A Company's Strategic Operations

A company's strategic operations consist of business strategies that the company utilizes as an entity to expand and prosper. An effective strategy also relies on operational efficiency within the organization, where elements such as personnel, software, and inter-departmental divisions all operate with little inefficiency and superfluity at their full production. Effective practices require time, money, and well-managed funds. There are important differences between operational efficiency and strategic operations, although they are related.

The strategy includes preparation to keep activities on track, including the development of financial budgets, project budgets and growth estimates that divisions can use. Operational performance is the implementation of preparation techniques. Although last-minute preparation can be done to perfect organizational efficiency, during strategic sessions, the bulk of planning is done.

Operational planning also requires an overview of external political-economic, social and technical influences outside of the company, depending on the company. This strategy is known as P.E.S.T. research and can direct a business into creating a better action plan. While this external analysis and more internal analysis that explores the relationship between areas of the organization are included in the plan, operational performance is typically only internal and unrelated to external factors that have already been evaluated by the operational strategy.

Operational efficiency should be considered an ever-evolving, continuous process, according to operational improvement firm Innovar Partners, with efficiency perfected on a weekly or even daily basis. Within the business quarter, the face of operational efficiency within a company can change dramatically. Operational strategy, on the other hand, is usually conducted on a monthly or quarterly basis, when top-level and mid-level managers meet to discuss overall company goals and objectives, and how those will be met each month or quarter.

Although they are mutually dependent, operational strategy and operational efficiency also inform each other, according to HCi Journal, which states that the functions of operational effectiveness "must fit together and work together to implement the strategy." These functions within operational efficiency, though, can often "create the opportunity for strategy development by inventing new technologies or methods" that operational strategy may not have conceived or developed.