Bows and Arrows of Agincourt History ahs a special way of reserving over a long period of time the lessons and skills that can be used at the present time. There is need, always to refer back to history mainly for two things, either to reference and copy or to learn and avoid same pitfalls. The battle at Agincourt fought under the guide of Henry V is a classic example that has ben sued by many disciplines in the contemporary society, one of them being the management sphere.

Briefly, the Agincourt battle happened in 25 the of October 1415 and pitted the French army against the English army. The spectacular thing about the battle that has inspired reference over many decades after it happened was that the French by then had the best cavalry and had an outstanding number of army of 30,000 soldiers, yet they were defeated by 7,000 Englishmen. This outnumbering can be equated to a ration of 4 French soldiers to 1 English soldier. It is also astonishing that by the end of the battle and a shameful defeat of the French army, the English had lost only 500 men yet the French lost 10,000 of their men, twenty times more than the English army. This was the one hundred years war that lasted half a century.

However, the history is not the real center of attention but the strategies that Henry V used to outdo a great number of his enemies and the applicability of these strategies in Operational, Supply Chain and Purchasing Management issues in the contemporary business.

The first principle in operations management is ensuring that the operations of the firm are properly organized through utilizing the resources that are required by the customers. This was the first thing that Henry V did. He ensured he would get the best of the courageous soldiers and strategized to utilize them in the most efficient manner in the nettle field by knowing the terrain...

The French army was huge in term of numbers but they took comfort in the number and never bothered to plan yet the English army woke up very early on the battle day and thoroughly planned on the placement of each soldier and the roles as well as the sequence of the events. This was important since it helped them have an organized approach to the battle and hence outwitting the large number of French army with efficiency and prior planning rather than numbers.
The English army under the command of Henry V also knew well the significance of the theory of constraints in the carrying out of any operations. Henry V knew that in any operation management, when there are bottlenecks in the process, there is bound to be delays. Henry hence used this concept against the French army to compromise their effectiveness; he used stakes that created a hindrance to the approach of the French army and their horses towards the English army. Henry knew that with the muddy conditions, coupled with the stakes erected against the French army, these would be enough bottlenecks to hinder the progress of the French army and this worked well for the English army.

Supply chain management also emphasizes on improved performance that can be achieved through making the best use of the internal and the external capabilities that the organization has and in the process creating a seamless and well coordinated supply chain (Paulraj A. & Chen I., 2004:Pp4). This was exemplified when Henry V used the smaller number…