A company, firm, or corporation is a legal entity of an association of people, both natural as well legal and is defined as a commercial business, it may or may not be established on a mere motive of earning profits.
Each one of the departments is assigned a set of roles and responsibilities by which each employee must abide.
Management and operations are two common functional departments of every company. Where the former is concerned with the general administration of the respective company and the latter revolves around day-to-day activities or routine activities required to produce goods or services of the company.
Management vs Operations
The main difference between management and operations is in their meaning, the former is the administration of the or the process of managing, whereas the latter is the method or schedule by which production or manufacturing of goods and services takes place.
Comparison Table Between Management and Operations (in Tabular Form)
| Parameter of Comparison | Management | Operations |
|---|---|---|
| Meaning | Process of dealing or controlling things and people in the right manner. | Whereas, the Operation is the process of producing the respective company’s products or services. |
| Concerned with | Only concerned with controlling and directing functions of the company. | Chiefly concerned with planning, organizing, controlling, and directing. |
| Main area | Does not stick to one department, it is applied to the entire company. | On the other hand, operations are the day-to-day activities or routines regarding production. |
| Examples | Management of finances of the company, or the acknowledgment of the rules and regulations by the employees or human resources of the company. | Related to activities like the packaging of the product or the movement of material or any equipment. |
| Universal concept | Management is a universal concept which means it can be applied to everywhere irrespective of the department, level, or even place. | On the other hand, Operations are confined only to production and manufacturing. |
What is Management?
Management is the art of controlling and directing things and people. It is found in every functional area irrespective of the department of the company, it is even found outside the business world like in a house, a mother is commonly managing everything related to her house and family members.
Just like a house, school, or any university, etc needs to manage its people, students, employees, or a team, in the same manner, a company needs to do the same to reach or fulfill their objectives.
The following are the features of management:
- Management is associated with group efforts.
- It is purposeful and universal.
- Management is accomplished only through the efforts of employees.
- It is goal-oriented.
- Management ensures better working conditions.
- It is intangible as well as indispensable.
- It is universal, which means it can be applied to every department, every level, even outside a company or firm.
What are Operations?
The operational function of the company or operations, is the management of procedures or processes that take place in a company or an organization regarding the manufacturing of goods and services. Along with the procedure, it also involves raw materials, equipment, labor, and everything related to operations.
The following are the characteristics of operations:
- It ensures effectiveness and coordination.
- It ensures flexibility.
- It evaluates to check if the workings are going as per the plan or not.
- It is goal-oriented.
- It ensures productivity
- It analyzes the workings of production.
- It focuses on efficiency.
- Operation’s aims are always measurable.
- It has a fast speed of execution, which makes it effective to a large extent.
- It consists of structural organizational flexibility.
- Unlike management, operations are restricted to just production which makes it concentrate on production which cuts down many other time-consuming tasks which might have lowered the effectiveness of production.
Main Differences Between Management and Operations
- Management is defined as all the activities that are undertaken for achieving goals by continuous activities like planning, directing, and controlling, whereas, on the other hand, the operation is itself is a management of activities relating to production.
- The main aim of management is to reach the company’s goal effectively and efficiently, whereas, the operations aim to reduce cost and save time for the company, or a firm.
- Where on one hand, the management is applied to every functional department, in other words, to the entire company. On the other hand, operations are related only to production activities.
- In management, there is a specific role assigned to each manager of each department like operations manager, accounting manager, sales manager, quality control manager, whereas in the case of operation, there are only two key positions that are offered such as chief operating officer, and operations manager.
- Management is the act of directing or conducting whereas operations are the act of producing or operating.
Conclusion
Both management and operations are key functional departments of any company, firm, or organization and no company can function without them. However, both of the terms have distinct meanings as well as purposes. While one revolves around keeping everything as per plan, the other one is concerned with saving time and cutting costs of the company’s production.
Both management and operations are the system of authority, in both the case the administrator has to plan, control and direct. However, the management is applied to the entire company, and on the contrary, the operations are restricted to production.
References
- https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/01443579710171217/full/html
- https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/WR021i012p01797
- https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/journl/hal-02297985.html