The biz of Biz Ops - quantifying Strategy*
The biz of Biz Ops - quantifying Strategy*
In this article I focus on the role your Biz Ops team plays in developing company Strategy...
Happy New Year! 🎉 Let’s begin the year by tackling an important topic - Strategy.
I have heard some Biz Ops leaders get push back when talking about “Strategy” being a part of their responsibility. There is a perception, and it is not unjustifiable, that if you put “Strategy”, or any other word, in someone’s title they become the ultimate owner of that domain. Single threaded leadership is indeed a valuable lever in organisational structuring. But let’s look beyond the semantics. When it comes to “Strategy”, which CEO wants to give away the “Strategy?” Well. No-one. And they are not asked to.
Here is an attempt to draw the line of responsibility between founders/CEOs and the Biz Ops team.
Let’s be honest. It is the founders’ role to set the vision for a company. They are good at it! Chances are they were a part of an industry for a while, or saw a problem first hand, and have the courage to think up a different way of doing things. They will do “Strategy” better than anyone else in the org. At least… we hope so!
Where founders sometimes struggle is, they can’t effectively tell their exec team what the vision means for them. Or they want big picture conversations, when in reality the day to day of their Head of Sales is working through pipe. Or when they are worried about developments that will affect the company over the next 2 years, and the Head of Eng is still thinking in 2 week sprints. This is where Biz Ops should be able to help.
Biz Ops steps in to bridge the gap between vision and execution.
In this context, that’s called strategy. I would further elaborate - it should be called quantifying strategy, to deliver on a vision. Biz Ops doesn’t own the strategy; they quantify its business intent, clarify its internal impact, and align the team around its practical execution.
To elaborate, this means linking potential business actions with their magnitude of impact (+/-). If you have one product line, want to grow through a certain type of ICP? Wonderful. What’s that going to take? Give me the ACV, LTV, and all the related costs: CAC and overheads. Provide me the time frame. If you have multiple products, where do you see the market going, and where do you want to be and how do you transfer or acquire skills and resources to position yourself for the future?
As I argued in the “constructing an actionable argument” article, Biz Ops is in a unique position to be able to deliver a reliable model. Because they have to dig into the detail.
When I worked on the International Expansion for Hopin into APAC, one of our key markets demanded a large upfront commitment on our part. We knew it would be substantial but we didn’t know just how substantial. So I went on an expedition, to figure out all the interdependencies, costs (and often hidden costs), and opportunities for synchronisation amongst teams, to match that against the joyous expectations of our local partners. It came down to two (and I am simplifying here) things;
💰 Revenue = ramp up + steady state, accounting for the fact we were giving away a % to a reseller partner; based on an expected ACV.
-
💸 Costs = upfront cost of setting up business, like localisation (in the form of engineering time, and agency fees for translation), my time, the time of other team members who would support, and potential full time hires.
= 💁🏻♀️
The truth is, the model kept getting more and more complex, the more we understood the true impact expansion would have across the whole organisation. Once we quantified the strategy of going to that specific market, we had great clarity about how that market panned out vs other markets; and how it would stack up for the yearly strategy. In other words, we were informing and driving future strategy.
In quantifying your strategy, you have to go through the mental model of quantifying everything - the expected revenue of each initiative, and the time, personnel, and tools it takes to operationalise. Once you do that and get on with it, you want to generate enough data and insight to help feed into the next iteration.
This is it. This is Biz Ops doing its work for “Strategy.” As the Biz Ops leader, you quantify it, and over time you contribute to it. You will have to translate it for everyone to understand, quantify what it means, and try hard for this to be accurate - at least for the next time. The best way I know how to do this is by devising a model that takes into account your organisation’s customer and structure.
Have a different point of view? I am happy to hear other people’s experiences! Drop me a line.
*Here is the big asterisk on this article: This article assumes we are on the same page about what strategy is. Before you embark on the journey of quantifying a strategy, as a leader, you do have a responsibility to understand what strategy means. And through soft influence, and maybe sometimes a bit of hard influence, you have to get people to understand it as well (and no, strategy is not revenue).
I’d recommend reading “Good Strategy, Bad Strategy” by Richard P. Rumelt. It is the best description I have read about what strategy is, in business terms. I won’t sum up the book, because you should really just go and read it. More recos in Tools.
But in lieu of a summary, here if an alternative in a language that might be more fun.
A while back, I published a series of snippets on LinkedIn. If you like any of them, you are welcome to share them with your crew. All I ask is to credit the SBO Hub!:)
Here they are, in no particular order, but hopefully good food for.. amusement.
🎭 Nuggets of wisdom about leading Strategy, told with emojis:
Leadership = clarity + direction + empowerment + accountability
🏔️ = 🔦+ 🧭 + 🏋🏼+ 🧗🏼♀️
Direction + Velocity = 📈
Direction w/o Velocity = 🐢
Velocity w/o Direction = 🌀
💰 Revenue ≠ Strategy
🤺 Tactics ≠ Strategy
👑 Org Chart ≠ Strategy
🙋🏻♀️ FAQs ≠ Strategy
📊 Dashboards ≠ Strategy
Strategy = context * perspective * execution / time
, where
context = market, competition & culture;
perspective = vision & ambition;
and execution = skills & incentives.
You can’t grow without some good old grind. 🏋🏻♀️
But grinding without a clear strategy can’t lead to consistent growth. 🤸🏻♀️
Make that grind count. 💪🏻
When market = 🌫️(fog),
Strategy = 🧭
Execution = 🚤
Team = 🔦
In a great team, individuals contribute with what the team needs in order to win. Once they win, the team contributes to what the individual needs. That’s a way to get a step change in every individual’s and the team’s game!
⛹️♀️🏐👩🏻🤝👨🏼🧑🤝🧑👭=📈
👩🏻🤝👨🏼🧑🤝🧑👭🏀⛹️♀️= 🏟
You get out of a team, what you put in.
Strategy & Ops is sometimes about untangling a nod. That simple. Untangling and retying that thread in a way that it makes sense.
🧵🪡 It is a leader’s responsibility to guide the needle.