effectively provides the view regarding the operation management developed within the Soft Company. This section concludes that the development of CSR strategies is highly essential for the market to deal with the situation and provide the effective view. 

Conclusion

From the above discussion, it is concluded that clear approaches to operation management, role of leader and manager, importance of operation management, evaluation of business efficiency; factor that impact operation and management decision and factor that affect the business environment and community as well as high ability to adopt innovative technology in Soft Company mobile unit helps to achieve quality and efficiency level of the mobile production. However, Soft Company operation management team must follow a clear and visible path to sustain in the long-term business world that could be followed by the subordinates as well as a colleague. Operation management plays a vital role in the Soft Company that helps to sustain in the long-term business world.