The Operations Director plays a central role in the performance of an IT service company, ensuring consistency between business objectives and project management. They coordinate strategic actions, optimize processes, and support team development. This function requires a global vision to unite teams around sustainable growth.
Leading the Team and the IT Service Company as Operations Director
Operations management: 3 words for a vast program!
To run a successful agency or IT service company, whether it has 20 or 100 employees, and whether it specializes in marketing, advertising, or web development, effective operations management is a matter of life or death.
While some may equate agency operations management with project management, it’s important to understand that, in reality, it boils down to delivering services as efficiently as possible. In other words, successful operational management must positively impact your business profitability. If it doesn’t, you’re doing something wrong.
As experts in business management for IT service companies, we’ve learned one thing about operations management: a business management tool can significantly improve your business efficiency (and more!).
Scroll down to discover a detailed analysis of key roles and responsibilities, best practices, and the biggest risks in operations management. In short, how to best manage your business and teams.
Also discover how the Operations Director leverages Furious’s power in sales, resource planning, project management, invoicing, and reporting.
The COO – although their primary role is to support the operational elements of the company – plays a cross-functional (managing multiple departments), strategic role and fully participates in the development of the structure. This is why the COO is always present at the Executive Committee and/or general management of companies. .
What is the role of an Operations Director?
The Operations Director typically has a background from a major business, management, or engineering school. University education is also possible, with specializations in management, economics, marketing, law, etc. Roles and responsibilities vary depending on the sector they operate in.
For example, if you work as an Operations Director in a pasta factory, you’ll likely be more concerned with the efficiency of your machines. A smaller part of your job will involve balancing the workload of factory workers.
So what does an Operations Director do in an agency or consultancy?
The short answer: it depends.
The long answer: your primary mission will be to manage resource planning and organizational work. You will oversee high-level talent requirements and communicate with executive and finance departments for optimized operations management. The COO, or Chief Operating Officer, is a key element in effective business management. Their actions are also crucial for human resources.
If you work in a larger structure, you’ll be working closely with project managers and account managers to ensure the success of projects by balancing workloads with skills, deadlines and budgets.
Planning and Managing: Key Roles of the Operations Director
The Operations Director is responsible daily for managing and improving the overall efficiency of the company. Here are some of their key responsibilities and roles:
- High-level resource planning and strategic resource management decisions.
- Development, implementation, and revision of operational procedures
- Close collaboration with project managers or account directors for overseeing budgets, resource utilization, profitability, and other key business performance indicators.
- Reporting to Executive Management
- Ensuring that all employees track their time spent and task allocation
- Assisting the human resources team in recruiting and fostering a culture that encourages better performance.
Furthermore, most Operations Directors will need a good mix of analytical and social skills, such as:
- Excellent communication and interpersonal skills
- Analytical skills that enable the transformation of data into reliable information, thereby facilitating decision-making.
- The ability to remain calm and focused under pressure.
What are the main activities of an Operations Director?
1. Resource planning
As Head of Operations, you cannot perform quality resource planning without understanding project requirements. You will work with project managers or account directors to determine activity coordination and task assignment. Project managers will decide on time estimates and assess team availability, while you will be responsible for allocating resources at a higher level.
2. Monitor project progress
Even if operations management is not equivalent to project management, you will still need to regularly check in with project managers to answer the following questions: What are the ins and outs? What deliverables, by when? Any specific client history? etc.
This planning is essential when colleagues take unforeseen sick leave or request vacation, or in case of project scope changes, which also happens… #agencylife
3. Time and cost tracking
You sell time for money. Time management therefore also includes cost tracking, i.e., overseeing budgets with project managers. Are the resources you’ve chosen to work on a particular project performing well? How might this affect profitability?
Meeting deadlines is – by default – non-negotiable, although we all know how it often goes. For clients to be satisfied and projects to be profitable, it’s essential to monitor how company time is spent.
4. Collaborating with HR
The Operations Director works in close collaboration with HR to determine recruitment needs and manage leave. With regular tracking of time spent on each project, it’s much easier to make hiring decisions based on concrete data. This is even more important when certain projects require a lot of overtime from your employees.
5. Management reporting
Time tracking doesn’t just facilitate hiring. Real-time data from tracked time, along with estimating your overhead and other expenses, helps management steer and anticipate. The director ensures this data is integrated into profitability KPIs. You’ll know when you need to invoice more, increase budgets, or offer client discounts… And you’ll use historical data to improve company operations management in the future.
