If we were to make a parallel between your company and your life, operations would be everything from going to market to buy groceries, preparing meals, dressing up for work, going to work. Even going to your favorite bar with friends or going to football match.
Ok, but what are operations?
Operations is the management of systems that produce services or manufacture products.
In plain words: management of how are we getting things done.
They are the focal point of every type of organization, from restaurants and hospital emergency rooms to high finance and professional services.
Well-designed operations boost profitability.
Poor operations, in the best case scenario, equal ineffective processes and wasted resources. In the worst, poor operations can drive a company out of business. Consequently, managing operations competently is vital to fulfilling strategic goals and enduring financially.
What can we compare operations management to?
It is comparable to the neurological system of your body. Just like brain, operations management coordinates the behavior and system functionality of a living, breathing organizations to ensure that they continue to grow and thrive in the real world.
Is it “one size fits all” situation? No. The more complex the organization, the more vital it is for its operations management to be strong and in good working order.
The main goal of operations management is to make sure business operations are efficient and effective.
Successful operations management leaders tend to be the well-organized and systematic. They fuss and arrange and then ponder and tweak.
They see the wrinkles in the company fabric and iron them out to ensure that business can make the most with what it’s got.
Doing something a little inefficiently one time is no big deal, but when you do something inefficiently over and over, hundreds or even millions of times per year, even little mistakes can add up to very expensive amounts of waste.
Mistakes in an operation that result in defective products, even if they represent only 1 percent of total output, can alienate millions of customers. Similarly, if poorly designed operations result in habitually serving customers late, a company will eventually lose customers to better-functioning competitors.
In for-profit firms, operations management is concerned with the cost-effective operation and allocation of resources, including people, equipment, materials, and inventory — the stuff you use to provide goods or services for customers — to earn the big bucks and maximize your return on investment.
