Analysis of the Concept of the Professional Manager: Case Study of Tesco

The Professional Manager

Section 1

Tesco is multinational operating grocery and general merchandise retailer in the UK, which was established in 1919 by Jack Cohen. It’s headquartered in Cheshunt United Kingdom, it’s the third-largest retailer in the world.

Tesco has stores in 14 countries across Asia, Europe, and North America, they operate about 7000 stores around the world. In UK, they have six different stores which differ in size and product types. Its products range from food and beverages, home appliances, clothing and they also employed 460,000 people worldwide.

Strategic Manager. Stephine Wiggins is the Store Manager she is an Experienced Store Manager with a demonstrated history of working in the retail industry. Skilled in Operations Management, Retail, Store Management, Warehouse Management Systems, and Retail Sales. Strong sales professional graduated from The University of Stirling

Alistair Thomson is the tactical Manager in one of the Tesco stores in United Kingdom he is the supervisor in the Tesco store, most of the time he goes to order Tesco stores to inspect and supervise how things are going in the stores, he is 37 years old,

Carl Jones Is the operational Manager in a Tesco store, he is the sales manager/team leader. He mostly deals with hiring, providing training to new staff joining the company, and attracting talents.

Statista. (2012). UK, Ireland: Tesco stores 2012-2019 | Statista. [online] Available at: https://www.statista.com/statistics/490947/tesco-group-stores-united-kingdom-uk/.

Section 2

• Manager level
• Skills
• Key responsibilities

Strategic manager (General Manager)

• Leadership skills- The General manager utilises this skill by taking on huge responsibilities while setting task, goals, and meetings to ensure her team brings positive results to the business.
• Decision Making- this skill is utilising by making best decision resulting in positive outcomes.
• Adaptability- this skill is used to adapt coaching style to suit each team member. Also, use to respond to different challenges effectively.
• Communication- to ensure team is on track and understands goals.
• Time management- setting deadlines to ensure progression towards goal.

To Analyse Data of Tesco such as sales, customer, competition, and market performance to create best possible recommendations.

Creating smart Recommendations through projects that will help create educated ideas resulting in growth and progression.

Testing and Developing goals by working with operational teams to help test hypotheses quickly and then work with different department heads to execute plans.

Tactical manager

The skills which a tactical manager at Tesco has are planning skills. This allows them to plan for any unforeseen circumstances which might occur. Also, have creativity skills. This allows them to use creative tactics in order to overcome certain circumstances which might occur within the organization. Furthermore, the skills which a tactical manager has are open communication, information sharing, trustworthiness, reliability, and compassion they also leadership skills.

Tactical managers at Tesco are responsible for the administrative process of selecting amongst the appropriate ways of achieving a strategic plan or objective. The tactical manager within a business environment allows the manager to use the best and appropriate methods for each situation which arises rather than following a standard procedure. As well as this they are responsible for the operational, financial and management tasks of an organisation. They also have responsibilities for accounting, human resources, manufacturing, research &development and marketing.

Operational manager

Sales manager

• Analysis skills
• Communication skills
• Delegation skills
• Good people skills
• Strategic planning skills
• Good people skills
• Managing individual and team quotas
• Give Advice- the sales manager has to advise the board of directors about the location and the layout of the sales office and all other matters relating to Tesco.
• Hiring- the sales manager has to arrange for careful selection and appointment of salesmen.
• Analyzation- being a sales manager of Tesco, they must make a careful study of the competitors, products and sales policies and act accordingly.
• Budgeting- sales manager has to prepare sales budget so they do not overflow with their expenses.
• Assigning work-they have to prepare schedules and have to assign duties to employees.
• To be a leader- a sales manager has to be a good leader which means they have to be confident enough and to also motivate the workers well.

