Unit 34 Assignment on Operation Management in Business

Introduction

Operations are a crucial part of the firm, and the firm must have strong operations processes and control. A case of a firm, 'Supercell', has been taken here, and all the areas of operations management at issue have been discussed, keeping the firm's operations in view. In this Unit 34 Assignment on Operations Management in Business, various aspects and benefits of having a strong operations team have been discussed. A firm must also maintain the cost and quality at all times. Also, planning and control must be done for any project so that it can be implemented. All these aspects have been discussed, and their significance to a firm like Supercell has also been discussed.

Task 1

1.1 Discuss the significance of Operations Management

Operations management is all about managing those processes which will assist the firm in providing its services. In this case, Supercell is providing services to the users in the form of a game. The processes thus include designing the game, programming the game, and then providing the game to the users. It also includes correcting errors in the game. Based on the revenue of its two games, one can say the games are extremely popular. Thus, there would be a huge number of customers playing the games. The number of employees working on the game is only 100, which means that the work performed by the employees must be of high quality. The processes under operation management shall thus have to be of high quality. The firms have to pay attention to quality, speed, reliability, and cost. As a huge number of customers are playing the game, the servers will be overloaded during the day as it is being played online all over the globe. The operations department of the firm thus has to be on top of it and ensure that no problem arises. Also, as it is being played through the internet, if the game is offering subpar services to the customers, the word spreads very fast. The operations department thus has to provide the game in a very seamless way. Any problem arising because of overloading or due to any other reason has to be eliminated immediately.

Another key point to consider is introducing new changes to the game and innovating. Competition, there is a lot in the market, and many firms are competing in the same game. Therefore, the firm cannot take it easy and needs to innovate regularly so that the customers stick to the firm, which is one of the drivers of next-generation operational excellence (Chhabria et al., 2024).

1.2 Describe the reasons why Supercell must produce to cost, on time, to quality and within the law

Supercell is a small company, and thus fewer employees are doing a lot of work. The company is running 24-hour games and thus needs to ensure a safe environment for the employees as well as the place where its servers are located. Any problem that may occur due to security would affect the company in a negative way and would cause a massive disruption of services. It would be time-consuming to resume the services once an incident occurs. Also, since there are fewer employees, every employee is precious and does a very crucial job. If the company doesn't take care of its employees, it would be a big problem and could cause a massive loss of customers.

The gaming industry is highly competitive in nature, and numerous players are offering similar services. Since the usage of the internet is highly common nowadays, customers easily come to know whether any company is offering game design & development with better features and services or not, as it is easy to find reviews. Thus, the company has to retain its customers and pay a lot of attention to the quality of its games. In this sector, if one game gets a massive audience, numerous others follow, and thus the company has to keep in mind that they can easily lose their customers if they fail to offer good quality services (Brown, Bessant & Jia, 2018). Also, the company must make sure that the price at which they sell quality goods or services is optimum, once again due to the competition. As it has only expanded, it must first lay down a stronger customer base and concentrate more on maximising profits. The application of AI-based automation for IT support, for instance, is a contemporary method of keeping the costs down while still providing quality (Eficode, 2025).

1.3 Describe the relationship between operations management and strategic management

A company needs to take top-level strategic decisions, and those need to be executed by the operations team. That is one of the most crucial areas for Supercell. Supercell needs to come up with new things and innovate constantly, and therefore, the strategic team needs to consider new things which can be executed by the company constantly, how the games can be improved, and how they can improve the game. Also, if the company needs to launch new games, the strategic management needs to envision the game and then communicate that to the operations team, who will execute the games. Thus, for the company to expand, this is a critical relationship.

In any company, the operations department is the one that will implement the strategy plans. In Supercell, the management will determine what games the company needs to produce, how the games are to be marketed, and how the areas in which the company should improve can be worked on. But it will be done by the operations teams. Therefore, there must be a very close connection between operations and strategic management since the strategy team must be able to talk to the operations team so that the changes can be implemented, especially during a digital-first era (McKinsey & Company, 2022).

1.4 Draw a systems diagram to represent the system.

Here is a systems diagram for the company.

The diagram above illustrates the different steps. Strategic decisions are made by the management regarding how to expand the company and generate revenue. Tactical decisions are made regarding how to execute the strategic decisions. These decisions are then passed on to the operations team to execute. Operations planning and control assist in executing the project. Subsequently, the project is released. After the release, the company takes feedback from the users and attempts to fix issues.

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Task 2

2.1 Define the 'Three Es' (economy, efficiency and effectiveness) in Supercell.

A company operates in an arena where there are already players present. That is, Zynga is a renowned company for creating games. Thus, the company has to innovate and create products which are sellable and hence the company makes money. The game must be sellable, and hence the company has to consider the economics of the game and then create it.

