1. Title: Operations Strategy and Business Performance
2. Syllabus: Business Studies Stage 6 Syllabus, (Board of Studies (BOS) NSW, 2013)
3. Content:
Students learn to:
- investigate aspects of business using hypothetical situations and actual business case studies
to:
▪ recommend possible operations strategies for one hypothetical business (BOS,
2013, p.19)
4.
a) Concept: Operations Strategy
b) Skill:
H8 – the student organises and evaluates information for actual and hypothetical
business situations (BOS, 2013, p.19).
c) Outcome:
H5 – the student explains management strategies and their impact on businesses
(BOS, 2013, p.19).
Sequence Question and Answer
1. Sequence Question: How can operations strategy help to improve business
performance?
Answer: Operations strategy can help to improve business performance by ensuring
that the company’s operating capabilities are effectively aligned for the purpose of
achieving the company’s strategic goals. Company management review actual
weekly and monthly performance against targets to determine whether the business
is performing according to plan. Performance metrics can be both quantitative (e.g.,
sales) and qualitative (e.g. customer satisfaction). If issues are identified in either
area, they are analysed to determine what the likely cause(s) might be, with the
relevant operations strategies then being adjusted to help resolve the issue(s) and
bring performance back into line with expectations.
There are a range of different operations strategies that a company can use to do
this, including performance objectives, new product/service design and
development, supply chain management, outsourcing, technology, inventory
management, quality management, overcoming resistance to change and global
factors (BOS, 2013, p.20). Initiatives undertaken in these areas can help to ensure
that the efforts directed to producing business outcomes are effectively planned,
optimised, managed, and delivered.
Part D: The Cognitive Inquiry Learning Sequence
Information Sources
Initiate Stage
Learning Activities
1. Teacher revises prior learning relating to business performance. Questions will include:
a. What does it mean to say that a business is performing well?
b. How is business performance measured? How often is it measured?
c. Think about something big that you or a family member have bought before…e.g., a new car, a new
phone…what was it about that company that made you decide to buy it from them?
d. Was the decision driven by the company’s reputation, or the product they were selling?
e. If after deciding to buy the product you learnt that you were going to have to wait for two months before
the it arrived, what would be going through your mind?
2. Teacher tells students that companies need to have an ongoing focus on ensuring their business processes continue
to operate effectively. There are a number of things they can do to achieve this, however they need ensure that the
approach they take is well thought out and coordinated. What we are talking about here is the organisation’s
Operations strategy.
3. Students watch an excerpt of the video Introduction to Operations Strategy. Teacher introduction: “We’re going to
watch a short video that provides two examples of companies that are well known for having exceptional operations
strategies – most of you will likely have heard of the furniture store IKEA. The other company is HelloFresh – they
provide a menu planning, recipe and ingredient delivery service. I think you’ll be surprised how many meals they
send out each year!”
4. Play from 0:42s to 3:24s
Introduction to Operations
Strategy
https://youtu.be/n82C6zgfk0E
(Production and Operations
Management (POM)
Eidgenössische Technische
Hochschule (ETH) Zürich, 2021)
(viewing time: 2:42 mins).
5. Teacher introduces Sequence Question: How can operations strategy help to improve business performance?
Gather Stage
Information Sources
1. https://www.projectman
ager.com/blog/operation
al-strategy
(Projectmanager.com,
2025).
2.
https://clickup.com/blog/
operations-strategy/
(ClickUp, 2023).
3.
https://www.usemotion.
com/blog/operationsstrategy (Motion, 2023).
Data collection worksheet
Data collection process review
1. Students are provided with URLs for three websites, each of which contains a list of different types of
operations strategies. There is some commonality between the strategies across the websites, however the
names differ to some extent, the number of strategies listed on each site differs and they do not correlate
directly with strategies named in the Syllabus.
2. Working individually using their laptops, students visit each website and gather the explanation/description
from each site for each type of operational strategy. Students are to read each strategy description, then copy
and paste it into the data collection worksheet (downloaded from Google Classroom). For reference purposes,
the operations strategy types identified in the Business Studies Syllabus are listed on this sheet.
3. After moving to the second source, students will likely notice that two of the sites contain similar information.
When collecting data from the second and third websites, students may start to align the strategy types for the
three sites in the same row in the data collection worksheet, however this is not required at this stage.