References:

1. Govleaders.org. (2019). [online] Available at: https://govleaders.org/pdfs/tactical-management4.pdf [Accessed 15 Dec. 2019].
2. BusinessDictionary.com. (2019). What is tactical management? definition and meaning. [online] Available at: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/tactical-management.html [Accessed 15 Dec. 2019].
3. JobHero. 2019. What is a Strategy Manager? - JobHero. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.jobhero.com/what-is-a-strategy-manager/amp/. [Accessed 19 December 2019].
4. Customer Strategy Manager | 48434 | Tesco Careers. 2019. Customer Strategy Manager | 48434 | Tesco Careers. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.tesco-careers.com/jobdetails/48434. [Accessed 23 December 2019].

Section 3

As mentioned in section 2, a strategic Manager in Tesco has the skills to plan and organize people and one of there roles is to support and develop long-term organizational strategy, an effective manger pays attention to his or her employees, suggesting and implementing easier ways to get the work done much quicker and safe, doing everything possible to make sure that the company stands out form it competitors, also, a strategic manager will always ensure that the organization keeps up to high social responsibility wherever it does business and also participate in setting out strategical goals and making sure they are achievable, using this skills and roles in an organization will help put the organization in a higher place.

For example, in 2015 Ryanair based in Dublin reported they had carried more passengers than previous years this is because of the mangers effort to the company by improving passengers experience, renewing booking website and letting passengers take extra small items with them. The chief Executive Manger by the name (Michael O’Leary) added that it won’t be a problem if they also start giving passengers free food, newspaper, and drinks. With the few things the senior managers did, these helped boost Ryanair air passengers, revenue, profit after tax and earnings per share, since then the company has continued to grow till date. This was a great contribution to the company growth.

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A Tactical Manager contributes to the organizational growth by applying their skills and responsibilities in their day to day work at the shop floor, they ensure that the first line managers work in line with the company policies, this makes them to convert strategy task into operational task. Mediating between senior management vision and operational reality and sometimes guiding, reshaping and interpreting upper policies to suit local conditions. Burgess and Currie (2013) showed how this worked in a hospital, where those with a clinical training who had taken on middle management work, played a vital communication role between senior managers and professional staff. Those working for charities have the challenge of managing volunteers, making sure they come to work on time, and they don’t annoy customers. Strategic mangers depended on tactical managers in solving problems locally and passing information upward.

They often assist with training new employees, supervising the shop growth, supervising the staff on how they do their jobs and treat customers, they also make sure that the shop and the rest room is safe, tidy and cleaned to the company standard. Tactical mangers also contribute to company’s growth by conducting performance evaluations according to established systems and policies, providing fair, constructive and timely feedback to towards performance expectations and goals, making sure that staff have professional development plans in place.

Operational manager

The skills which an operations manager at Tesco has are that they have leadership skills. As well as this they understand policy, planning and strategy skills. Besides this they can develop, implement and review policies and procedures. In addition to these they can oversee budgeting, reporting, planning, and auditing and have the skills to understand legal and regulatory documents.

These skills contribute towards organizational success because organizations and their environments constantly change. One of the main responsibilities of an organizational manager is initiating and managing the internal changes necessary to adapt to the changing circumstances. Also, operational managers contribute towards organizational success, because great organizations require great managers, and the best organization understand that certain managerial skills should be intentional and not left for chance. Furthermore, operational managers contribute toward organizational success because they represent the interests and the efforts for the organization. They act as a representative for both shareholders and employees. They are also tasked to look after both interests of the business and the people who work for them.

In addition to these an effective manager pays attention to many facets of management, leadership and learning within an organization. Managers know what employees need to work effectively, stay productive and contribute to a thrilled customer experience and a harmonious workplace. Furthermore, managers also contribute towards an organization because they motivate through performance management and engage employees through positive management.

As well as this the skills of an operational manager contribute towards organizational success because managers provide proper direction to the organization, the communications system and the structure. They also ensure that long term objectives are translated into concrete plans of actions and understood and supports by people working at various levels. An operational manager also contributes toward organizational success as they oversee various departments of employees within a specific organization or company. They utilise in every sector and the business relies on their ability to operationalise the management structure.

Managers also contribute towards an organization because they know what the employees need to work effectively stay productive and contribute to a workplace. They also know the behaviours that a manager needs to stay away from to encourage successful employees.

