BizOps, short for business operations, is the operating layer that turns strategy into decisions, owners, metrics, and repeatable work. The case for it is still simple: PMI’s 2018 Pulse of the Profession reported that organizations waste 9.9% of every dollar because of poor project performance, and a Broadcom / Harvard Business Review Analytic Services survey found that 89% of executives said BizOps could significantly improve decision making by improving collaboration between IT and business teams.
That matters even more now that operations teams use automation, analytics, and AI agents to make decisions closer to the work. This is why execs swear by BizOps in a modern org: advanced decision making plus checklists turns strategy into follow-through. A strong BizOps function gives leaders one place to connect strategy and operations, test whether initiatives are working, and turn the answer into workflows people actually follow.
In this article, you’ll learn what BizOps is, from the day-to-day operations to the core activities. We’ll then discuss the importance of BizOps, using real-world examples to show the role in action. You’ll also see how business operations software supports advanced decision making without turning the article into a software list.
Click on the relevant subheader below to jump to your section of choice, or scroll down to read the full guide:
- What are business operations, and what is BizOps?
- Key concepts in BizOps
- The importance of BizOps (+ business operations examples)
- BizOps activities: Maximizing profit, performance, and growth (with free templates)
What are business operations, and what is BizOps?
Business operations are the systems, people, processes, metrics, and decisions that keep a company running. BizOps is the team or function that connects those operations to strategy. It looks at what the business is trying to achieve, checks how work is actually happening, and helps leaders decide where to focus, automate, invest, or change direction.
Specific responsibilities depend on the company’s maturity, business model, team size, and operating rhythm. In a startup, a BizOps role might combine analytics, project management, systems work, and internal consulting. In a larger organization, a business operations team may own strategic planning, cross-functional programs, KPI reporting, and process improvement across multiple departments.
The role offers the ability to shape the company’s future because it sits between strategy and operations. A good BizOps team does not only report on what happened. It helps decide what should happen next, then builds the operating system that makes the decision real.
There is a major difference between BizOps teams in larger organizations and BizOps teams in smaller organizations. That divide is characterized by the following:
- Role ambiguity: Big companies have defined processes, accountable revenue lines, and less room for the unknown. Startups often have to react to major changes such as a product launch, market shift, or pricing change.
- Speed of execution: BizOps teams in larger companies often work through established governance. Startup BizOps teams usually operate closer to the work and need to move quickly.
- The learning curve: Enterprise BizOps teams may specialize by function. Startup BizOps personnel often need to understand sales, customer success, finance, product, and operations well enough to connect the dots.
- The scope of work: In large organizations, BizOps may support a defined business unit. In smaller companies, BizOps can become the connective tissue for the whole company.
Emad ElShawa, former Head of Business Operations at Fundbox, described the job as requiring broad range rather than narrow specialization. That is why BizOps people are often asked to translate messy cross-functional problems into practical operating decisions.
What does the BizOps team do on a day-to-day basis?
BizOps teams tend to focus on work that improves business health. The day-to-day role often includes:
- Analyzing operating data and turning it into recommendations.
- Monitoring business metrics such as revenue, retention, margin, conversion, and customer health.
- Coordinating cross-functional projects where no single department owns the whole outcome.
- Improving business processes so teams can execute consistently.
- Helping leaders decide whether to invest more, change course, automate work, or stop an initiative.
A BizOps team is usually most valuable when it can move from analysis to execution. The point is not to create another report. The point is to make the business easier to run.
What are the top 3 jobs to be done by BizOps personnel?
BizOps personnel are commonly pulled into three jobs:
- Analyze operations: Understand what is happening across functions and where performance is blocked.
- Support strategy execution: Translate company priorities into owners, milestones, metrics, and operating cadence.
- Optimize day-to-day work: Improve recurring processes, remove bottlenecks, and build systems that reduce manual coordination.
What business metrics are used by BizOps personnel?
The metrics depend on the business model. A SaaS business operations team might track ROI, EBITDA, gross margin, net revenue retention, average revenue per account, customer acquisition cost, payback period, churn, activation, and a North Star metric. A services business might focus more on utilization, delivery margin, cycle time, customer satisfaction, and rework.
The important point is that BizOps personnel work with the senior team to decide which metrics actually matter. When a critical decision needs to be made, BizOps provides analytical support by asking questions such as:
- Is this initiative working?
- Should we invest more in this business process?