Again, how operations are managed varies depending on the size and type of company you work for. Similarly, the main tensions and challenges differ from one agency to another. Nevertheless, we have covered the most common points.
Operations and Team Management: Best Practices
1. Be honest with your team members and clients
Set clear expectations for your employees and clients. Be realistic about deadlines. Before your company commits to a new project, also be sure to allow for buffer time. This will enable teams to deliver quality work.
2. Balance the workload
Connect with project managers and employees on a daily or weekly basis to track the progress of tasks. This is an effective way to understand how time management and resource planning can be optimized.
3. Take the time to audit
In terms of operations management, it’s important to conduct regular audits after a project ends and take the time to improve organizational processes and procedures. What went well? What didn’t work? What could have been done differently? It’s essential to take the time to measure what can be improved for next time.
With Furious, we found a solution that truly allows us to track our projects from A to Z, as well as providing the key indicators we need to manage the agency day-to-day.
Manage Your Operations and Teams with Furious
Let’s look at some aspects of operations management with Furious :
Business
With Furious, set up your sales pipeline in stages. Add the probable amount per deal, weighting, and other key information related to each new project or potential client. This allows the agency’s Operations Director to get an idea of the resources to allocate for the coming weeks and months to plan synchronization meetings with business development.
Projects and Planning
Thanks to Furious’s Projects pipeline, you can create as many workflows as you want. Organize your projects accordingly. Schedule related events, and you can easily automate part of your business and save time.
Furious also offers ToDo pipe creation. You can create a pipe for technical projects, another for communication projects, another for studies and so on.
You also receive real-time alerts for new tasks.
The three pillars of resource management in Furious are :
- Balance employees’ workloads and see in real time who has what availability over the coming days, weeks and months. Furious automatically alerts the people concerned in the event of overbooking on the profile or over-budget workload for the project.
- Anticipate needs for skills, equipment, or locations.
- Managing vacations
A large part of managing teammates’ schedules involves having a system to track and manage leave or remote work. Automatic manager alerts, one-click validation—there are many features.
Once leave or remote work requests are approved in Furious, they are automatically integrated into work schedules.
Decision-making dashboards
Furious cross-references all data from various sources: salaries, overhead, time tracking, expenses, occupancy rate, budget, and available skills to extract decision-making dashboards.
For operations management, you can use a predefined dashboard with the reporting widgets we deemed most relevant. You can also create your own custom dashboards with the parameters you want.
These dashboards are, of course, shareable, downloadable, and printable for better activity management.
Automatic, recurring alerts are also available, to take even more of the mental load off your shoulders!
Billing
With Furious, there’s no need to copy and paste data from your project management tools to your invoicing software.
Furious allows you to generate invoices with one click, automate sending and reminders, and thus eliminate the risk of human error during monthly invoicing.
We also gave you our tips on how to spend less time invoicing for time spent!
(And if you use a pricing template suited to your business, it’s even faster!)
Increasing business profit margins is just one of the many benefits of good operations management. With optimized planning and a clear vision of needs and risks, you lay the groundwork for better decision-making and thus a better future for your company.
Request a demo with the Success team and discover how to get the most out of Furious!
You might be Asking Yourself these Questions?
01 why is Skill Development Often Underutilized in Agencies?
Due to lack of time, clear vision, or structure. Many leaders relegate it to an “HR bonus” instead of integrating it into their operational strategy.
02 is it Cost-Effective to Train rather than Recruit?
Yes, especially for intermediate profiles. You reduce recruitment, onboarding, and turnover costs.
03 how to Identify Good Candidates for Skill Development?
Cross-reference performance, motivation, and availability. A good employee, well-supported, can quickly become a key asset.
04 how Long Does it Take to See the Effects?
With a clear plan, you can see an impact as early as 2 to 3 months on the first profiles.
05 how to Integrate Skill Development into Staffing?
Use a tool like GenericProductName to cross-reference skills, availability, and upcoming needs. This allows for continuous management.
06 What if My Senior Staff Doesn't Have Time to Train Others?
Precisely: training allows for delegation. By integrating a bit of mentoring time into their schedule, you’ll save them a lot of time in the long run.
