Operational Strategy:

Operational Strategy means how the organization employs its production capabilities and supports its business and corporate strategies. Operational Strategy means translating the company objectives into operational deliverables through planning. Operational Strategy is a tool which defines the methods of producing goods or services offered to a customer. Operations translate strategic goals into clearly defined implementation targets. In other words Operational Strategy makes concepts into a reality. The `operation` is concerned with the day to day functions or processes of manufacturing goods and products, while `strategy` is concerned to the direction and scope of an organization over a period of time and how the `delivery` is taken care of to the customers. Operations Strategy, whatever it may be, is dependent upon two major key areas –

• Resources for the operation
• Market requirements

According to author Slack the market perspective on the operations strategy is termed as `outside-in`, whereas the outside influence tends to tailor the overall strategy of the operations from `within`. Operational Strategy consists of five operations objectives: Cost, quality, speed, dependability and flexibility. Competitive priorities must be set on which to base the operational strategy, since any operation cannot excel on all the objectives at the same time. The process of operational strategy can be either top-down (in pursuit of business and corporate strategies), or bottom-up (from actions and decisions taken with operation), or market-led (in response to market requirements), or operations-led (based on resources and capabilities within its operations). The content of Operational Strategy consists of the key decisions areas concerned with the –

• structure: physical facilities – capacity – process technology –supply network.
• Infra-structure: planning and control – quality – organization – human resources – new product development - performance measurement.