Operations Management Assignment: Implementing Strategic Changes At TopDog

Question

Task: Operations Management Assignment Task

You are a consultant who has been employed to advise on the effective implementation of strategic changes. You are required to produce the following for the case study provided below:

Part A: Analysis – Business Process Models and strategy analysis
In this section you should develop

1. A series of at least two Business Process Models, which capture the existing and your proposed business processes. The models should follow the BPMN notation shown in the lecture slides. You can utilise Microsoft Visio, Word, PowerPoint or appropriate alternatives to create the models.
2. Strategic analysis: You should use at least one recognised analysis technique such as SWOT, PESTLE etc

Part B: Open Source Software Comparison Table
In this section, you should conduct research into a suitable software solution. You should decide on the set of characteristics which you will use to evaluate the software and your research should consider 4-5 alternatives in detail. This section should be presented as a table.

Part C: Report
In this section, you should write a report which provides an overview of the current situation together with a roadmap outlining how the proposed changes to the business can be achieved to the benefit of the business. This should draw on your analysis in Part A, include your recommendation for software in Part B, and provide recommendations for ensuring that the strategy is effectively implemented, including consideration of the challenges ahead.

This section should follow a standard report structure:

Title Page – Contents – Introduction - Main Section – Conclusions and Recommendations - References.

You should use appropriate theories, frameworks, models, that we have covered in the module, to inform and justify your recommendations.

The case study: Jordon@TopDog
Jordon King is a certified dog groomer and has a small dog grooming salon. Her business venue is the hub of her work where she carries out a range of dog grooming services to maintain a dog’s physical appearance. These include: brushing, cutting, clipping, cleaning, bathing, drying and styling. In addition to maintaining beautifully groomed dogs, her salon also provides a number of goods for sale, such as collars, leads, and toys. She also provides introductions to several linked services, such as residential kennels, dog walkers, trainers, behaviourists, pet photographers, etc.

Jordon wants to further develop the introduction route through her business to other professional services. Several associated businesses have explained that they are willing to pay introduction fees. So, Jordon wants to find new ways of promoting her own business and ways to act as an agent for other services. At the moment, most of her work arrives via word of mouth and she has a very strong local reputation. Jordon has enough grooming work for her own time. However, she also has space in the salon to rent out to another professional dog groomer. She would like to publicise her talents via a website and, if possible, deal with booking arrangements for other services via the internet. At the moment, this is always done by telephone or face to face. Present clients pay by cash on the day, but Jordon wants to appear much more professional and hopefully open up a wider market by providing information, bookings and payment options online. Promotions and online sales of her products is also an area that Jordon is interested in developing.

A business approach/strategy is required. As she is a sole trader, she would be responsible for her own social media marketing, keeping business accounts, providing an updated calendar of events, and keeping track of the communications between herself and all the clients, but a record is also required for introductions to other professional services.

Jordon realises that technology will play an important role in the business. She has read about Customer Relationship Management and Enterprise Resource Management, but just does not know what kind of digital business technology support she really needs. Jordon requires professional digital business advice before she can make any final decisions about investing funds in business software. Also, she has heard that she may be able to save money by using Open Source Software, but does not understand if there are any implications, so Jordon needs your advice about this too.

Jordon has no technical experience and therefore requires a report that can be easily read and understood. You are the OIM consultant who is responsible for researching this business and providing a consultancy report.

Answer

Operations Management Assignment Part A: Analysis – Strategy analysis and business Process Models

Business models

Figure 1: The existing business model of TopDog

(Source: Created by author)

Figure 2: Recommended business model for TopDog

(Source: Created by author)

Strategy analysis
PESTLE
In order to conduct the strategic analysis for the process model, TopDog company can utilize two different analysis strategies that involve the PESTEL analysis and the SWOT analysis.

