“Operations management is the management of the resources used to create salable products and services. It consists of the traditional business resources-employees, equipment, inventory, and facilities-combined with some not-so-traditional assets-knowledge, skills, customer relationships, and reputation.”
Through Operations Management we are able to learn to create value in products/services in order to fulfill the satisfaction of the consumers/customers. To create value, not only do we have to put in product/services benefits but also to put in social benefits in them. This is related to Corporate Social Responsibilities (CSR) which has become an important issue in today’s modern era.
CSR is about approaching businesses’ aims responsibly, with an awareness of your surrounding social and environmental needs, in order to fulfill stakeholder demands, achieve a profit and remain competitive. The potential benefits of CSR for companies or organizations include enhanced reputation, competitive edge, better risk management and a more committed and efficient work force; all of which could have a considerable effect on profits. Practising greater responsibility could also have a positive impact on wider society and the environment.
It is important to measure progress towards becoming more socially responsible, in order that mistakes and achievements can be identified and learned from. For some large companies or organizations this may take the form of a CSR report, for others it might involve identifying where and how you have tried to be more socially responsible and how the company has benefited.
All businesses can benefit from engaging in 'stakeholder dialogue', which means defining and talking to the groups and individuals that affect, and are in turn affected by, your operations. Other ways of approaching CSR depend on the size of the company/organization but include building on existing business aims and policies that demonstrate social responsibility by producing plans and value statements to show the ways in which you and your staff aim to progress.
(taken and edited from http://www.ciob.org.uk/filegrab/corporate_social_responsibility_revised.pdf?ref=73 )
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