Operations Audit

Operations Management can be such a general term. If you tell 10 different people that you handle operations for a company, they will likely walk away with 10 very different ideas of what that means. One reason for that is that Operations covers so many pieces of the business.

The number of departments that fall under Operations will vary based on the size of the company, both in headcount and revenue. However, businesses are more likely to have a Director of Operations who manages the Accounting, HR, IT, Facilities, and Contracting departments before they will have a Director of each of those areas.

Having a clear picture of your business operations at every step of the way is crucial to both having a company which runs smoothly and to growing that company. You may be able to grow and expand with haphazard operations, but you will eventually hit a wall of frustration, exhaustion, or something having fallen completely through the cracks.

I created an operations audit template that is designed for you to look at the key aspects of your business operations and answer some basic questions to ensure you have everything in place. There is room at the end to create a monthly and an annual calendar. Sales and Marketing are excluded from this audit, even though they are often included under Operations at least for a time, because they really require their own separate audit and plan. Many businesses tend to address those things first, otherwise they would not have even been able to get off the ground.

If you find yourself answering "no" to a lot of the questions or find that you aren't sure of the answer, don't stress. These are the areas that you'll want to look at a little closer to ensure you're not leaving money, time, or legal exposure on the table.

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