Discussion Questions

1. How does Flextronics’ operations strategy help the company satisfy its customers?
2. What specific operations competencies must Flextronics’ have in order to make a success of its strategy?
3. Compare the operations strategies of Flextronics and a full-service airline such as Ethiopian Airlines.

Part-II: Practical Activities

1.Write down five services that you have ‘consumed’ in the last week. Try to make these as varied as possible. Examples could include public transport, a bank, any shop or supermarket, attendance at an education course, a cinema, a restaurant, etc.
For each of these services, ask yourself the following questions:

• Did the service meet your expectations? If so, what did the management of the service have to do well in order to satisfy your expectations? If not, where did they fail? Why might they have failed?
• If you were in charge of managing the delivery of these services, what would you do to improve the service?
• If they wanted to, how could the service be delivered at a lower cost so that the service could reduce its prices?
• How do you think that the service copes when something goes wrong (such as a piece of technology breaking down)?