Operations Management Impact:
Current State:
Upon your research (financials, articles, observations, etc.)
Attribute
Q1 2021
Q2 2021
Q3 2021
Q4 2021
Q1 2022
Q2 2022
Q3 2022
Sales
37.2 billion
43.1 billion
41.7 billion
46.2 billion
45.3 billion
51.7 billion
49.4 billion
% Change
- 2.1%
+ 15.8%
- 3.3%
+ 10.8%
- 1.9%
+ 14.1%
- 4.4%
Profit
13.9 billion
15.5 billion
15.5 billion
16.5 billion
20.5 billion
18.8 billion
16.7 billion
% Change
+ 24.1%
+ 11.5%
+ 0%
+ 6.5%
+ 24.2%
- 8.3%
- 11.2%
•
How has their operations management practices positively impact the results?
- Microsoft’s flexibility and ability to adapt to changing market conditions and customer demand
•
How has their operations management practices and/or constraints negatively impact results?
- Microsoft has inefficient processes and inadequate resources in certain markets, which led to excess inventory, delays, and reduction in
their profitability
Summary of Results:
Improvement Recommendation:
•
Assume you have 6 months to lead a project to improve these results
What factor(s) impacted revenue to increase or decrease?
- Intense competition in all their markets led to lower revenue or operating margins
What areas would you investigate and how would you approach this?
- Excessive outages, data losses, and disruptions of our online services due to failure to maintain an adequate operations infrastructure
•
Increase cybersecurity to prevent:
What factor(s) impacted profit to increase or decrease?
- further outages, data loss, and disruptions which has decreased revenue
- Disclosure and misuse of personal data that caused liability and harm to Microsoft’s reputation
- Disclosure and misuse of personal data that has tarnished Microsoft’s reputation and caused liability risks
- Cyberattacks and security vulnerabilities that could lead to reduced revenue, increased costs, liability claims, or harm to Microsoft’s reputation
Initiating Phase
Identify
vulnerabilities,
policies, and
operations
infrastructure
Dec. 2022
Planning Phase
Executing Phase
Implement
continuous
monitoring, verify
effectiveness, and
evaluate awareness
Provide
cybersecurity
training to
protect
resources
Jan. 2023
Monitoring and
Controlling Phase
Feb. 2023
March 2023
Perform
mitigating
actions,
constantly
improve and
learn
April 2023
Closing Phase
Set up recovery
plan, adjust
processes,
coordinate
communication
May 2023
Research Citations
• https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/investor/earnings/FY-2020Q4/press-release-webcast
• https://www.itgovernance.eu/blog/en/the-5-stages-of-an-effectivecyber-defence-strategy