4. Once students have finished populating the table, students reflect on the data collection process and make
notes in the data collection process review sheet. Teacher facilitates a discussion regarding the data collection
process. Questions will include:
a. What are your observations about the sources you have used to collect the data?
b. Are there any similarities between the sources? What about differences?
c. How reliable do you think the information you have collected is?
d. Could the data collection process be improved? If so, how?
Analyse Stage
Scaffolded data
collection sheet
1. Teacher acknowledges student responses, indicating/agreeing that there are both duplications and differences
within the data. Teacher indicates that this highlights the need for students to develop the skill of organising
and evaluating information to ensure that it can be used effectively to inform business-related decisions (BOS,
2013, p.23).
2. Teacher explains that data can be organised in various ways and that in this instance there are two potential
organising principles – specific categories or broad groupings. Teacher provides an example of each from the
collected data and indicates that for this activity, strategies will be organised by broad groupings (resourcebased, process-based, market-based, or product/service-based).
3. Teacher then explains/demonstrates how to match a specific strategy to a broad grouping, asking students
clarifying questions and using talk-alouds to convey the thought process that guides and supports effective
decision-making (Kulcan & Beck, 1997). Teacher questions may include:
a. What is the purpose of a differentiation strategy? What does it do for the company?
b. What might a strategy of this type look like? What are some examples of how a product can be
differentiated?
c. Can a strategy be aligned with more than one grouping? Why or why not?
4. Working in teams of four, students practice the skill by discussing the purpose of each strategy based on the
explanation/description collected from the three sources, how the strategy aligns with the broad groupings,
and then allocating each strategy to the most appropriate group. Each student is to lead the discussion for at
least one strategy. A scaffolded version of the data collection sheet which includes guidelines regarding the
characteristics of the four broad groupings will be provided to support this activity. As the team progresses
through this activity, students summarise the discussion and collected data, and write their own dot point
description of each strategy.
5. Once all strategies have been allocated to a broad grouping, each student identifies which grouping they think
contains the most important/impactful collection of strategies and writes a rationale to support their decision
to choose that group.
6. Teacher observes/coaches teams, checks in with individual students and monitors participation throughout the
activity as required.
Synthesise Stage
1. Teacher leads a class discussion to answer the question: How can operations strategy improve business
performance?
2. Questions may include:
a. What are some of the operational levers available to companies that can be used to improve business
performance? What do we call the coordination of these levers?
b. How easy is it for a company to work out what another company’s operations strategy is and copy it?
What do you think the outcome of trying to do that might be and why?
c. How do the four operations strategy groupings that we have been discussing complement each other?
What do you think the outcome might be if one grouping wasn’t used?
d. What do you think are some early warning signs that a company’s operations strategy needs to be
reassessed?
e. What are some things that having an effective operations strategy enables a company to do?
3. Assessment (formative)
a. You are a business consultant that specialises in advising companies on how to use operations strategy to
improve business performance. You have been approached by three potential clients that want to retain
your services. Unfortunately, they all need advice immediately, so you need choose the client that you
think needs your help the most. The clients are:
i. Super Burger Master: a dine-in burger restaurant that specialises in gourmet burgers that wants
to start a delivery service;
ii. Tune-Ups R Us: a motor-mechanic who has just learnt that a new competitor is planning to
open a workshop in the same complex that she is based in; or
iii. Let’s Make Music: a music shop that currently sells musical instruments and wants to start
offering private music lessons.
b. The client you have chosen wants to meet with you ASAP to get a high-level overview of your initial
thoughts about which operations strategies they should consider focusing on to begin with. They
acknowledge that this is short notice and that you aren’t familiar with their business yet. On that basis,
they would like to discuss an outline plan that will help them think through their initial steps.
c. To simplify the initial discussion, you decide to structure and present the strategies using the broad
groupings of resources, processes, market/customers and products/services.
d. You decide to identify one strategy in each group and provide a written explanation (50-75 words)
describing how each one will help improve the performance of their business.
e. The client has just called saying they will be passing your office in 20 minutes and will drop in to
connect…
Second Topic
1. Sequence Question: How can operations strategy help improve business performance?
Answer: Operations strategy can help to improve business performance by ensuring that the
company’s operating capabilities are effectively aligned for the purpose of achieving the
company’s strategic goals. Company management review actual weekly and monthly
performance against targets to determine whether the business is performing according to plan.
