The primary goal of any business organization, startup or existing business, is to survive and grow. For an organization to survive and grow, it would need to evolve; this requires the organization to successfully make changes. In order to attain sustainable growth, the organizational changes have to be strategy driven. ​Typically, organizations change as a result of their strategies to re-position themselves and adapt or react to changes in external factors that create market opportunities and/or threats. Sustainable growth  of an organization requires that managers be able to anticipate, recognize, and deal with change in the external and internal environment in which the organization exists. Change (in the external environment) is a certainty so business managers must actively engage in a process that identifies change and modifies (change) organizational behavior to best take advantage of this change. Managers have some control over how the business reacts to changes in the external environment through management of the internal environment which is, to some extent, controllable and changeable through the interplay of strategic management and operations management processes in the context specified by the operations strategy plan.

Strategic Management
Strategic Management is a continuous process which is more than a set of rules to follow; it requires upper management to think strategically first then apply that thought to a managerial process consisting of a set of managerial decisions and actions that determine the long-run performance of the organization. Strategic decisions can be identified by the strategic 'issues', events or factors that trigger them. These triggers may include observed issues such as: 
  • decrease in sales or sales growth,
  • a new product entry by competitor(s); and
  • events such as request for action from executive management, or simply
  • a regular planning cycle.

Strategic decision-making involves "issue" comprehension, concepts structuring, and concepts formulation into cause-effect relations. It is an ongoing cognitive process whose outcomes are usually contingent on the behavior of other actors (individuals or organizations) affected by the decision's actions. While the cause-effect relations model is a deductive reasoning model, the issues comprehension that triggers it, involves choice of assumptions which is to some extent arbitrary and inductive in nature. ​

Strategic Management is concerned with strategic decisions through which management intentions are realized. Models of Strategic Management process and decision-making can enable leaders and managers to better understand the impact of their strategic decisions in terms of 2nd (second) and 3rd (third) order implications and how that informs their subsequent decisions related to adjustments in strategic direction, objectives, and strategy to shape their future and drive successful business forward. 


Operations Management
Operations Management involves operations decisions concerned strategically with Operations Strategy design; and tactically, managing the utilization of the organization's Operations System to provide the best match (fit) of supply of tangible resources and know how with customer demand for the mix of products and services. ​​Operations strategy is the collective complete actions chosen, mandated, or stimulated by corporate strategy; and its implemented within the operations function. Operations strategy is the plan that specifies the design and use of organization resources to support the business strategy. ​

Operations management focuses on carefully managing the processes and resources, of the organization to produce and distribute products and services to customers which in turn realize strategic decisions to capitalize on opportunities. Operations Management is concerned with decisions in the following decision areas:

  1. Capacity - Amount, timing, type of capacity?
  2. Facility - Size, location, and specialization of facility?
  3. Process Technology - How do we improve efficiencies in our value creation and support systems?
  4. Vertical Integration - Direction, extent and balance of supply networks?
  5. Workforce - Skill level, wage policies, employment security?
  6. Quality Management - Defect prevention, monitoring, intervention?
  7. Production Planning and Control - Sourcing Policies, decision rules, and centralization?
  8. Organization - Structure, control/reward systems, role of staff groups?

These decisions are not totally separate and mutually exclusive in how they affect the overall financial performance of any organization. These decisions relate to operations resource view, and involves what resources, processes, and capabilities an operation may have within its resources and the key decisions operations managers need to take in order to exploit, build, and develop these capabilities.  

​Operations decisions are administrative in nature and are based on ideas with very precise and established relationships between them enabling the firm to find, given certain premises, programmed, algorithmic solutions through formal analysis or computational methods. Operational decisions relate to the daily operations of an organization and help move organizations towards their strategic goals.