Business Operations Resources, Reads and Insights
I found some more interesting articles on Business Operations. I love it because I still strongly feel that there is a lot of ground to cover in terms of resources and framework for Business Operations. So, each article helps fill the gap.
“Why BizOps Is the Hottest Team in Tech” by Dan Yoo.
I love this article because it highlights the different hats BizOps plays at different companies in Silicon Valley. Here are some highlights:
That’s BizOps — a decision-support mechanism that helps with everything from optimizing day-to-day options to carrying out high-priority initiatives to tackling the most important strategic questions.
At Dropbox, the Business Strategy and Operations team focuses on the company’s most important business priorities: unlocking new growth, driving alignment on strategy and building foundational infrastructure, says Sirish Chandrasekaran, who heads the group.
The BizOps team at online payments company Stripe is focused these days on defining the product development cycle, taking feedback from customers and translating that into engineering priorities, says Brian Sze, who heads the team.
There’s no “typical” day for a BizOps professional. Team members may shadow co-workers, interview outside experts, develop skills like Python and SQL proficiency, analyze data, lead a brainstorming session, write up a strategic plan, design and monitor pilot projects, conduct postmortems on projects, formulate and monitor key performance indicators, synthesize best practices, interview candidates — or just block off time to think about how to break immense challenges down into manageable chunks.
Having BizOps people embedded with different groups helps ensure that they are informed and have the trust of the managers they’re working with…The mark of success when you’re a BizOps person is being the first person a general manager calls when she has the time to think through an issue. “It’s really being the right-hand person to a business leader,” says Andrea Leewong, who worked in consulting before becoming the first member of NerdWallet’s BizOps team.
“Want in on BizOps? Here’s How” by Dan Yoo. Highlights:
BizOps coordinates and aligns operations and strategy across an enterprise, helping executives focus on hitting goals and planning where their business units need to go. For professionals, BizOps offers a view into all corners of a business, along with the opportunity to carry projects from conception to implementation, take on new challenges and have a major impact on the company’s future.
Setting the tone: The first few BizOps hires are critical, because they establish the caliber of people you expect on your team. In these days of LinkedIn updates and other social media channels, these kinds of signals spread quickly. Also, your first hires will establish the culture and personality of the team, setting the tone for the type of work it should do and how it will do it.
Team-Building Strategy: The first is intelligence. We need people who can grasp complicated and often ambiguous issues, find the real drivers that may be hiding below the surface and explain complex problems in an understandable way. They must be able to think both strategically and tactically, devise and execute an action plan that breaks problems down into digestible chunks, and define and measure key performance indicators….Our hires have degrees from top-tier universities, plus at least two years of experience, generally in consulting, investment banking, venture capital or a BizOps-type role at another tech firm…. Consulting and finance are good places to find BizOps professionals, because these fields draw top graduates who are smart, driven, analytical and detail-oriented, says Bill Beer, a partner at the executive search firm Daversa Partners.
Where BizOps Can Take You: The exposure that BizOps professionals get to the operations and management of teams puts them in a great position to lead one. “Essentially, my role is training me to be a general manager,” Tedford says. For people who aren’t sure which area interests them, BizOps can provide exposure to everything a company does… And BizOps offers a great path to a high-level executive role. It gives you a complete picture of the scope of a company’s operations, and it provides access to senior leadership.
“How BizOps Adapts to You and Your Company” by Dan Yoo. Highlights:
BizOps doesn’t have a single definition that applies the same in every organization…. That flexibility is one of the prime virtues of BizOps. Companies can adjust their team’s function based on their size, phase of development and inclination.
Stripe: “Business Operations was literally anything that was not coding the product,” he says. “At first, everyone did everything. We were just sort of trying to pour water on fires.”… That started with sales, which grew into account management, defining customer segments and thinking about strategy. As the team grew, people started self-selecting into specialties, both in terms of function (such as sales and account management) and verticals (like marketplace, e-commerce and subscriptions). At Stripe, BizOps team members take projects from design through execution — and even beyond.
