Week 1 Discussion Assignment Operation Management

Week 1 Discussion Assignment Operation Management

Insert name

Institutional affiliation

Week 1 Discussion Assignment Operation Management

I would judge the quality of Carrefour in Saudi Arabia as being high quality. Technology plays major role on customers’ perception of quality. For instance, it determines the mode of interaction of customers with a firm. A company may use its social media platform to inform customers about various promotions. The method that a company choses to reach its customers affects how their perception of quality of the company (Mukherjee, Cuthbertson, & Howard, 2014).

Carrefour’s quality and technology can be compared to Lulu Hypermarket, one its major rivals in the region. Carrefour’s strength compared to Lulu is the fact that Carrefour has a more diverse customer base. On the other hand, Lulu’s competitive advantage over Carrefour is its access to cheap labor from India and close links to the political leadership in the country, which is vital to any firm that likes to do operate in the region. Regarding quality and technology, both firms use different methods of reaching their target customers as each firm targets different customer segments.

Some of the factors that are critical to the successful operations of a hypermarket ranked in order from the most important to the least important of include customer satisfaction, location, forecasting, capacity planning, inventory management, store, layout, scheduling. Customer satisfaction is vital to the success of a hypermarket since it increases loyalty and revenue. Location affects the demographics and efficiency of a hypermarket, which are vital its success. Forecasting helps in predicting trends, growth, and demand, which facilitate the growth of a hypermarket. Capacity planning helps in managing cash flow in addition to helping firm increase its profits. Inventory management helps a hypermarket track and manage its stock to prevent any losses in profit or overstock (Stevenson, 2018). Store layout affects the efficiency of workers and equipment in a hypermarket. Scheduling helps in reducing wastage in the hypermarket. All these factors are vital in the operations of an online store. The only difference is that that location is not as important since customers access the products of the online store from via the internet, which can be access anywhere.

References

Mukherjee, M., Cuthbertson, R., & Howard, E. (2014). Retailing in Emerging Markets: A policy and strategy perspective. New York, NY: Routledge.

Stevenson, W. (2018). Operations management (13th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Irwin.