Operations Strategy Summary

Article 1: Operations strategy: a firm boundary-based perspective

Operations strategy is concerned less with individual processes and more with the total transformation process that is the whole business. It is concerned with how the competitive environment is changing and what the operation has to do in order to meet current and future challenges. It is also concerned with the long-term development of its operations resources and processes so that they can provide the basis for a sustainable advantage (Slack & Lewis, 2011). If a business does not fully appreciate the strategic impact that effective operations and process management can have it is missing an opportunity.

Perhaps more significantly, many of the businesses that seem to be

This distinction in operations strategy has been compared to that between ‘hardware’ and ‘software’ in a computer system. The hardware of a computer sets limits to what it can do. Some computers, because of their technology and their architecture, are capable of higher performance than others, although those computers with high performance are often more expensive. In a similar way, investing in advanced process technology and building more or better facilities can raise the potential of any type of operation. But the most powerful computer can only work to its full potential if its software is capable of exploiting the potential embedded in its hardware. The same principle applies with operations (Slack & Lewis, 2011). The best and most costly facilities and technology will be effective only if the operation also has an appropriate infrastructure that governs the way it will work on a day-to-day

This advanced taxonomy opens new scenarios in operations management by providing an alternative view to scholars and managers. Operations management will require a shift in focus towards how the firm relates its own operations to the resources and processes of the other parties involved on the firm’s boundaries. Past studies traditionally only focus on the relationships with the parties at the beginning, the suppliers, and at the end, the customers, of operations. This study leads to analysing all potential parties involved in boundary operations (La Rocca & Snehota, 2014). The focus on the firm’s boundaries suggests that operations success depends on the ability to design and manage operations in a wider perspective, continuously rethinking internal and external activities to identify new potential integration and coordination solutions between value chains and external