Dropbox: The Business Strategy and Operations group at Dropbox initially focused on filling gaps between business functions — just getting necessary stuff done, says Sirish Chandrasekaran, head of the group. As the company grew, though, it built out its business infrastructure and closed those gaps…. Dropbox reformulated Business Strategy and Operations into four teams: Strategy, BizOps (which is building out core business processes for the company), Sales Ops, and Business Tools. The company also moved business and product analytics out into specific teams. … People with experience in business, management consulting or finance who are willing to roll up their sleeves and gain firsthand insight into the operations of business and product teams, and who can bring an independent perspective, yet collaborate effectively with business leaders.
LinkedIn: BizOps first focused on supporting monetizing business units. Then we added analytics, corporate strategy and support for nearly every part of the company. LinkedIn has a centralized BizOps team, with members assigned to work with specific groups. BizOps serves as the objective voice that looks out for the best interests of the company as a whole, and helps ensure that the strategies of individual units and the overall company align. BizOps professionals at LinkedIn think up ideas and then carry them out.
NerdWallet: When I came to NerdWallet, I brought along the idea of maintaining a centralized BizOps team with members embedded in different groups. Centralization allows team members to share best practices, keep their focus on the company as a whole and maintain the objectivity of their advice to group leaders. But placing BizOps Nerds (what we call employees) with a specific team gives them deeper knowledge of how that team works. It also builds trust…. We also need people who are OK with a certain level of ambiguity, because we’re still figuring things out every day. That’s a big part of the allure for many professionals. The decisions we’re making now will have a huge impact on the future of NerdWallet… Our company’s mission is to dig into all corners of personal finance. Combined with BizOps’ mandate to tackle issues from high-level strategy to daily operations, that makes our team a great place for versatile people seeking a challenge.
What Kind of Team Do You Need?: How a company goes about building its BizOps team is partly a function of its life stage. Many young companies follow a path similar to Stripe’s, using BizOps to start up and build out all non-engineering functions. As those functions mature, BizOps can refine its focus. Startups also can integrate BizOps into a company’s DNA and set team members to work helping build its foundations.
Established businesses are also launching BizOps teams. They’ll need to integrate BizOps into their existing operations, and their teams’ missions may have more to do with fine-tuning processes or keeping an eye on the strategic horizon.
Impactful projects — Gather projects from all parts of the organization
Project-based feedback — Moderate a post-mortem, and collect 1:1 feedback
Weekly 1:1s
Monthly 2-way feedback sessions
Competency-based feedback and level descriptions — recovering management consultant in me craves structure
Career Conversations — zoom into growth into next few roles
Team cohesion — make the effort to build connective tissue
Transitioning from Consulting to Finance to BizOps
BizOps is a great transition out of consulting or finance, however, it is not the same role. A few things you can expect:
- Less structure, more opportunity.
- A different kind of uncertainty
- High caliber team members
- A common goal
Here are some skills from consulting that will help you succeed in BizOps.
- Structured thinking and comfort with ambiguity
- Adaptability
- Storytelling and influencing
- Core analytical skillset
- Business intuition
A Shift in Mindset
- Structure as a crutch.
- A risk-mitigating mindset.
- The idea that everything gets done.
The scope of the COO role: Culture, Strategy, Change.
13 Technical Areas: IT, Finance, HR, Operations, Risk, Governance, Legal, Compliance, Supply Chain, Facilities, Internal Communications & Public Relations, Sustainability, Safeguarding of Vulnerable People
The seven COO archetypes: Second in Command: The Misunderstood Role of the Chief Operating Officer (HBR 2006). They identified seven COO archetypes:
The executor. They turn ideas and strategies into business realities.
The change agent. They are brought on to lead a specific change initiative, such as a turnaround or a planned expansion.
The mentor. They typically coach a young, founder CEO. They have deeper industry experience and apply that to co-lead with the CEO.