Factors	Description	Impact
Political	It is required to mention that TopDog is a small dog grooming salon that mainly provides a range of dog grooming services for maintaining the physical appearance of dogs. The dog grooming salon needs to understand the effect of brexit and the challenges created by the covid-19 situation. According to David (2019), though political stability is a major strength of the UK, BREXIT has generated political debates and uncertainties which can impact the business operation of TopDog. The company needs to consider some political factors that involve the country maintaining a good relationship with the US and different countries which can positively impact TopDog's business operation.	Moderate
Economical	As TopDog wants to develop the introduction route through the business to other professional services, it is very important for the company to properly understand the economic factors that can affect the overall business. As stated by Matovic (2020), the wage of the population within the UK is nearly £8.9 that needs to be maintained by the company while continuing its business operation in the UK. It is very necessary to determine that global lockdowns have destroyed several businesses across multiple industries. The company needs to properly follow the guidelines developed by the UK Government and concentrate on the perception of the economic situation where the rate of interest and the corporation tax needs to be maintained.	High
Social	It is worth mentioning that there is a large customer market within the UK and its current population is nearly 68 million which can provide adequate support for the company to continue its business operation. It has been identified that the population of the country is multicultural and the notion of social class has influenced the UK. As people of this country are concerned about their social status, there can be better opportunities for TopDog to increase its revenue generation by providing better services such as pet photographers, behaviorists, trainers as well as dog walkers to people who have pets in their house.	Low
Technological	While conducting business within the UK, TopDog company needs to properly understand the technological factors that can affect the business. It has been recognized that the UK is one of the countries across the world which is technologically advanced. London is the appropriate hub for both technological and financial institutions. As per Yusop (2018), the developed technological infrastructure can generate better opportunities for TopDog to keep the record of introductions to several professional services. This technological development can also help the company to provide a better transaction experience as well as booking systems for the customer base.	Low
Environmental	The UK has been able to make significant developments in decreasing the negative effect of the environment. Sometimes the UK has experienced serious weather conditions due to the progress of several businesses and industries. It has been identified that the charities, newspapers, local councils and the government have taken several initiatives for increasing environmental awareness among people and decreasing the negative effect of economic growth. The environmental factors have a lower effect on the business operation of TopDog as the company carries out a range of grooming services for dogs. The company has a better opportunity to efficiently continue its business operation.	Low
Legal	The company needs to properly maintain the legal factors while continuing business operations in the UK. According to Thakur (2021), the employment act 1996 was developed by the UK Government in order to protect the rights of employees. In addition to this, paternity and maternity leave, sick pay, holiday pay and minimum wage and some other rights are protected legally within this country. While conducting business in the UK, it is very necessary for TopDog to maintain these regulations developed by the UK Government.	Moderate

SWOT
In order to evaluate the strength and weaknesses and identify the threats and opportunities for implementing strategic decisions, TopDog can consider using SWOT analysis.

Strengths	Weaknesses
One of the major strengths of TopDog is that the company profiles arrange off of dog grooming services that involve styling and drawing, bathing, cleaning, clipping, cutting as well as brushing at an affordable price in order to maintain the physical appearance of dogs (Vlados, 2019).  In addition to providing a large range of grooming services for dogs, TopDog also provides a number of products for sale like toys, leads as well as collars for dogs.  The company also provides different linked services like pet photographers, behaviorists, trainers, dog walkers as well as residential kennels.	An inadequate employee base is one of the major weaknesses of TopDog which can create challenges in operating the business.  On the one hand, Jordon King is the owner of a dog grooming salon and on the other hand, she is the only employee of TopDog who has to oversee all the business activities (Elavarasan et al., 2020).  Jordon is able to manage all the business activities of the company but she does not have adequate knowledge about digital business technology that mainly restricted her to invest in business software.
Opportunities	Threats
If TopDog can open up a large market by providing better payment facilities, booking options as well as adequate information, there can be an opportunity for the company to ensure its business growth.  There is also an opportunity for the company to save a large amount of money if the company would start to utilise open-source software in its business process (Abdel-Basset, Mohamed and Smarandache, 2018).  In addition to these, there is also another opportunity to increase the awareness regarding its large range of services and different types of products for dogs, if the company can effectively utilize social media marketing as it can help to increase the awareness of the brand.  TopDog has an opportunity to provide better services and exciting facilities to the customer base if the company is able to know which digital business technology will be appropriate for the business.	One of the major threats for TopDog is that within a competitive business environment, TopDog will not be able to compete with other competitors and continue its business operation, as only one person is responsible for updating the calendar of events, keeping the business account up to date, social media marketing and maintaining a good relationship with clients.  The company can face several challenges because of not having an adequate employee base within the workplace.

