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Operations & process

Business Operations

Also known as: ops, biz ops

Business operations is everything involved in how a company actually delivers its product or service day to day: its processes, systems, people, and the coordination between them.

Key takeaways
  • Strategy decides what to do; operations is how it gets done.
  • It covers the processes, systems, people, and the coordination between them.
  • Most businesses that feel chaotic as they grow have an operations problem, not a strategy one.

Strategy decides what a business should do; operations is how it gets done. It covers the processes work flows through, the systems that support them, who owns what, and the rhythm that keeps it all moving. When operations is healthy, the business scales smoothly. When it is not, growth exposes the cracks.

Most businesses that feel chaotic as they grow do not have a strategy problem. They have an operations problem nobody has had time to name. An Operations Audit is the usual way to find out which.

Commonly confused with

Strategy

Strategy sets direction; operations executes it. Many problems blamed on strategy are really execution problems.

Frequently asked

What is the difference between operations and strategy?
Strategy is the plan for what the business should do and why. Operations is the machinery that delivers it: processes, systems, and people working together day to day.
When does business operations become a problem?
Usually as you scale. The way you ran things at ten people quietly stops working at forty, and growth exposes the cracks.

Something in your operations is costing you. Let's fix it.

A 30-minute call, no pitch. Tell me what's breaking and I'll tell you straight whether I can help.