| By Dr. Sharon Gotteiner If you feel the heat between Sales and Operations then your company is evolving and has an opportunity to grow bigger. Here are some recommendations for getting everyone to sail in the same direction and speed.  They say that when babies grow teeth, they experience the highest levels of pain they will ever suffer. Similarly, businesses growth is a blessing, but it can potentially involve a lot of pain. That’s how human and business evolution works. It’s a blessing, but we all need to cope with that. That’s what this call for action is asking you to do.Here are some examples of situations that may indicate the “operational growth” challenge. If any of these things listed below sound familiar, stick with this card for a while:
The first element you must take out is blame. Current operational processes may still be designed to handle lower capacity sales or are assigned with insufficient resources. Some work could have been done if such higher levels of demand were reflected on the very first annual budget (right, the one that preceded the updated one). Now you all must work it out as a group. Second, identify the most disastrous situation you suffer as a result of the expedited flow of orders. What is it? Can you express it as a measurement of any key performance indicator (KPI)? What operational process is responsible for that KPI? That’s the process you should prioritize for adjustments. Third, get a better understanding of the challenges such a process is presenting. You can easily do this by drilling down and taking the worst cases that pulls down the KPI used earlier. Study these cases and decide how such cases can be avoided. Finally, make sure that any solution you come up with translates into a change of procedures, policies, or resources. Monitor the effect such a change had. The change must be reflected in the actual numbers to come. Otherwise, go back to the drawing board. Good luck!
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