- Which bottleneck is constraining the whole system?
- What would change if we automated this recurring workflow?
Key concepts in BizOps
Working with BizOps means getting comfortable with a few operating concepts:
- Strategy and operations: The connection between what leadership wants and how teams actually work.
- Operating cadence: The weekly, monthly, and quarterly rhythm for reviewing metrics, making decisions, and assigning owners.
- Cross-functional ownership: Work that moves across sales, customer success, product, finance, operations, and support without getting trapped in one department.
- Process improvement: The practice of finding bottlenecks, simplifying handoffs, reducing waste, and making repeatable work easier to execute.
- Business operations automation: Using software, integrations, and AI agents to move routine work forward without relying on manual follow-up.
These concepts matter because BizOps is not just analysis. It is the bridge between a strategic decision and the operating system that makes the decision stick.
The importance of BizOps (+ business operations examples)
Google, Amazon, LinkedIn, and many other large enterprises utilize BizOps with success, meaning the methodology is both known and proven. BizOps is also a business function used by startups, who’ve adapted the practice so it’s suited to the fast-paced nature of the startup environment.
With BizOps, team collaboration, data analysis, and reporting are changed on a fundamental level. Before BizOps, there seemed to be a lack of alignment between business departments, which operated in silos. This created barriers between departments hindering business growth, strategy execution, and day-to-day operations. This siloed nature of business locked in data and information stifling collaboration, insights, and innovation.
BizOps shook up the status quo by collecting and analyzing business data across different business functions. This data is used to obtain important insights that connect business units together to achieve the desired outcomes. As such, BizOps drives strategy execution and growth.
Using BizOps in a large organization: LinkedIn’s use of BizOps
Dan Yoo worked in BizOps at LinkedIn and wrote about the function as connective tissue in technology companies. His story is useful because it shows how BizOps can turn analysis into a concrete operating decision in a large organization.
In Yoo’s account, the BizOps team helped LinkedIn’s hiring solutions business move from millions to more than $1.3 billion by identifying where the business had room to grow, then aligning sales focus, customer segmentation, and execution around that opportunity.
As the BizOps manager, Dan recommended turning on the gas and built a larger hiring solutions business. Studying key metrics, Dan identified this corner of LinkedIn to have high growth potential. And Dan grew it.
The BizOps team analyzed data from LinkedIns heaviest users. These users were then segmented as per the subscription products. Different subscription products were promoted to recruiters, job seekers, and salespeople accordingly. Dan also hired more salespeople to the LinkedIn team, a BizOps decision that aided organizational growth.
Using BizOps in a startup: Process Street’s use of BizOps
Process Street is a Compliance Operations Platform. It brings Docs, Ops, and built-in AI into one product so teams can document procedures, execute workflows, enforce approvals, and keep proof that the right work happened.
That makes it a natural fit for BizOps work. A business operations team can use Process Street to turn a decision into a repeatable workflow, assign owners, collect forms and approvals, trigger integrations, and maintain an audit trail. For teams comparing business operations management software, the important question is not whether the tool stores processes. It is whether the tool helps the team run them.
At Process Street, onboarding is a simple example. New team members do not learn the business through scattered tribal knowledge. They move through structured workflows, get the right context at the right time, and work across functions so they understand how the company operates. That is BizOps in practice: strategy, systems, and day-to-day execution tied together.
Using BizOps in crisis management
Crisis management is still one of the clearest tests of BizOps. The trigger might be a pandemic, a supply-chain disruption, a security incident, a hiring freeze, or a sudden change in customer demand. In each case, leaders need fast decisions based on operating reality, not guesses.
BizOps helps by pulling the right data into one view, identifying which processes are most exposed, coordinating cross-functional owners, and turning the response into repeatable workflows. That can mean moving an approval process into a managed workflow, changing customer communication cadence, building an escalation path, or automating evidence collection for compliance-critical work.
The advantage comes from speed with control. A business operations team can help the company move quickly without letting decisions disappear into Slack threads, spreadsheets, or one-off meetings.
BizOps activities: Maximizing profit, performance, and growth (with free templates)
As we know, the core tenet of BizOps is to drive business growth by improving profit, performance, and execution. The five activity areas below show how that work usually appears in practice.
I’ve provided the relevant Process Street resources for each step that’ll give a further indication and understanding of the work scope for each step. You are also granted free access to the relevant Process Street templates for each step. To get started sign up and create your free Process Street account.