The other half. They are the ideal foil for the CEO–they’re great where the CEO is not as developed or interested.
The partner. They co-lead the company alongside the CEO.
The heir apparent. They are groomed to take over the top post in a succession plan.
The MVP. They are promoted from within in order to keep this valuable leader at the company.
Making sense of the startup COO
- The COO can help you reach product-market fit faster because of industry or product development expertise
- The COO has more experience building businesses and will serve as the “mentor” to the less experienced CEO
- If you started your business with them from the beginning (against the hacker, hustler, hipster advice). The COO title may help maintain a healthy co-founder relationship or convey clarity to outsiders
- If the CEO is so focused on fundraising that an internal-facing right-hand person is critical
How to become a COO: The previous role could be… many things. Generalist vs. Specialist. Master’s degrees. A diverse set of skills.
What Are The Business Operations of a Company? Inserts directly from the article (Thank you, Tenfold!)
What Are Business Operations Within a Company?
Building the right foundation from the start. A close-knit team that shares the same goals and is dedicated to achieving those goals can make a huge difference down the line;
Aiming for transparency within and between departments. The more information travels from one team to another, the lower the risk of errors and mishaps;
Choosing the right person for the job. Different individuals have different qualities. It’s important to delegate with this in mind;
Making use of data for decision-making. Caution is advised when planning for the future. Data collection and interpreting can eliminate a number of variables and increase the chances of smooth-sailing;
Receiving team feedback. Founders and stakeholders can easily lose track of core operations, which impedes their decision-making capabilities. Having constant communication with employees can eliminate this;
Focusing on customer service. Whether a manufacturer or a service provider, a business relies on its customers. They should never be ignored or even underestimated;
Having a long-term plan. Constant change in external factors can topple companies lacking foresight. Good adaptability and planning can ensure both the survival and growth of an organization.
Business Operations Functions
Maintaining effective communications and striving for consensus;
Providing senior level management with the right amount of coaching, tutoring and mentoring;
Auditing and re-engineering business processes;
Maximising performance by establishing a balance between departments and groups;
Managing both the budget and planning processes, at a strategic and departmental level;
Monitoring and guiding third party cooperations with due diligence;
Performing contract reviews to ensure compliance.
Must-Have #1 — You love people
Must-Have #2 — You love numbers
Must-Have #3 — You love wearing multiple hats
Must-Have #4 — You love solving puzzles
Must-Have #5 — You love WORK
4 Business Lessons from Operations Managers by Julie Rains
1. Implement small changes successfully to win support for bigger changes later on.
2. People don’t care about how it gets done, just that it is done, and done right.
3. Firsthand observation is better than secondhand hearsay.
4 . Don’t reserve vision for high-level strategy, use it to improve all aspects of your business.
10 Questions Every Operations Manager Should Be Able to Answer by Jon Rabinowitz
1. Which departments need help getting aligned with the company’s mission?
2. What improvements can be made to achieve productivity goals?
3. Which processes can be made more efficient?
4. Which resources are being wasted and why?
5. How can we reduce time of development and manufacturing process while delivering on customers’ values
6. How can we reduce costs without sacrificing quality?
7. What technological advancements are available to help us control processes and systems?
8. How can we synergize multiple sites and measure their performance?
9. How can we work more effectively and efficiently with vendors and suppliers?
10. What do I do every day to further the company’s mission?
First is “Business Ops in the New Sales and Marketing Ops. Why Consolidation is Crucial to Your Bottom Line” by Nick Frost.
I love how well the stage is set in this article and how much is focuses on a Unified Operations Team, which you fairly commonly hear as a centralized business operations team.
““What were our sales last month?” Simple question, right? But do usually get a simple answer? Not likely. Maybe sales responds first and shares the bookings number (MRR, ARR, TCV?). Then Finance weighs in with details on billings or collections, and likely adjusts the bookings number down. Lastly, Marketing comes to the table with the amount of revenue they influenced…okay, thanks for that. When did it become acceptable to have several, very different answers to the same fairly straight forward question? And why is each team at your company pulling their own metrics, analyzing their own data and drawing their own conclusions?”
