How to become an Operations Manager: Roles and Responsibilities

By Smitha Nagraj

The fundamental business function or the crux of any organisation is Operations Management, based on which an organisation achieves its goals and objectives. It majorly deals with co-coordination and synchronization of the required services, to transform the resources input into the desired outcome. Operations Management across any industry or business function majorly consists of these management tasks such as planning, controlling, staffing, directing, and organising.

Operations Management is a humongous business function in any organisation that is basically detail-oriented and decision-oriented. These are the key required strengths along with an expertise of managing Processes. Operations Managers are key stakeholders for overseeing the different processes that transforms the raw material – with the effective use of skilled labor into the desired product/service. This adapted quote “Jack of all trades, but Master of one” aptly describes the job role of an Operations Manager.

What does an Operations Manager do?

An Operations Manager is the hand that holds all the strings together for any organisation to function smoothly. They are the single-point of contact, for the project that is built up of many processes. Depending on the organisation, the operations manager generally co-ordinates all the required stakeholders: from the supplier of the inventory, to the delivery of the desired product to the customer successfully, as per the customers’ expectations. In order to do this, their job involves a lot of versatility, multitasking at the same time, getting things done with the customer in mind. They would have to handle, from getting the right suppliers on board, procuring the required inventory as per expected timelines, skilled labor to process the inventory, manage processes that ensure the quality of the finished product, delivery management of the product to the customer & most importantly manage customer satisfaction. Also these processes have to be managed at an optimal operations cost, to ensure maximum profit.

What are the key responsibilities of an Operations Manager?

1. The most important responsibility of an Operations Manager is to manage all the processes efficiently so that the organization is profitable and there is not much of a hindrance to the daily operations.
2. Ensure that the different processes implemented work hand in hand, to get the work done so that fire-fighting to resolve issues, happens only in rare and exceptional cases.
3. Invests enough time on long-term planning, including initiatives for achieving operational excellence.
4. Supporting better business communication and establishing the required reporting management, for improved flow of reporting, flow & management of information.
5. Managing effective co-ordination and communication among the different shared/supporting services like HR, IT, Finance, L&D.
6.  Managing Third-Party service vendors for logistics security etc, implement standardised procedure management for these processes – with the inclusion of required legal and financial formalities.
7. Defining and Designing Policies, establishing standardised guidelines for each process to function as simple as how an employee should be hired, what is their training period etc. This role helps to understand how each process impacts the other and gives the required framework for the employees to apply it to their jobs.
8. Optimizing Costs, managing the utilization of key resources to their maximum potential as per guidelines and managing profitability with minimal wastage.
9. Keen Eye for Detail leading to decisive decision making in crisis management situations, such as delay of any type of services impacting the project, will help in business communication flow and swift resolution of issues.
10.  Performance Review and planning for Skill development for the required personnel to improve operational excellence of the current processes.

 

Which degree/course is necessary for a career in Operations Management?

In general, having a bachelors’ degree in Business Administration or a Master’s degree after graduation will help to start your career in a management profile. Masters’ with a concentration on Operations Management would be the ideal choice – to get into Operations Management role.  Graduation in science stream with relevant work experience in entry level management profiles, will help to hone the required skills of time management, decision making, communication – that will help in this role.

What are the prerequisite skills required?

It goes without saying that leadership is the key skill, as this role demands versatility and multitasking. One should have impressive interpersonal skills to interact with the top management, collaborate with peers – heading other departments and the reporting staff. Interaction with department heads, third party vendors would require excellent negotiation, decision making and conflict management skills. 

What are the biggest challenges of this job? 

Keeping abreast of the latest organizational developments, proactive in understanding how that could impact the current processes, keeping the communication flow transparent are the main challenges of this job. One should have effective communication and collaboration with external and internal stakeholders, to have a smooth operational flow. Long term planning and forecasting trends with a keen eye for detail and minimal deviations is also required.

What is a typical day at work like?

A regular day at work is filled with inter-departmental meetings to collaborate with shared services, team meetings to review various process dashboards, to get an update on the current status and to nip any small issues in the bud. There will be meetings with internal and external stakeholders to give updates, discuss any issues and also plan for the subsequent months.

Why I joined this field?

After a graduate degree in Science – I began my career in Corporate with HGS as a Claims Analyst. After 2 years I joined Perot Systems as a Team Leader, the first level in the management profile and have handled different processes, scheduled work rosters, collaborated with shared services, for IT, hiring etc.

Over the years in Xerox, I had worked across different projects, handled different functional roles, worked up the corporate ladder – to become an Operations Manager. As an Operations Manager I have handled transitions of new processes from other offshore sites to the Bangalore site. Areas of Expertise are knowledge extraction and quality management, drafting of SOW (Statement of Work) & SOPs. I have handled an additional responsibility of creating training programs for new project transitions. I had facilitated the introduction of a new hire training program to improve the productivity & quality of new hires to handle seasonal volumes with no impact on quality.

I had also taken the lead in formulating policies for documentation of transition methodology for all migrated processes. My role also included defining and standardising the payroll policies for the transaction processing organisation (Xerox) and standardising the skill sets and categorizing the various healthcare process into tier1 – tier3 levels based on the complexity for the transaction processing organisation, for hiring  and training. The sheer versatility of this role has offered me so many opportunities to grow from strength to strength.

My last role in corporate was that of an operations manager at Xerox, where I worked for 10 years. It has been an enriching experience and currently I have stepped out from Corporate to look at things from a different perspective. I have started the 2^nd Innings of my career as a Freelance Image Consultant & Trainer.

About the Author:

Smitha Nagraj is a dynamic and detailed-oriented professional having an accomplished career track record of 15+ years of experience in process excellence initiatives, client relationship management, learning & development, training & operations having worked with corporate giants such as HGS, Perot Systems, and Xerox Business Services.

 

 

 

 

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