BizOps activity #1 – Strategic process
A strategic process is concerned with making business decisions. It’s the continuous assessment of a business with the aim to outdo competitors. Information is gathered from both within the organization and from outside the organization.
Key Process Street resources
- Cut Costs and Improve Productivity With Our Free Strategic Planning Template
- Business Tooth and Claw, Corporate Strategy to Win the War
- Your Quick Guide to Energy Management for Sustainability and Reduced Business Costs
- The Straightforward Guide to Product Strategy (With Templates)
- Hoshin Kanri: Gain a Competitive Advantage With This Lean Management Approach (Free Template)
Brand Strategy Template Checklist
Run our Brand Strategy Template Checklist when you’re crafting a brand from scratch, or as a brand audit when reviewing products and content.
Think about whether your new brand initiative or existing brand aligns with your organization’s strategic goals.
Click here to access our Brand Strategy Template Checklist!
Product Strategy Template
Run our Product Strategy Template as a checklist when you begin creating your product strategy.
Think about whether your product aligns with your organization’s strategic goals.
Click here to access our Product Strategy Template!
Strategic Planning Template
Run our Strategic Planning Template to plan, define, and document your business strategy. Adopt a flexible and inclusive approach by implementing the Cascade Strategic Planning Model.
There are many different approaches for the effective execution of business strategy. In this article, the Cascade Strategic Planning framework is applied.
Click here to access our Strategic Planning Template!
Hoshin Planning: Hoshin Kanri Policy Deployment Process Checklist
Use our Hoshin Planning: Hoshin Kanri Policy Deployment Process Checklist to guide you through the Hoshin Kanri planning process. Hoshin Kanri helps implement new company goals and policies by accounting for all organizational levels of a company.
Click here to access our Hoshin Kanrr: Hoshin Kanri Policy Deployment Process Checklist!
BizOps activity #2 – Strategic analysis
Strategic analysis is the process of researching a company and its operating environment to formulate a strategy.
Key Process Street resources
- What is Muda? The 7 Wastes Every Lean Business Needs to Combat
- Are You Poka-Yoke Woke? Stop Mistakes With This Error Prevention Method (10 Examples)
- Kaizen: How to Deploy Continuous Improvement to Rocket Your Success
- SWOT Analysis Template: What, How, & Why? (Free Template)
- How Asking ‘Why?’ 5 Times Can Potentially Save Your Business (Free 5 Whys Template)
- Become a Lean Machine With These Top 8 Lean Tools (Free Templates)
- 9 Lean Manufacturing Principles to Kill the Jargon and Get Quality Results
- The Ultimate List of 45 Business Process Improvement Tools (Lean Six Sigma & Beyond)
- Conquer Process Improvement With These 9 Lean Six Sigma Tools
- What is Kata? Toyota’s Karate Concept for Lean Continuous Improvement and Coaching Success
- How to Use The Deming Cycle for Continuous Quality Improvement
DMAIC Improvement Project Tollgate Checklist
Run our DMAIC Improvement Project Tollgate Checklist to ensure your improvement projects achieve measurable change and positive results for your business.
Click here to access our DMAIC Improvement Project Tollgate Checklist!
5 Whys Checklist Template
Run our 5 Whys Checklist Template when you need to get to the root cause of a business-related problem or issue.
Click here to access our 5 Whys Checklist Template!
SWOT Analysis Template
Identify business strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats associated with your business strategy or project using our SWOT Analysis Template.
Click here to access our SWOT Analysis Template!
PDCA Cycle Change Management Model Process Checklist
Run our PDCA Cycle Change Management Model Process Checklist to continuously adapt and improve your business processes via the PDCA cycle.
Click here to access our PDCA Cycle Change Management Model Process Checklist!
BizOps activity #3 – Systems building and information
Building systems and information is about creating procedures, processes, methods, or courses of action designed to achieve a specific result.
Key Process Street resources
- How to Create Business Systems Even When You Have No Time
- How to Save 6,000 Hours per Year with Business Systems Development
- The Complete Guide to Business Process Management
- What is BPM Software? The Best Business Process Management Software (BPMS)
- Ultimate SOP Guide: Standard Operating Procedures Made Easy (Free Templates!)
- What is an SOP? 16 Essential Steps to Writing Standard Operating Procedures (With Templates)
Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) Template Structure
Use our Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) Template Structure to construct standard operating procedures (SOPs) and organize your business activities.