“Misalignment is wasting valuable operational resources. The crux of the issue: Each leader wants to make his or her team look good. A unified Business Operations team can break down these silos. For my money, I’d rather have a team of smart people working in concert to help address key issues than three or five or ten people off doing it on their own, working in parallel with limited communication. Reevaluating and consolidating your Ops structure can have myriad benefits for your bottom line.”
“One source of truth. When you have a unified Business Ops team and you ask the question “What were our sales last month?” or “How many leads were generated quarter to date?” the answer IS simple because the team is aligned in how these questions should be answered. There is no vying to interpret the data or represent a particular department. Instead, the individual best equipped to answer this question can get to work. You have a sole repository for data, one version of the truth in your metrics and you’ve eliminated redundancies, which allows everyone to refocus. Best of all, you get to the right answer faster.”
“Enhanced collaboration. Ops people need peers, people to brainstorm with and bounce ideas off of. They need other data-driven, process oriented and / or creative thinkers to push them. With a unified Ops team you have the ability to hire more junior resources, train them internally and create career paths.”
“Ability to recruit for core competencies. By centralizing your Operations team, you can give each department access to the skill sets they need, when needed, and stop hunting for unicorns. Your job descriptions become clearer, your roles and responsibilities cleaner and more defined, and ultimately you’ll recruit people who are better suited to the job they need to do.”
Second one is “7 Signs You Might Need an Operations Guy” by Jay Wehrer.
“Many businesses fail because the CEO did not do what was most important for growth and revenue generation.”
“Below are seven signs that you might consider bringing on an operations executive.”
“Are You Spending More than 25% of the time in day-to-day activities?
“Are You Building Systems “Willy Nilly”?” Building a company on a strong foundation of best practices, systems, and processes in a planned approach is critical to ability of a company to grow and scale. An operations executive will take time to consider the current foundation and the future foundation to lay out a path with a systematic approach.
“Is There a Pragmatist on Your Team?
“Are You a Hyper Focused Founder?”
“Are Your High Lifetime Value Customers being properly cared for?”
“Are you ready to grow the company beyond Salesman #1?”
“Can Your Company Afford to be Leaky?” It’s not uncommon for new companies to have leaky buckets of revenue, expenses and margins when growing fast. An operations executive that will find the leaks and get them closed.”
Third one is “How to deal with operations inside your company?” By Nemanja Zivkovic. This article is a bit of a tangent of business operations, but there is a very good list of things that need to addressed my management. As I was reading this list, it matched very closely to the my ten business operations list, so I really wanted to provide this as a resource. You can read the article for a brief on each item on the list.
1. Organizational values
2. Organizational culture
3. Planning processes
4. Follow up and Measurement
5. Time management
6. Clear communication
7. Standardization of the processes
8. Team management
9. Employee branding
10. Talent management and development
11. Monthly Feedback
12. Team roles
A theme that keeps coming up in most of these articles is the concept of Silo Effect. I am very curious to learn about what systematic methods you use to help break down silos. Reach out to discuss!
‘Business Operations as a playmaker’ by Marco Tomada. Some key points directly from the article:
“Operations is that playmaker, the role that has the opportunity to setup all the other roles for success”
“Operations is like a midfielder (sports analogy), the one who is ready to receive and distribute, with a constant eye on the entire team, and looking for who will need what support to score.”
“Business Operations is successful if the entire organizational team has the tools, the access, and the process, while experiencing the least amount of friction they can, to reach goals. Those goals in the organization may be growth, efficiency, cultural fit, flawless execution, customer service, business analytics, and overall corporate health. Operations is key to the end goal.”
‘Why Your Startup Also Needs a BizOps Team’ by Jordan Kong. Some key points directly from the article:
“BizOps teams are generally an internal-facing group and broadly aim to create more value for the company and to improve the profitability of the business.”