Operations Management Assignment Part B Comparison table of Open source software

Open-source software	Paid/free	Option for deployment	Type of support	Activities
Bitrix24	Free	Managed by operating and cloud on the API as well as the assumption.	Convenient for large and medium-sized businesses. Franchises and enterprises easily support the system.	Deliver appropriate guidance for developing invoicing procedures and proper building processes which mainly help in completing the whole project management (Smith et al., 2020). It will be possible to manage sales management.
Odoo	Paid	This open-source software can be managed by corporate and cloud-based on the consideration.	Franchise, disco medium and small sized enterprises.	Produce adequate support for taking the appropriate time for managing the marketing perspectives and concentrating on the management of wind or in the business.
Dolibarr	Free	This can be managed by the operating and the cloud on the API as well as assumption.	This open-source software is mainly used for medium and large sized enterprises. Also used for the small businesses with the engagement of franchises.	It also delivers proper guidance for incorporating financial management along with developing the business and acknowledging other factors that affect the financial condition of the company (Pratama et al., 2019).
OpenPro ERP	Paid	Hypothetical as well as application platform interface.	Only the small enterprises.	Deliver adequate support in order to execute appropriate accounting targets on the appropriate business analytics and monitor the sales management (Šimovi?, Varga and Soleša, 2020).

Open-source software characteristics

Open-source software	Characteristics
Bitrix24	Bitrix24 mainly focuses on the incorporation of planning based on software like MS project in order to create Gantt charts.  This particular open source software can easily be used in Android and IOS platforms despite the available system choice (Dyuzhev and Boichenko, 2019).  This software has the opportunity to use multiple clients without any requirement for system administrators.
Odoo	This open-source software helps to incorporate an appropriate relationship with clients and also helps to maintain continuous observation of the manufacturing unit.  It also delivers support in obtaining human resource practices for managing their performance evaluation by giving extra focus to the marketing department (Aversano, 2019).  Procurement procedure, identify and reach automatic process for demonstrating the requirement of stocks.
Dolibarr	Engaged in the operational activities for the development of the current year of the business by establishing appropriate schedules for each task and project and getting them regularly in accordance with the talents and responsibilities of the workers.  Delivers proper guidance to the agent manager through which an analysis can be performed regarding the employee performance and generates proper hiring processes for maintaining the registration of the leave request incorporated by the current workers.
OpenPro ERP	It provides adequate support in creating a well-structured outline of the entire e-commerce section when ensuring that financial matters are figured out appropriately.  In terms of delegating the billing and fixed capital, it can generate the opportunity to mitigate the issues (Hiebl, Gärtner and Duller, 2017).  It can solve complicated situations when incorporating a user-friendly interface along with maintaining the workflow that mainly helps in analyzing the current interpretation of the user by representing the opportunities that are available for them.

Operations Management Assignment Part C Report

Introduction
It is worth mentioning that after conducting strategic analysis for the business process models and research based on the Software solution, it is very important to develop an appropriate report. This particular report will provide an overview of the current scenario of TopDog with a roadmap. The development of this particular roadmap properly explains how the proposed changes to the existing business can be obtained to the benefit of the overall business. The report needs to be developed in a proper way based on the analysis of part a. While developing this report with a roadmap, it is also very necessary to include the recommendation for software. Some recommendations will be developed in this particular part in order to ensure that the strategy is implemented in an efficient manner. This report will also include the consideration of the challenges. In particular, this part will help to create a clear understanding of the recommended software that can be appropriate for TopDog.

