Identify the issues raised by either Brexit or the Covid-19 pandemic for your business; and outline your proposals for dealing with them.

Operations Management Individual Report
MBA course

Students shall submit a 3000 word report (+/- 5%) – not counting references or diagrams. The essay shall be based on a business of your choice.

The development of the ‘green’ economy is now the central theme of most advanced democracies in relation to tackling the issues of global warming. Changing how industries function so that wealth generation becomes sustainable and inventing new industries to help this transformation process is now the new direction. Current challenges such as the Covid-19 pandemic and Brexit have created a situation wherein it has become evident to people that the traditional operations management process is no longer optimal and significant changes will be required going forward.

Taking the 2018 Global Bioeconomy Summit Conference Report as the baseline; you shall review your business of choice and from an operations management perspective, determine how your business will have to change and adapt to accommodate the strategic directions outlined in the report. Integrated into your review, will be your assessment of how your chosen business must manage its operations to address the changes required in the post covid-19/Brexit environment.

The report should include –

Overview of the sustainability challenges facing the company and its industry. Use company sources (annual/industry reports), and wider reading of both academic and practitioner literature to support this analysis.

Identify the issues raised in the Global Bioeconomy summits which apply to your business / industry and summarise how these issues could impact on your business going forward.

Identification of key Operations and Supply chain functions in the company and clearly define which functions are under pressure.

Using the theory outlined in the programme, generate your optimal solution(s) for your business which will allow the business to prosper going forward, considering of issues of change management and time scales to convert the current systems and processes.

In your essay identify the issues raised by either Brexit or the Covid-19 pandemic for your business; and outline your proposals for dealing with them.
To pass the assessment students need to accurately review the operations management processes within the selected firm and generate solutions based on course theory and use a range of referenced material (going beyond the textbook).
Higher grades require you need to write an essay that generates solutions that will address all of the identified issues, and particularly consider the viability of solutions in relation to long term sustainability. You will include discussion of relevant change management issues and give a realistic time scale for the conversion of the current operations management system to your proposed new system. Your referencing will be detailed and highly specific to the industry and identified issues. You will use professionally recognized project management definitions throughout your essay.

Attached is the rough draft / overview that was submitted for initial review by the professor. His comments were: “So far so good. You need to pick a specific area to focus on, explain the problems and generate solutions – all based on op man principles and good academic references. Invent problems to solve if necessary. Remember its an academic exercise not a real life consultancy report.”