Question

To be competitive, many fast-food chains have begun to expand their menus to include a wider range of meals. Although contributing to competitiveness, this has added to the complexity of operations, including inventory management. Discuss why

Answer 1

The way of doing business has changed a lot and organizations today experience huge competition both in terms of quality and quantity as well. In order to sustain and succeed in the industry, organizations need to have a competitive advantage over their competitors. Fast food chains in order to achieve competitive advantage are expanding their menus and although they contribute towards competitiveness with other competitors, they also add to the level of complexity of the operations because the organization now needs to have a large inventory in order to accommodate the raw materials for preparing the same. The inventory also needs to be managed efficiently as the variety of products have increased, they need to efficiently monitored to avoid stock out and over stock as well. This may increase the complexity of operations although this is the way by which an organization grow and develop in the industry.