Have you ever wondered why some businesses always succeed, while others fall behind? The answer may lie in business operations as the heart of every company.
Business operations is the driving engine behind every company, which regulates everything from production to delivery. Want to know how to optimize business operations to achieve your business success? Check out the full explanation of what business operations are to its challenges and examples of application in various industries in this article.
Definition of Business Operations
Business operations are the daily activities of a company to operate and generate profits. These activities include planning, production, management, sales, marketing, finance, and accounting across various departments within an organization to create value and generate profits.
Effective business operations allow businesses to have a competitive advantage over other competitors in the market. The main goal is to ensure that all aspects of the business run smoothly and efficiently, so that the company can achieve its goals.
Types of Business Operations in Various Industries
In practice, business operations differ in different industries according to the specific needs of each field. For this reason, mastery of business operations in certain industries is needed to be successful. Here are some types of business operations in various industries.
1. Retail Industry
One of the main goals of a retail business is to provide the products that customers are looking for at a price that suits their desires. This means that businesses must have an efficient inventory system to know the available stock in real-time, while reducing the possibility of deadstock (referring to products that the company owns, but do not have high demand).
To maximize revenue, businesses must store products that sell quickly and are in demand by customers. Businesses should also negotiate favorable credit terms with suppliers, in order to obtain the necessary products on credit to prevent stock shortages.
2. Service Industry
Business operations in the service industry are divided into two sides, namely the front-end and the back end, which must run efficiently to prevent negligence on one side so that it can hinder business. On the front side, businesses should focus on simplifying service delivery to improve customer satisfaction. Businesses must also design ways to receive feedback and complaints from customers so that they can understand expectations and improve service quality.
On the back side, management needs to hire the right people in each department. For example, the company should appoint trained and experienced staff to make estimates of the client’s project, so that the actual cost does not exceed the budget.
3. Manufacturing Industry
Manufacturing companies are involved in the process of converting raw materials into physical products that are then sold to consumers. One of the ways manufacturing companies achieve efficiency is by sourcing quality raw materials from credible suppliers. For perishable and consumable products, companies must pay attention to how raw materials are stored, processed, and delivered to consumers.
Companies can also remove bottlenecks that extend processing time to save time during the production and shipping process. If facing difficulties in shipping logistics, manufacturing companies can outsource shipping and focus more on other business areas according to their advantages.
4. Technology Industry
The main key to simplifying the operations of a technology company is to recruit the right staff and provide training according to the assigned tasks. Companies need to set hiring criteria to get the best candidates according to the position needed. In addition, companies also need to create internal training and mentoring programs, where senior staff work directly with junior staff to help improve skills.
Another way to improve efficiency is to integrate various tools such as apps, websites and systems that the company uses. The company’s management must also continuously monitor internal and external processes to detect glitches or problems, as well as address issues quickly.
Challenges in Business Operations
Effective business operations are the main foundation of a company’s success. However, in practice, business operations are not spared from a number of challenges that must be overcome by the company. Here are some of the challenges in business operations.
- Operational process efficiency: as a major challenge during the demands of fast and high-quality customer service. Slow or less than optimal processes can reduce business competitiveness in the market.
- Data and information management: increasing reliance on data and information management is a major challenge for businesses. Companies are required to be able to utilize data for decision-making, while improving security by avoiding data leakage or loss that can pose a major risk.
- Cybersecurity: one of the important issues such as data hacking or ransomware attacks can be financially harmful, steal customer data, reduce consumer trust, damage business reputation, and paralyze business operations.
- Regulatory compliance: including data protection and privacy (such as the PDP Law) that require companies to ensure business operations are compliant with applicable regulations. Non-compliance can lead to hefty fines and reputational damage.
- Adaptation to market dynamics: businesses are required to continue to innovate and adjust operational processes. Changes in technology, customer trends, and global economic crises can be a tough challenge to maintain business continuity.
Examples of Business Operations
Business operations can help ensure every aspect of operations runs optimally. This activity can increase added value for customers while achieving business goals in a sustainable manner. Here are some examples of business operations:
- Production: Manufacturing operations in factories that involve the management of raw materials, automated robotic production lines, and distribution of products to customers.
- Supply chain management: Logistics of goods delivery from warehouse to fleet, including the integration of technologies such as cloud-based inventory management systems.
- Customer service: A customer service team that handles questions, complaints, or technical support to customers to ensure their satisfaction.
- Cybersecurity in digital operations: Fintech companies that rely on technology for financial transactions need high-security systems to protect user data, such as data encryption and cyber threat detection.
Read More: Data Security and Its Importance for Business
How Important Is Business Operations?
Business operations are an important and effective aspect for companies because they can increase business productivity. In addition, companies can also reduce expenditure and investment needs on production costs.
Companies can also increase revenue by a significant amount. Another advantage is that the company can ensure resources that can encourage innovation and business growth.
