Operational management can be easily overlooked in the beginning stages of any business, with everything else going on, it’s often seen as less of a ‘now’ issue and more like something you need to consider as you scale the business.
Entrepreneurs and business owners are slowly realizing that effective operational support, especially at crucial stages of your business’ life can make or break an organization.
So, why do you need operational support?
WHAT IS OPERATIONAL SUPPORT?
Consider operational support teams as the ‘alchemists’ of the business world, they can turn chaos into order, by taking your vision and transform it into your reality, and where possible, exceed your wildest expectations. Operational support essentially helps to effectively manage, control, and monitor the quality of your product, the services you provide, and your people. Their immeasurable business acumen and services are extremely valuable to any growing business.
These teams are dedicated to gaining an in depth understanding of your business activities, and the role your business plays in the industry and with this detailed analysis and understanding of your business, the support team will be able to make critical strategic decisions to mitigate risks and drive business growth.
Propelling business growth exponentially by focusing on a business’s core competencies to ultimately reduce waste, streamline, and monitor processes, increase productivity, and lowering overhead costs. With the right operational strategies in place, businesses ultimately profit from unencumbered growth and an increase in revenue!
WHAT KINDS OF BUSINESSES BENEFIT FROM OPERATIONAL SUPPORT?
Regardless of the product, service, industry or sector, Operational Support is going to benefit your business if you are either, naturally starting to experience growth or want to scale your business.
It does not matter whether you’re a manufacturer, retailer, tech company, or service provider, growth and increase in revenue are shared targets for all businesses.
As the old saying goes “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail” and this is especially true in business. Essentially, the “kind” of business is irrelevant, if your goal is success, then your business not only needs, but will benefit from Operational Support!
AT WHAT STAGE OF YOUR BUSINESS SHOULD YOU GET HELP?
Well, if you are the concept and design stage of your business and you are yet to legally register and trade your products and services, then Operational Support is probably not needed just yet. However, once you have set up your business and are establishing a customer base, market presence and turning a profit, ideally you will be looking at entering the next stage of the business lifecycle the “growth stage”.
The idea of growth is exciting, everything is on track and you know you have a bright future ahead of you! But how do you get there? Naturally, you are looking to scale! Now you might think the recipe for growth seems straight forward, however you might be surprised to learn that growth isn’t as simple as ‘doubling the ingredients for a cake recipe and expecting to bake two cakes instead of one’. While there is a recipe for growth, we can’t all be professional “Pâtissiers”.
Scaling a business creates its own set of challenges and growth can throw a previously well-oiled machine into utter pandemonium. For instance, have you considered any of the following questions and do you have the answers for them?
Do you know the projected annual revenue for your organisation?
Are you going to achieve your annual sales targets?
Do you know the capacity limit of your current business structure or when you will reach it?
Do you know how much it costs and how many resources you require to maintain your revenue objective?
Pricing! Are your prices set correctly? Or are you potentially losing money with every transaction?
Are your current marketing endeavours generating enough leads to assist the sales team in achieving the revenue objective?
Do you have the right tech stack in place and is it scalable? Do you know what else you might need or what programs and systems could increase efficiencies in workflow and help with reporting?
What is the current retention rate of your clients and do you know how to increase their average lifetime value to your business?
Do your staff have clearly defined roles and responsibilities within the team? Are you aware of any limitations or potential opportunities within your teams?
Does your business have sufficient capacity for growth?
Have you considered or do you currently have a virtual bench for your growing business?
As the CEO and founder of your company, you want to be working to your strengths! Not spending time figuring out all the complexities for these detailed questions, in addition to everything else you are already doing! Engaging the help of “Operational support” at the growth stage will afford you the luxury of working smarter, not harder!
WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF OPERATIONAL SUPPORT?
Despite what you have heard, size doesn’t matter! Whether you’re big or small, Operation management is paramount for every organisation of any size!
Any business will cease to exist if they cannot retain and attract new customers, so it stands to reason that you need to not only attract customers but also keep them happy. Up until this point, you have evidently been able to do this, but you also know that is because you are spending the majority of your time working too much in your business, rather than on your business! It seems almost impossible for you to remove yourself from the day-to-day operations without compromising on quality of the output. After all no one is going to care more about your business than you do! This is where Operational Support comes in, the services provided, add value to not only your business and your customers, but also to you!
Irrespective of the type of business, consumers are looking for a quality product, at competitive or market appropriate prices that they can quickly and reliably acquire, combined with great service and aftercare support.
OPERATIONAL SUPPORT WILL HELP YOU ACHIEVE THE FOLLOWING
Implement efficient workflows and systems in place, to quality check products, goods and services provided.
Ensure the product or service is provided in a timely manner.
Perfect price points, to ensure the product or services provided are priced at either a competitive or market appropriate price in order to reach your revenue objective.
Enable your team to provide exceptional support and service at every stage of the consumer lifecycle.
By doing all of this, you will increase customer satisfaction and ultimately drive brand recognition and reputation, which in turn attracts more customers. But to do so, you will need to reduce operating costs by maximising productivity and reducing waste as well as appropriately hiring of employees to resources and efficient internal processes and systems that increase productivity.
WHY YOU NEED OPERATIONAL SUPPORT?
Have you identified the gaps you need to fill? Do you need someone to lead a particular strategic imperative, to restructure, assist with a rapid expansion, or to execute significant organisational change? Perhaps you are looking for an industry veteran who possesses not only the wisdom, and experience, but also a rich network, to help mentor you as the founder with your rapidly growing entrepreneurial company? Would you love to hire a full time COO but the costs associated with recruiting, hiring, training and corresponding salary of a new COO are beyond your means this stage but you desperately need someone with the equivalent skillset to help?
Operational Support possesses the business acumen, marketing intelligence; lead generation strategies; operational insight; product R&D expertise; passion and drive to help you achieve your dreams at a fraction of the cost of a full-time COO. Giving you the control to recruit only for the services you really need, the instant you need help! With the added benefit of knowing that you have a formidable team of leading professionals, who are equipped with a wealth of knowledge and experience that you need, to help you navigate through the anarchy of the growth life cycle of your business!
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