The Business Operations (BizOps) team acquires greater relevance as the company grows and, in turn, the importance of keeping the different departments of the company aligned.
Recently, Vijay Sundaram, CSO of Zoho, included the figure of BizOps as one of the seven technological trends that companies should consider throughout 2022. In today's article, we analyze the role that this figure plays in companies, paying special attention to the particular case of SMEs.
Who is a company's BizOps?
Although there is no single definition that clearly defines what the term Business Operations, commonly known as BizOps, refers to, in a generalized way, the main objective of the Business Operations team is manage a company's resources strategically, managing to align the different departments towards common objectives that increase the competitiveness of the last in the market.
Thus, the Business Operations team is, as a general rule, responsible for identifying opportunities throughout the corporation from which to reduce costs, increase the productivity of its members and, ultimately, achieve efficient company processes, strengthening various areas of action such as marketing or sales.
Currently, due to the importance for companies to be able to adapt to technological changes that occur in the market, the Business Operations team is also responsible for Leading business transformation and to establish the mechanisms, processes and technologies necessary to align business and technology teams, consequently reducing the gap that often exists between technological products and commercial expectations, ensuring the long-term success of the company.
For all this, it is necessary that the different components of the Business Operations team collaborate, not only with each other, but also with the different C levels of the company (marketing, sales, customer success, etc.).
What skills should a BizOps have?
To successfully develop a professional career in the Business Operations department of a corporation and to increase its efficiency, both soft and hard skills are required, including:
- Ability to listen to detect points of improvement and needs that the different departments of the corporation may have.
- Ease of relationship with the different stakeholders of the company to forge relationships and create beneficial synergies for the company.
- Ability to work under pressure and to make decisions in a short period of time to be able to adjust, in real time, the company's needs with what is happening in the market.
- Analytical and strategic thinking to detect opportunities both in the market and within the company, that allow us to make the right decisions and implement successful strategies.
- Ability to analyze data and present it, then, to the different stakeholders of the company with a coherent narrative.
What are the tasks carried out by a BizOps?
The list of tasks to be carried out by the Business Operations department of a corporation can be as wide as the number of companies that have this department. Thus, the role of the Business Operations department will depend on how large the department is and its capacity to execute, as well as on how large the company is and its position in the market.
In companies with large Business Operations departments, there is a tendency to specialization of each of its members towards a different role or department of the company (marketing, sales, technology, etc.). In the same way, the role ceases to have a generalist scope of action as the entity grows, and it may specialize in a certain line of business in the case of large corporations.
While it is true that the functions will also vary depending on other situational factors, broadly speaking, among the most common functions performed by a company's Business Operations department, are the following:
- Provide help to different departments of the company who require this in the implementation of their projects, giving visibility to their problems, aligning them with strategic objectives and guiding them towards efficiency.
- Detect areas for improvement and optimize the company's internal processes and daily operations.
- Establish significant KPIs for the different departments and projects implemented, analyze the metrics obtained, to monitor the results, and propose new strategies and actions based on them.
- Scale processes.- Use existing data to carry out a comprehensive analysis of the market and the consumer that allows us to suggest strategies for opening new markets, new lines of business, etc.
- Model different scenarios based on existing data, both qualitative and quantitative, to prioritize the company's different needs and propose new growth strategies in accordance with strategic objectives.
How does BizOps help innovation in SMEs?
Members of a company's Business Operations department act as the tractor element of the different projects implemented (being present from the previous analysis to the results monitoring phase) .For this reason, this department acquires special relevance in terms of innovation processes: in companies in general, and in SMEs in particular, BizOps act as the mechanism to support decision-making and, subsequently, as a bridge to solve the main problems faced by these companies when establishing a business culture focused on innovation, such as: the lack of transparency, the lack of trust and lack of drive.
The Business Operations department is one of the few with access to all of a company's data, so the organization's ability to adapt to changes in the environment will largely depend on its ability to transform such data into relevant insights.
In addition, it will also depend on the ability of the Business Operations department to relate and communicate with the different hierarchical strata that the different members of the organization align themselves with continuous innovation processes, capable of maximizing the company's results in the market and its long-term success.
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