Supercell has minimal staff, and since the customer base is large, the firm needs to be more efficient, since the output needed per staff member must have to be higher. The firm must be more efficient as it expands in size, since it has to filter more projects and be efficient in deciding which projects to proceed with. They must be efficient in executing the projects since it doesn't have a lot of resources, and hence cannot afford to waste resources.

Finally, if the company has planned something, then it has to be effective because most of the customers play the game every day. If the company is not effective, then it will result in a bad reputation. Once the company has been successful at first, most of the companies in the industry have not been able to make the best out of their success, and therefore, the company has to make the best out of it. Second, the company does not have time to test. Since there are limited resources available, if the company is not able to capture the market, it will cause a loss in income and reputation. The company must be effective at what they do.

2.2 Describe the trade-off between minimising cost and maximising quality in Supercell

There is always a trade-off between cutting costs and enhancing the quality of service. There are two primary costs for the company: one is the cost of employees and the other is the cost of servers. The company has no major assets and therefore no capital cost. The company must hire the best people available in order to remain competitive. The best individuals receive more than other employees. Therefore, the company must know what competency is needed to expand further and what level of compensation would be reasonable for the employees. Since the company is competing against companies from all over the world, the company must employ talent that can compete at an international level, and therefore, compensation can be a huge cost because employees can always get good offers from other competing firms.

Another expense for the company is the servers. The company needs to upload all the information to the servers. The company needs to make sure that the data servers are of good quality because if there is any problem with the servers, the company would be unable to provide services to the customers. Frequent shutdowns can lead to frustration among customers and can lead to a loss of customer base. So, the company needs to make sure that the servers are of good quality. But as the quality of the servers improves, the expense for the company increases, and there is always a constant fight between the quality of services and the expense. Supercell's recent shift towards AI-based automation of IT support is a typical example of a new system of operations that has been created to eliminate this tension by boosting efficiency and quality at a lesser cost (Eficode, 2025).

Hence, in order to improve quality, the company can be compelled to pay an extra cost. There will always be a fight towards increasing quality that can drive up costs. The company would have to factor in the increase in quality and the increase in cost due to that investment. In case the marginal benefit is greater, the company can think about increasing the quality.

2.3 Discuss the importance of the five performance objectives, which are the basis of Supercell's operations management.

The first goal is to offer the best quality services to the clients. The operations team of the firm has to make sure that it offers the best services. As the customers are using the game 24 hours a day and the company has developed very rapidly, they have to make sure of the best quality. There are also similar competitors in the market, and therefore, the firm has to make sure of the quality it offers.

The company also has to deliver on reliability. The company has to maintain the quality of its services throughout. It cannot have service glitches at some point and deliver good services at another. The company has to satisfy the customer. There has to be consistency in delivery.

The company has to become flexible and attempt to be flexible. In this case, the company can offer various services to the customers and incorporate their feedback in order to improve itself. In this case, flexibility is more in the sense of improvising and introducing more updates, which is one of the most important elements of agile operations management in a digital era (Next Innovation Asia, 2025).

The employees should ensure that the price at which they charge for the services is also perfect and not too high. Quality needs to be ensured by the company, as well as the company ensuring that the costs do not go too high (Brown, Bessant & Jia, 2018). The company also has to make sure that in case of any problem, it should immediately rectify the fault. Furthermore, the company has to make sure that the game services are provided on time. The company is in the growth stage. It has increased very rapidly in the recent past, but to keep the growth going, the company should never slow down and should attempt to deliver the best services.

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Task 4

4.1 Provide a concise set of operational results

Management has asked its operations department to implement 5 changes in the game view within the next few months. The operations, however, are required to decide which of the tasks to implement first or if any task is worth implementing or not. The operations have to deploy resources and hence must deploy them optimally.

Therefore, the company must estimate the profit or revenue it will receive from each task. It must also estimate the time they will take in order to carry out the task. This is the limitation of the company because they can only have so many employee hours in order to complete the job. The company must estimate the cost it will take to carry out each task; there must be some limitations on spending not exceed the budget. For instance, a company might need new software or hardware for the task, or the cost of employing the current software must be added to carrying out the task.

Therefore, the objective function is: R1X1 + R2X2 + … R represents revenue, and X represents the task. One needs to maximise the task.
Function constraint: T1X1 + T2X2 < T, where T1 is the duration required to complete each task and T is the total hours of employees.
Another limitation is C1X1 + C2X2 < C, where C1 is the cost of one task and C is the entire budget for carrying out the tasks.

Therefore, the company needs to resolve it and trace which of the activities are to be undertaken and whether there is any activity not needed because it is not possible under the time or cost constraint or both. Linear programming will provide the optimal solution. But the company needs to know the limitations of linear programming and parameter estimation, and therefore needs to provide a margin in their computation (Nah Adjoua Elodie, 2024).

