I find it interesting so many companies today seem to go out of their way to avoid dedicating anyone to overseeing their business operations. When I ask why I commonly hear..”We need all personal for marketing and sales. We’ll figure out the operations as we go.” The need for personnel who generate revenue is more important, but once something is sold how does the product or service get delivered? Even in the growing number of businesses set up as ‘Drop Shipment’ retailers, they has to be some dedication to making sure the orders are placed and the vendors do their job.
It is during the hand off from Sales to Production is where the lack of operations oversight drives so many businesses out of business.
Lack of understanding the importance of Operations is where many companies come unravelled. A large number of businesses are run by individuals who are Marketing driven and have never held an operational position. On the most part, marketing driven business leaders have a great knowledge of the product or service and can talk the product/service from every angle. However, when it comes time to discuss pricing advantages and delivery time lines they usually turn to saying..”I’ll have to get back to you on that.”
Two key terms for operations management
“There are two big terms that can help answer the question of what is operations management more precisely: supply chain management and logistics. Operations management has firm foundations in both areas. For example, understanding global trends in supply chain management in order to meet client demand is often critical. With logistics, the careful and considered use of resources, as well as cost-effectiveness, has become increasingly important in an era in which resources can often be in short supply and customer expectations have skyrocketed.” From topmba.com
Operations Management is not an option when managing a business. Without someone overseeing the day to day tasks like meeting schedules, material orders, production timelines, and etc, there is absolutely no way for a business to produce anything of quality.
The best way to manage quality is to develop processes that monitor quality. The process should be as simple as not make defects in the first place. This begins with operations management. In order to produce and maintain a high level of quality companies must shift their entire focus away from who’s responsible for the defects to what and how the process is creating defects. This is not going to be done by someone who is focused only on making their sales commission.
I found over the years the reason for the decline in the populous being interested in becoming an operations manager is primarily related to the lack of glamor of the position…the less opportunities to greater monetary gain and not being placed in the limelight. Basically, the issue is in today’s youth not being interest in doing anything requiring manual labor. “I didn’t go to school to to get an MBA to have to work harder”, is a remark I hear frequently from the many Millennial out looking for marking director positions.
Hopefully, the thinking that only Sales people get the glory changes soon. If not, the economy is going to suffer from a meltdown of too many Sales People and not enough People to make things happen.
Let me know how I can help.
[…] Is Your Business Operations Managed […]