Strategic Management vs Operations Management

Strategic management is the process of understanding the business environment, developing the desired state of performance and implementing strategies to achieve it. Operations management involves executing the strategy on the day to day basis to achieve the desired performance in the long run.

The difference between strategic management and operations management can be described as follows:

• Strategic management is an organizational wide activity where the operations, sales and finance are concerned from the top level to the bottom level of the organization. In other words strategic management is concerned about all the activities in the organization as a whole. The operations management is concerned of operations as in production function of the organization at the operations/manufacturing floor level of the organization.
• Strategic management is a long term process where it identifies the long term desired level of performance and try to achieve it. Operations management is short term focused and handles day to day operations of an entity.
• The strategic management process involves a non routinized tasks where there is very ambiguous and dynamic nature. The operations management involves day to day activities of a business organization at the operations level which is very routinized and mechanical. It does not involve any ambiguity.
• Strategic management is a complex process which requires heavy management skills to handle. Operations management is a fairly simple process and a manager with average skills can handle the daily operations of the organization.
• Survival of an organization is directly linked to strategic management process as it manages critical success factors of an organization. It identifies the factors that has direct link to the survival of an organization and manage them to optimize performance. Operation management is not directly related to the survival of the organization rather it indirectly influence the survival through cumulative performance on a day to day basis.

Note of Credits : This is article is based on a lecture done by Mr. Marlon Gunasekara at APIIT-Sri Lanka on Strategic Management on 14/12/2010

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