IT Operations as a Support for Business Operations
IT Operations or ITOps is an approach to the management and management of information technology infrastructure in an organization. As part of business operations, the focus of IT Operations is to ensure that IT services run efficiently, safely, and stably to support business operational activities. IT operations have important goals and roles in supporting business operations, including:
Improving Operational Efficiency
IT Operations aims to ensure that IT systems and infrastructure (including network management, cherevr maintenance, and data center management) function optimally to support the smooth running of business processes without interruption.
Ensuring IT System Security
IT Operations is responsible for maintaining the security of data and systems through the implementation of strong security policies, cyber threat monitoring, and user access management to protect and prevent business data leaks.
Supports Scalability and Business Stability
Managing a scalable and stable IT infrastructure, IT Operations helps organizations deal with growth or changes in business needs, such as an increase in the number of users or transactions.
Monitoring and Problem Solving
ITOps is also tasked with monitoring system performance in real-time and proactively handling technical issues to prevent downtime that can disrupt business operations.
What Do IT Operations Do in Business Operations?
IT operations are an important component to maintain the continuity of business operations, by ensuring the smoothness, security, and efficiency of IT systems that are the backbone of all business operations. ITOps plays an important role in supporting business operations through the following:
- Maintenance and management of IT infrastructure, including servers, hardware, software, and networks to keep them functioning optimally.
- Proactively monitor all IT systems and services in real-time to detect issues and potential disruptions, so they can be addressed immediately before they impact business operations.
- Management to handle technical problems that arise, such as system failures or downtime, with the aim of minimizing the impact on business activities.
- Protect IT infrastructure from cyber threats by implementing security measures such as encryption, access control, and firewalls.
- Increase efficiency and scalability by ensuring that all IT systems meet evolving business needs, including managing capacity to technology upgrades.
Improve Your Business Operations with Red Hat
Red Hat delivers a suite of solutions that include Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), Red Hat OpenShift, and Red Hat Ansible that focus on technology stability, flexibility, and efficiency to support your company’s business operations. ITOps support makes Red Hat important
foundation for business operations through the integration of modern technologies that can drive innovation, increase productivity, efficiency, and security.
Red Hat allows IT teams to focus on larger strategies, such as product innovation or customer service improvement. On the other hand, Red Hat provides platforms and tools that help companies maintain operational stability, while encouraging innovation that aligns with business goals.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is an open-source solution that allows enterprises to build infrastructure with stable, secure, and reliable operating systems. Backed by a large and active open-source community, Red Hat provides technical support and access to an extensive knowledge base for RHEL solutions.
With long release cycles and rigorous testing processes, RHEL ensures system stability and minimal downtime. Regular security updates and built-in security features, such as SELinux can protect the system from threats.
RHEL is compatible with a wide range of applications and hardware and offers long-term support. With high flexibility, RHEL can be customized according to the needs of business systems.
Red Hat OpenShift
Red Hat OpenShift is a comprehensive platform for modern application development and deployment needs. With high flexibility, this solution can be tailored to various business needs. Ecosystem support for a variety of programming languages, technologies, and frameworks that are essential for business operations that grow as the company grows.
Key features of Red Hat OpenShift:
- Container Orchestration: Manage containers using Kubernetes, a popular container orchestration system.
- DevOps: Facilitates collaboration between development (Dev) and operations (Ops) teams.
- Hybrid Cloud: Supports application deployment, both in public and private clouds.
- Serverless Computing: Allows developers to focus on coding without the need to manage infrastructure.
- Virtualization: Allows organizations to run and deploy both new and existing Virtual Machine (VM) workloads.
Red Hat Ansible
This solution allows organizations to automate routine tasks in ITOps, such as infrastructure management, application management, and system security. This automation helps speed up processes, increase efficiency, and reduce human error in supporting business operations.
Red Hat Ansible is an easy-to-use and easy-to-learn solution with simple syntax. With high flexibility, this solution can automate various tasks and manage hundreds to thousands of systems.
Featured features of Red Hat Ansible:
- Agentless: No agent is required on managed nodes.
- Declarative: You only need to define the desired final state, Ansible manages the necessary changes.
- Modular: Ansible uses modules that can be shared and reused.
What Can Red Hat Do for You?
With a suite of powerful solutions for your business operations, Red Hat offers solutions designed to ensure the smoothness, efficiency, and flexibility of your company’s operations. Red Hat’s approach helps companies maintain business continuity, while driving innovation amid dynamic business demands.
Red Hat can help you simplify your infrastructure, improve security, accelerate response time to market, improve scalability, and reduce operational costs. By leveraging scalable, secure, and reliable open-source technology, Red Hat ensures your business can remain competitive amid the challenges of competitive business.
Get Red Hat products at Virtus
Optimize your business operations with Red Hat solutions only at Virtus Technology Indonesia (VTI). As part of CTI Group, Virtus is an authorized Red Hat distributor that is ready to be a trusted partner in supporting your company’s digital transformation and business operations efficiency.
Supported by a team of experts and professionals, we ensure every process, from consultation to after-sales support, is in accordance with your business needs. Avoid deployment bottlenecks and enjoy the ease of managing business operations with world-class solutions from Red Hat. Contact our team by clicking this link now for more effective, efficient, and reliable Red Hat solutions.
Author: Ervina Anggraini – Content Writer CTI Group
