While there will always be fires to be put out in any business and there will be short term issues, it’s important to take a step back and focus on the bigger picture. This means that you take a look at your business operations and develop a strategy that will prepare your B2B organization for success.
Entrepreneur, angel investor, and former reality show host, The Profit, Marcus Lemonis is a seasoned professional at identifying marketing opportunities and avoiding business failure.
He also coined “the 3 Ps of success”:
According to Lemonis, the 3 Ps are basics every business needs to be right. If those basics aren’t in place, success will be an uphill battle.
Building a robust B2B operation is all about getting those three Ps in place.
Business operation definition
Business operations are everything that happens in your company to keep it up and running and profitable.
In most business plans, a special section is devoted to the business processes required to make an organization work. These include:
- Systems
- equipment
- occupation
- Processes
While your business model is a description of what you want to achieve, business operations are the practical implementation.
Even if you already have processes in place, for the best results in your B2B company you need to be aware and develop a clear strategy that is regularly tweaked.
B2B business operations functions
Although the details of doing business can vary significantly depending on the industry and size of a company, most of these functions remain relevant to any type of business:
- Maintaining efficient internal communication and striving for alignment with goals and their achievement
- Providing information and coaching for executives at the highest level
- Continuous review and optimization of business processes
- Management of budget and planning processes
- Monitoring of third-party collaboration and software integrations
When you hire a Head of Operations, these are all areas of focus that they need to stay informed about and continuously improve. Otherwise, these tasks can be split up among the most relevant people on your team.
The different roles of B2B business operations
While a Head of Operations is responsible for top-level business operations, it is common to appoint middle-level roles in different departments of an organization.
Sales transactions encompass all business activities and processes that help keep your company’s sales running efficiently and in line with your business goals.
Marketing measures is a role or team focused on enabling the marketing team to work efficiently and scale with the right people, processes, and technology.
Support operations, like the other Operations roles, works behind the scenes to provide the tools, integrations, and processes that enable support teams to succeed.
Running a B2B company can be challenging and requires the ability to analyze and evaluate processes and performance at both the macro and micro levels.
To help you implement the most powerful business strategy for your B2B company, read on for eight pointers to success.
8 Best Practices for Successful B2B Business Operations
1. Communicate clearly – and choose the right technology.
Everything starts and ends with good internal communication. In fact, a recent study found that 89% of respondents believe that effective communication is incredibly important in a business setting.
Establishing the right communication processes is a critical key to business success, and since team members now rely primarily on technology to communicate and collaborate, choosing the right communication tools is just as important.
2. Define the team’s expectations and responsibilities.
Clear expectations of each team member and clear responsibility are the basis for success. The regular joint determination of tasks, deadlines and planning is just as much an integral part of business operations as the tracking and evaluation of results and services.
3. Document and automate processes.
Documenting all processes and sharing them with the organization saves a lot of time and effort. The documentation prevents the need to “reinvent the wheel” again and again and offers a common base and reference point that can then be further developed.
It is even better if your documentation and data are available to your team members. By integrating your various tools and synchronizing your contacts, workflows run smoother and with less effort.
4. Integrate your tech stack.
An important part of doing business is maintaining a helicopter perspective of engineering solutions and platforms. By choosing the best tools for your needs, avoiding redundant functionalities and integrating your different systems, you put your various departments on the road to success.
5. Strive for transparency.
It’s important to have cross-functional collaboration that breaks down silos and aligns departments with common goals. Alternatively, failure to create transparency leads to redundant work, misaligned priorities, and missed opportunities to collaborate so well worth getting them right.
Effective tactics for any B2B business include regular cross-departmental meetings and the right communication tools to make collaboration easier.
6. Make decisions based on data.
Because doing business involves a variety of stakeholders and agendas, it is important to maintain an objective view of the efficiency of your business operations and to agree on how to define and measure success.
As you create your B2B operations strategy, take the time to assess how good you are:
- Run a data-driven operation with high data integrity and reliability
- Decisions based on facts and figures instead of premonitions and gut instinct
- Create regular reports and share them with everyone involved
7. Gather feedback from teams.
Having an efficient feedback loop where team members can share their insights and comments with management is invaluable. Regular surveys and a strong team culture that invites feedback are good starting points.
Of course, it’s not enough just to collect feedback; it also needs to be followed up and acted upon. How can you ensure this in your B2B Ops strategy?
8. Consider hiring a Head of Operations.
Taking responsibility for your B2B operations is vital, and it pays to have someone in charge of keeping your business running smoothly.
If you can, hire someone to run your business and be responsible for continuously evaluating and optimizing the three Ps: Processes, People and Product.
Agree on metrics to measure success and review regularly that you are maximizing your company’s potential. You can also think about how your operational strategy will be applied to each department for maximum impact and productivity.
How will you strengthen your B2B activities?
Every company is different and you need to look at your particular company to determine your needs. However, if you tick all of these eight boxes, you should be well on your way to becoming a world-class B2B business.
