Creating Competitive Advantage: Developing a Leading Edge Business & Operations Strategy

Enterprises are becoming increasingly global, with supply chains and manufacturing processes spanning oceans and continents. To navigate the global marketplace, senior managers need to know how to plan the most efficient use of material resources, as well as manage more complicated global networks and optimize service and quality. They need to be able to create a dynamic operations strategy that fosters:

1. continuous, incremental improvement
2. groundbreaking innovation, and
3. competitive market advantage

This program reviews the principles and methods of Business Strategy Development and applies the techniques to operations. The program includes the techniques of developing strategies in conjunction with the entire range of business functions such as operations, marketing, finance, and research and development.

The program focuses how to make decisions in the different key areas of the business and operations. These include process technology, facilities, vertical integration, the supply chain, supplier management, capacity, information technology, business processes and organizational design. Moreover, we will focuses on the identification of the strategic priorities a firm selects, which include five different possibilities: cost, quality, availability, innovativeness and features, and environmental performance. We also focus on how to make critical decisions in a world of ever-increasing outsourcing and globalization. 

Program Takeaways

The program will enable participants to address the following challenges in business and operations strategy:

1. Identifying the markets, products and services to focus on
2. Working among the key business functions of operations, marketing, finance, and other functions to develop effective Business Strategies
3. Understanding the technique of decisions categories to insure that all decisions are made in the most effective manner and are consistent with the strategy
4. Determining which strategic priorities – cost, quality, availability, innovativeness and features, or environmental performance – are most relevant
5. Understanding the issues of outsourcing and globalization and how decisions in these areas can be integrated within the operations strategy
6. Applying the frameworks and global best practices to the client’s specific circumstances