4.2 Establish a network path and identify the critical path

Networking is an arrow representation of a project, which represents the consumption of time for each work and time taken by the whole project, along with the cost to be incurred in each individual work of the project. It enables management of Supercell to manipulate resources engaged in the project or business plan. Supercell has to implement new strategies into its business environment, and investment at each stage of the project can be changed by using networking. Some rules have to be followed to construct a network for the project. Supercell can use networking in its existing projects as well as in its proposed projects.

Critical Path Analysis is the route or series of a project which will consume the greatest amount of time in its completion. Critical path is the duration of the project. The following steps should be taken to determine the critical path:

Find all possible paths
Choose the route with the longest duration
That maximum duration is called the critical path or project duration.

Supercell has to select the project that has the least critical path, or it has to use crashing techniques to reduce project duration.

In the given diagram, probable routes are:

A= 30
B= 12 C= 30

In the given example, the critical path will be A and C.

Critical path analysis will assist the manager in decision-making for resource allocation and time management of operations or projects.

4.3 Describe how quality can be created and sustained

There are various ways of defining and maintaining quality. The company must determine the quality parameters and their standard values to which they must conform. The company must be aware of the acceptable deviation from the standard value. If the company's quality parameter value falls within the acceptable deviation of the standard value, then it can be stated that the company is maintaining quality in its operations. If the values are not within acceptable limits, then the company must improve its quality parameters. The company must determine the reason for such discrepancies and attempt to bring the company's values within acceptable limits. At least a monthly check-up of all these quality parameters must be present, and if it is realised that the company is not capable of conforming to the standard values, then the management must take corrective action.

For Supercell, there can be multiple parameters to determine quality. The most important quality parameter can be the lag in performing orders placed by customers while gaming. If there is high lag, individuals won't game. The second parameter can be the time required to resolve a problem. The company may not be able to prevent problems, but it must provide a time frame for resolving the problem. If the company is unable to resolve the problem within time, it can impact the company. The number of such problems must also be monitored (Next Innovation Asia, 2025). AI-based IT support automation is a contemporary example of quality provision by resolving issues quickly and effectively (Eficode, 2025).

Another quality feature could be how long it takes to process payments or process refunds in case of any cancellation. The customers purchase virtual goods online from Supercell to play with in the games. The company should have appropriate services for releasing the goods to the customers.

Quality control becomes a big problem for the company to survive. Users are able to provide instant feedback to the company. As the games are being played online, the audience is able to easily see the feedback from the customers. In the online scenario, the instances of bad feedback can also act as a parameter of quality in assessing the performance of the company.

Therefore, the company can retain such quality standards and, according to performance and historical data, it can check and analyse whether the company is keeping its quality or not.

Conclusion

In this Unit 34 Assignment on Operations Management in Business, we realised that every company must have a robust operations team which executes all the processes and resolves the issues which the company and its customers encounter. The operations team is the lifeline of the company. The company has the strategy team at the top level, which conceptualises what ideas to be executed, the tactical team, which conceptualises how they can be executed, and the operational team, which executes those projects. So, the company must develop a robust operations team. If the operations team is not robust, the company cannot execute the ideas conceptualised by the strategy team. Also, if there is any issue, the company must possess a robust implementation team which resolves the issue; otherwise, it might harm the reputation of the company. So, it is the operational team which executes the process, and therefore, the company must pay attention to the quality and planning and operational control of the operations team; otherwise, the company will not be able to maintain its growth and compete with its competitors in a fast-changing digital world (McKinsey & Company, 2022).

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References

Book: Brown, S., Bessant, J., & Jia, F. (2018). Strategic Operations Management (4th ed.). Routledge.
Article: McKinsey & Company. (2022, June 21). New operations management systems for a digital world.

Article: Chhabria, V., Choy, K., Sood, R., & Whiteman, R. (2024, January 19). Today's good to great: Next-generation operational excellence. McKinsey & Company.

Article: Gunasekaran, A., & Ngai, E. W. T. (2012). The future of operations management: An outlook and analysis. International Journal of Production Economics, 135(2), 687-701.
Article: Nah Adjoua Elodie, K. (2024). The new trends in operations management: A systematic review of inventory and quality management in small-medium enterprises. International Journal of Strategic Management and Economic Studies, 3(6), 1856–1870.
Article: Next Innovation Asia. (2025, June 27). The Future of Operations Management: Trends and Innovations.

Webpage: Supercell. (2025, February 10). In for the Forever Game.
Case Study: Eficode. (2025, April 22). Supercell enhances IT support efficiency through AI-driven automation.