“BizOps is PM for your Business Model: BizOps teams have a “get shit done” mentality and are often tasked with translating business goals (strategy) into tactical operations (execution).”
“For some, the BizOps team is like Seal Team 6 — internal consultants deployed for specific and shorter-term projects. Because they act as a neutral third party, BizOps teams in this structure don’t interact closely with other business units regularly.”
“More commonly, BizOps teams are flat structures that are horizontally tied to other functional groups.”
“For early-stage startups, BizOps allows for a flexible, dynamic, scrappy team to work on a multitude of different types of business problems that otherwise may not fall anywhere else in the company”
“As the company grows, BizOps can prioritize key issues (e.g., growth, monetization) and help balance strategy with execution.”
“And for larger and more mature startups, BizOps provides a cross-functional layer of communication, structure, and organization across the greater company.”
“Depending on the stage of your startup, here are examples of a few inflection points where a BizOps team may make sense: Accelerating Growth, Geographic Expansion, Avoiding Functional Silos.”
“Ultimately, the key question is not be whether your startup needs a BizOps team, but when.”
“Why “Ops” Is Taking Over Startup Land” by Jeff Bussgang
“Business Ops function has emerged as the group that interprets the strategic implications of the business metrics more broadly and then formulates and drives new initiatives cross-functionally to address key issues. For example, how do you measure the success of a new product launch — and what do you do post-launch about the results you do measure? Business Ops focuses on decisions, not just data, and then helps operationalize those decisions within a startup. A quick LinkedIn search shows 15K openings for Business Operations, 15M title holders in the network, including companies like Circle, Lyft, NerdWallet and many others.”
From over 10 years ago, but I found this really interesting piece, “Defining Business Operations Within The Organization” by Ferrara Consulting Group.
What is Business Operations?
• Integrated into the same business plan with well defined roles and responsibilities
• Functioning together as one unit to ensure operational integrity relative to opportunity development, risk management, resource management and allocation, and overall best practices
• Effectively communicating between other functional departments
• Participating in the business planning and development strategy process
• Operating within the parameters of an integrated budget
• Adhering to all financial practices while following other established policy, procedures and controls.
The glue, the oil, the connective tissue are really good analogies for Business Operations:
In essence we are describing the glue that keeps the organization together. It is the proverbial oil that keeps all of the parts moving without grinding to a halt. It is part oversight and part insight. In the broadest sense it is a service function.
This is a very comprehensive list of what a typical, although typical is contrary to how organizations function today, established Business Operations is comprised of:
• Actively managing the planning and budget process by department and aggregating findings into a cohesive strategic plan
• Providing highly effective tactical execution or program management for all major initiatives
• Providing a bridge between strategic vision and operational readiness
• Creating a balance between each operating groups to ensure maximum performance
• Managing an effective communications process and building consensus
• Implementing and managing key quality metrics and performance standards
• Providing mentoring, coaching, tutoring, guidance and direction for senior level management
• Managing a human capital plan that includes reliable succession planning
• Business process re-engineering and auditing to ensure best practices across all departments
• Managing overall costs and productivity consistent with financial objective
• Providing oversight and guidance in all major third party alliance, including appropriate due diligence
• Conducting contract reviews to ensure operational compliance
This is a great summary of Business Operations people do and what they are like. There is no one size fits all in Business Operations and it truly is about leadership, the organization, and the task at hand.
At the end of the day, success is usually about leadership. “Operational leaders” bridge the gap between high level strategic planning and tactical implementation. With one foot rooted firmly in planning and the other in process, they skillfully anticipate how the next great strategy can impact real day-to-day issues.
On the floor they are facilitators, but in the boardroom they are translators.
And seasoned operational executives can skillfully turn vague, dreamy long term ideas emanating from a boardroom into tangible and actionable marching orders for the team to embrace.
They know their people; they understand the opportunity, and; they know what they have to do to get it done.