Overview of the current situation
The current situation of TopDog mainly addresses that the company is carrying out a large range of grooming services for dogs in which the company provides styling, drying, bathing, cleaning and many other services for dogs in order to maintain their physical appearance. The company is continuing its business operation in an efficient manner as it has introduced a number of products like toys, leads and collars for dogs. Both the large range of dog grooming services as well as products produced by TopDog has gained the attraction of several associated businesses (Ardito, Coccia and Messeni Petruzzelli, 2021). Those associated businesses have expressed that they are willing to compensate the introduction fees for the company to introduce other professional services. Though the company is effectively operating its business, the covid-19 situation has created several challenges for operating its business. During the situation, it is not possible for the company to provide dog grooming services because people are concerned about maintaining social distance. The covid-19 situation has restricted the company to increase its profit margin. In addition to these, the company has to properly maintain several guidelines developed by the UK Government in order to continue the business operation. Technological innovation and the developed technological infrastructure has generated better opportunities for the company to keep the record of the introduction to several professional services, to keep the business account updated and to maintain a good relationship with its clients (Hacking, Pearson and Eames, 2019). It has been identified that some political factors can impact the overall business operation of TopDog as political debates and uncertainty are generated by the BREXIT.

Figure 3: Roadmap of the considered business model

(Source: Created by author)

It is worth mentioning that the social factors have generated several opportunities for TopDog to ensure overall business growth. It has been identified that there is a large customer market within the UK and its current population is nearly 68 million (Lin et al., 2018). People across the UK are influenced by social status, from this context, people would require a dog walker, behaviorist as well as a pet photographer in order to maintain the social and physical appearance of their pets. This can increase the revenue generation of the organization. It has been identified that the company provides a large range of goods and services such as trainers, pet photographers and dog walkers at an affordable price range. This strategy can help the company to compete with other competitors within a competitive business environment. It is necessary to describe that there is a lack of an adequate employee base within TopDog and also it can be challenging for the company to maintain its position within the market in which the company operates its business (Tarigan, Siagian and Jie, 2020). As the company has no in-depth knowledge of using open source software, it can be recommended that the company can use OpenPro ERP software in order to save adequate money and develop a well-structured outline for the entire E-Commerce section. It can be stated that there are both opportunities and threats for the company within the market in which the company continues its business activities.

Recommendation for software
Some recommendations are developed regarding the appropriate utilization of open source software which can be considered by TopDog to maintain a proper balance with the market trends and a good relationship with its customers.

• OpenPro ERP can provide real-time insights into a particular range of business management disciplines that involve manufacturing, financial and accounting focused MRP. It has been identified that this particular software can be utilized by only small enterprises (Nguyen et al., 2017). In this case, TopDog can utilize this OpenPro ERP software in order to execute appropriate accounting, as it is a small enterprise and has to properly keep up to date business accounts. By utilizing this open-source software, the dog grooming salon can easily improve its performance.
• TopDog should utilize this OpenPro ERP as it can help the company to solve any type of complicated situation when incorporating a user-friendly interface along with maintaining the workflow. This particular software can also help in analyzing the existing information of the user by representing the opportunities available for them. As TopDog wants to provide a better payment and booking experience to customers, it is very important to utilize OpenPro ERP software by which the process of payment and purchase can easily be completed without any issues.
• The dog grooming salon needs to utilize this open-source software by which it can develop a well-structured outline of the entire E-Commerce section when ensuring that the financial matters are figured out in a proper way. In terms of delegating the billing and fixed capital, this software can provide a better opportunity for TopDog to fix the emerging issues (Ociepa-Kubicka, 2017). The company can utilize this OpenPro ERP software in order to automate routine and manual functions. This can help the employees to effectively concentrate on the revenue-driving task.
• TopDog needs to utilize OpenPro ERP software in order to maintain good communication with its clients. It has been identified that this particular software can help the company to save time and cost of the operation and also ensure smoother workflow. The company can use this open-source software for providing better customer service (Abdel-Haq, Chatti and Asfoura, 2018). This particular software can produce a central hub for the company to store its customer information.

Conclusions
It is necessary to explain that a report has been developed which has provided an overview of the current situation of TopDog. The report has been developed with a particular route map in order to create a clear understanding of the proposed changes to the existing business. The social and technological factors have created better opportunities for the company to ensure its business growth. TopDog has to experience several challenges due to the covid-19 situation as this has restricted people to visiting the salon for grooming their pets. It has been identified that the company has no clear understanding of using open source software which can save time. OpenPro ERP software has been recommended for the company which can help to provide better payment and booking facilities to customers.

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