Click here to access our Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) Template Structure!
Communication
Business communications is the sharing of information between employees within and across business departments, and communicating with stakeholders outside the organization.
Key Process Street resources
- Communication Plan: How to Prepare for (and Prevent) Disaster
- The Complete Guide to Asynchronous Communication in Remote Teams
- Visual Management: How to Communicate Effectively with Your Workforce
- 9 Top Workplace Team Chat Apps for Effective Team Communication in 2020
Communication Plan Template Checklist
Run our Communication Plan Template Checklist when you need to create a communication plan to help you achieve your business objectives and maximize your performance.
Click here to access our Communication Plan Template Checklist!
BizOps activity #4 – Cross-functional processes
Cross-functional business processes are different functional areas of a business working together to complete the same piece of work, goal, or aim.
Cross-functional processes are about using big-picture thinking to understand how all areas of a business inter-relate with one another to achieve the overarching key business goal.
Key Process Street resources
- Why You Should Bother With Business Process Modeling
- Why You Should Unleash Team Collaboration and How to Do It
- 14 Best Online Team Management Tools for Productive Teams
- Enterprise Collaboration Software: 8 Essential Tools You Need to Use
“We service both SMB and Enterprise teams in all departments” – Capterra Reviews
Process Street‘s templates can be edited to enhance the cross-functionality of business processes by utilizing the following features:
- Stop Tasks controlling the order that your documented processes run in, preventing important tasks from being missed. This is especially important when distributing tasks between different teams.
- Dynamic Due Dates ⏰ allowing you to set due dates on specific tasks, safeguarding tasks from being missed. This will help employees keep to important deadlines, and meet the demands of their work, smoothing out cross-team collaboration.
- Conditional Logic to create dynamic systems that have the degree of flexibility needed to support cross-functional teamwork.
- Role Assignments to ease task delegation between teams, streamlining and promoting effective cross-functional teamwork.
- Approvals ✅ allowing decision-makers to give the go-ahead (or rejection) on important system items. Also, the necessary comments can be provided. This streamlines feedback across teams.
- Webhooks allowing you to send automated messages or information from your documented processes directly to other apps. A great feature keeping other teams notified about the status of checklists and tasks in Process Street, meaning everyone knows who is doing what and when.
- Task Assignments to assign users and groups to individual tasks in your documented processes, making it easy to see who is responsible for what, aiding cross-functional teamwork.
- Embed Widgets allowing you to view and interact with other apps without leaving your documented process in Process Street. Great if you want to communicate with different teams across applications.
- + more!
“…my team can continue to operate at the same quality or better even when I’m not around.” – Barbara Carneiro, Trust Radius Reviews
For more information on how you can edit and create checklists in Process Street, watch the below video:
BizOps activity #5 – Change management ♂️
Change management is the application of tools, frameworks, and methodologies supporting the adoption of change within a business. Many change management techniques recognize the importance for employees to understand and commit to business change.
To drive growth, BizOps personnel will regularly have to deal with business change. Change management is therefore a vital aspect of the BizOps role.
Key Process Street resources
- 8 Critical Change Management Models to Evolve and Survive
- How to Apply 7 Change Management Principles to Your Remote Workforce
- How to Make a Change Management Strategy (and Defuse the Growth Time Bomb)
Kotter’s Change Management Model Process Checklist
Run our Kotter’s Change Management Model Process Checklist to effectively implement change, focussing on the people behind it.
Click here to access Kotter’s Change Management Model Process Checklist!
Lewin’s Change Management Model Process Checklist
Run our Lewin’s Change Management Model Process Checklist to effectively implement a large, unwiedly company shift of change.
Click here to access Lewin’s Change Management Model Process Checklist!
Satir Change Management Model Process Checklist
Run this Satir Change Management Model Process Checklist to manage change by accounting for employee emotions and managing the impact on overall performance.
Click here to access the Satir Change Management Model Process Checklist!
BizOps: The accelerator of growth
BizOps joins departmental teams to improve an organization’s ability to optimize daily operations and grow. It’s a business function we take seriously at Process Street and have developed our software to help you do the same.
Refer to the templates and resources given in this article to provide the right guidance and support to your BizOps teams.
Sign up for Process Street and get started!
How do you optimize day-to-day operations in your business? How do you strategize to drive business growth? We’d love to hear from you, please comment below, who knows you may even get featured in an upcoming article!