Operations strategy overview
Your business’s operations are all the resources, processes and systems needed to create your products and services. Improving your operations strategy can help your business run more smoothly, get a competitive advantage, and be more sustainable in the long term.
Our quick self-assessment tool will help you reflect on your current operations and our interactive tools and pages will help you think strategically about your operations.
Check out the topics and the interactive tools available in this section. Use the links or the navigation pane to browse through the pages and tools.
Being strategic about your operational efficiency, inventory, networks, capacity and quality helps to take your business to the next level. Find out what you’re already doing well and where you could improve your operations.
At the end of this assessment you’ll get:
- a better idea of your strengths and weaknesses
- practical tips and tools
- links to expert advice.
5-10 minutes
Self assessment: Operations
Online tools make many business tasks cheaper, more efficient, and more secure. They also allow us to work from anywhere and collaborate like never before.
Assess how well you’re using online tools for accessing business info, working together, accounting and HR, and backup and recovery. See how you rate and where you should focus.
At the end of this assessment you’ll get:
- a better idea of your strengths and weaknesses
- practical tips and links to expert advice.
5 - 10 minutes
Self assessment: Digital tools and how people use them
Be strategic
Tips and tools to help you think strategically about your operations
Ensuring capacity matches demand
Fine-tune your capacity to make the most of sales opportunities and minimise waste.
Managing inventory
Find out the pluses and minuses of holding inventory, and how to order inventory wisely to save money.
Quality matters
Understand it and make it part of your business. Save time and money, cut waste, and improve your brand.
Compare your production profile to other products, services or businesses. Reflect on volume, variety, variation, and visibility to understand where you have an advantage in the marketplace. We’ll show you how to strengthen your point of difference — so you can compete better.
Calculate the best amount of inventory to ask for each time you place an order. Finding the sweet spot between your ordering costs and holding costs can free up money for other things. Explore the effect of changes to your order size.
Compare your business, product or service against competitors to see how you stand out. Reflect on where you sit in the marketplace in terms of price, performance and customisation. Depending on your position, we’ll help you identify some common opportunities and risks.
Reflect on whether you’re making the most of the resources in your business. Think about whether each resource is valuable, rare, hard to imitate, and fully used. Based on your answers, we’ll give you some tips to make the most of each resource.
Reflect on a product, service or mix you provide. Identify the elements that provide value to your customers. Think about whether your product has any service elements, or whether your service has any product elements. You might identify new opportunities for your business.