According to Henri Fayol the skills which a tactical manager consists of are planning skills, organisational skills, commanding skills, coordination skills and control thinking skills. This contributes towards organisational success because his theory was based on how the management should interact with the employees. His theory also provided a broad and analytical framework of the process of administrations which overcomes the drawbacks of Taylor’s management theory.

Operational managers contribute to businesses in significant ways, which are reflected in company profits, organisation and overall workplace morale.

Strategic manager

A strategic Manager is known as a Top-level professional who oversees the strategic plans for the business and determines the best ways to achieve these plan or goals. The strategic Managers mainly work with top executives and senior managers within a business or be a top executive. As every business main goal is to develop a successful business, the main duty of the strategy manager is to bring this goal into existence. Strategic managers bring success to the business by Analysing Data of the organisation internally and externally to find opportunities or threats which they store in an annual metric report that they then use to plan out the most educated and effective route towards success. They then go through different problem-solving methods to produce steps and smart recommendations which will help accomplish growth. This involves different recommendations and suggestions such as changes in business operations and product pricing. They then undertake testing and developing goals by working with operational teams to help test hypothesis quickly and then work with different department heads to execute plans. This involves the creation of financial budgets, recruitment and product development.

Tactical manager

The tactical manager is the mid-level professional that works under/with the strategic manager to implement the decisions or recommendations they created. Tactical managers control the projects and task required to be done in order to progress toward the long-term goals that the strategic managers has created. They decide the best tactics and procedure for situations within the business rather than following a standard procedure. The main responsibility of the tactical managers is to oversee different functional lines in the organisations such as accounting, HR, manufacturing, marketing and research & development as they need to collect important information from these departments to determine tactics and information from lower levels to determine progress and current conditions.

Differences

The difference between the strategy manager and tactical manager is that the strategic manager is primarily focus on the overall future goal of business whereas the tactical manager is focus on the present task at hand that will help achieve overall goal. This means that the strategy managers set objective and make decisions while the tactical manager implement these decisions based on their current state in order the achieve goals. The difference between the strategy manager and operational managers is that the operational managers deal with the day to day operations within the business. Operational managers would only focus on the internal aspects of the business to produce good and service such as manufacturing and inventory management whereas the strategic manager oversees both internal and external aspects such as competition data, sales and market performance which can help achieve organisational growth.

The difference between the tactical management and operational management managers is that the operational managers on focus on the day to day operations within the business such as which produces the goods and services whereas the tactical focus more advanced task required to be done in order to progress toward the long-term goals. Operational and tactical management can be very similar as they both break down the strategic main goals into smaller task to help achieve those goals. They do have their differences as the tactical management plans would take about a to 2 years to complete while operational plans can be done in a day to a month. The operational managers are required to collect important information from their teams and employees such as inventory, different situations and sales to report back to tactical managers.

There are three different types of managers that work at Tesco, operational, tactical and strategic. An example of an operational manager could be a supervisor who are low-level managers and are responsible for operational planning which take about 1-2 days to plan as they are required to make sure that the business runs smoothly on a day to day basis. Operational planning also involves in keeping all the information about how the business processes and they also have to make sure that the stock in Tesco is always full and that the customers always get what they are looking for. An example of a tactical manager could be a store manager who looks after one of the branches of Tesco and these are mid-level managers who usually implement the decisions taken by the top management which may take a year for their planning as they have to make plans so the decisions made are followed and they also have minor goals to achieve on a yearly basis like meeting sales targets. The highest managerial level is the strategic manager who are the external front and the face of Tesco and they could be a CEO or CFO and they usually take all the major decisions for the effective functioning of the company, they are also accountable to the shareholders for the performance of Tesco. Strategic planning have milestones and also provides a complete direction to the business and it can take very long to plan something for the company and execute them well, moreover they have to keep the communication between the enterprise and the outside world. This type of planning is required to see where the business stands. The 3 different types of managers have different jobs to do and have their own personal goals but in the end it is for the benefit of the business and they all trying to make Tesco succeed and grow it even more globally.

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