Definitive Guides for Supply Chain Management Professionals (Collection)

3. Understanding Operations Strategies

What Operations Strategy Is and Why It Is Important

A company must have a long-range business strategy if it is going to maintain a competitive position in the marketplace. As we already learned, the business strategy provides a plan for the company that clearly defines the company’s long-term goals, how it plans to achieve these goals, and the way the company plans to differentiate itself from its competitors. The business strategy should leverage the company’s core competencies, or strengths, and carefully consider the characteristics of the marketplace.

Recall that the operations function is responsible for managing the resources needed to produce the company’s goods and services. Operations strategy ...