Performance metrics can be both quantitative (e.g., sales) and qualitative (e.g. customer
satisfaction). If issues are identified in either area, they are analysed to determine what the likely
cause(s) might be, with the relevant operations strategies then being adjusted to help resolve the
issue(s) and bring performance back into line with expectations.
There are a range of different operations strategies that a company can use to do this, including
performance objectives, new product/service design and development, supply chain
management, outsourcing, technology, inventory management, quality management,
overcoming resistance to change and global factors (BOS, 2013, p.20). Initiatives undertaken in
these areas can help to ensure that the efforts directed to producing business outcomes are
effectively planned, optimised, and managed.
2. State the second topic:
How can a specific operations strategy help a business sustain its competitive advantage?
3. Content from Syllabus:
Students learn to:
▪ investigate aspects of business using hypothetical situations and actual business case studies to:
▪ explain how operations strategy can help a business sustain its competitive advantage
(BOS, 2013)
4. Information Sources:
i.
Reference
Business Breakdowns, 2023.
Link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ba1fZ1yj3Uw
Explanation This is a podcast interview with the CEO of HelloFresh which
provides insight into how HelloFresh leverages real-time customer order data,
customer feedback and the Just In Time (JIT) inventory management approach in
the operations strategy development process. The discussion also covers the
CEO’s perspective on HelloFresh’s competitive advantage.
NB: the relevant sections of this resource are as follows (total time ~11m):
00:04:15 to 00:05:52 - Description of HelloFresh service (2m)
00:08:03 to 00:10:25 - Complexity of today’s service vs original service; how it has changed (2.5m)
00:36:22 to 00:38:37 - CEO’s thoughts about competitive advantage (2m)
00:41:24 to 00:44:16 - Example: operations strategy change leading to business improvement (3m)
01:00:04 to 01:02:26 - Biggest risks the business might face in the future (1.5m)
ii.
Reference
Link
Explanation
British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), 2025.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zcbr87h/revision/3
This exhibit provides an overview of the Just In Time (JIT) approach to inventory
management (in text and diagrammatic form). It also includes a summary of the
advantages and disadvantages associated with using the JIT approach. Students
will be able to reference this information during the discussion about HelloFresh’s
approach to inventory management.
5. Learning Activity
▪ Lesson goals:
▪ Describe how an organisation has utilised operations strategy to sustain competitive
advantage.
▪ Describe Just-In-Time (JIT) inventory management and its advantages/disadvantages.
▪ As a class, students listen to podcast excerpts to gain insights about HelloFresh. Teacher leads
Q/A after each excerpt to draw out key points raised. Questions may include:
▪ How does the CEO explain HelloFresh’s competitive advantage? What do they do better?
▪ Do changes to operations strategy need to be significant to make a difference? Why or
why not?
▪ How can a business use operations strategy to manage risk?
▪ Using Think-Pair-Share students summarise HelloFresh’s competitive advantage and discuss
how using the JIT approach has enabled HelloFresh to sustain it. The link to resource (ii) is
provided to facilitate the discussion.
▪ Activity: Students identify three advantages and three disadvantages for HelloFresh associated
with using the JIT approach, and the potential impact of each on the business. Students record
their responses in a T chart.
▪ Based on the class discussion and their own analysis, students decide whether they agree or
disagree that JIT can effectively sustain competitive advantage, write a 150-word rationale
explaining why, and post it in the Google Classroom blog.
3 Suitability: The selected topics are connected in that the first topic provides an overview of
operations strategy that exposes students to a wide variety of available strategies, all of which
can influence an organisation’s competitive advantage. The second topic is more targeted in that
it provides students with a deeper understanding of one specific operations strategy (JIT
inventory management), how it has been implemented in an organisation, and how that
organisation has utilised it to sustain their competitive advantage. The case study in the second
topic has been chosen specifically as it highlights that organisations need to concurrently utilise
all operations strategies effectively to maximise their competitive advantage.
4 Questioning:
i) How did the podcast interview Q/A with the Global CEO of HelloFresh help to develop
your understanding of the various ways organisations can use operations strategy to
sustain competitive advantage?
ii) How did the graphic organiser you used to collate the data you collected from the three
websites assist you to develop your understanding of each of the available operations
strategies?
iii) How would you describe the differences and similarities between the two topics that we
have studied?
iv) How can an organisation structure their approach to implementing and managing
operations strategy in order to ensure that the strategies in place lead to improvement in
organisational performance?
v) Explain how an organisation can use the Just-In-Time approach to inventory management
to support and enhance competitive advantage.
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