Chapter 10: Conclusion
We've discussed the fact that your customers don't just buy your products and services, they buy the entire experience of doing business with your company. As a result, your Operational activities are closely tied to your Marketing activities. Both strive to provide your customers with an outstanding purchasing experience, but Marketing works from your customers' external point of view, while Operations works from your business' internal point of view. Marketing helps you identify your customers' needs, while Operations helps you fulfill them. In some ways, Operations can be thought of as a support structure for Marketing, although in reality they support each other, as do all six of your Key Business Areas.
All of your business activities are important, but Operations is the engine that runs your business. So when your Operational activities are over-tasked by rapid growth, supplies and resources can run short causing productions to run late or even grind to a halt. In this scenario, the faster you grow, the unhappier your customers become, until the whole system implodes, and what was once rapid growth becomes rapid self-destruction.
So ask yourself, how much growth could your current business operations handle? Part of managing your growth means giving yourself some room to grow and never allowing yourself to grow beyond the capacity of your business operations. If you do, ironically, your own success will do you in.
Of course this doesn't mean that growth, or even rapid growth, is a bad thing. On the contrary, growth is the highly desirable outcome of a well-run business. It simply points to the necessity for your business to maintain equilibrium as it grows. Remember, as with all aspects of your business, Operations is an evolutionary process. The world keeps on growing and so must your business. In order to stay strong and healthy, your business must keep on getting better.
Think back to when you first started this business development program. How has your business changed? Is it stronger? Healthier? More self-reliant? If so, congratulations! You have done what very few people ever do. You have taken control. You have grabbed a hold of your destiny and taken purposeful strides towards your future.
"Operations is the power that turns dust into diamonds, seeds into sunflowers, and plans into productivity."