Strategy & Operations Pt. 1: What is it?
Strategy and operations associates at a tech company typically work on identifying and executing initiatives that help the company meet its business objectives. They collaborate with various teams and stakeholders across the organization, such as product, engineering, marketing, and finance teams, to help them operate efficiently and effectively.
Their responsibilities may include analyzing data to identify areas of improvement, creating and implementing strategies to optimize processes and workflows, and measuring the effectiveness of new initiatives. They may also work on special projects and provide support to senior leaders in the company.
Some specific tasks that strategy and operations personnel may perform include:
Market research to identify opportunities for growth and expansion. (I.e. TAM,SAM,SOM etc.)
Developing and implementing business strategies to achieve specific goals, such as increasing revenue or reducing costs.
Analyzing data to identify trends and patterns that can inform business decisions. (I.e. Data Analysis, SQL, Excel Modeling etc.)
Creating and maintaining operational metrics and dashboards to track performance.
Developing and implementing processes and workflows to increase efficiency and reduce waste.
Supporting cross-functional projects to ensure successful execution.
Collaborating with other teams to identify and solve operational problems.
Communicating project updates and results to senior leadership.
Overall, strategy and operations associates play a critical role in helping tech companies operate efficiently and achieve their business goals.
Successful Strategy & Operations team members usually combine a deep analytical skillset (data analysis, financial modeling) with creative problem skills (given market context come up with a strategy and execute) and strong leadership skills (convince others to implement your strategy. A nice to have (this depends on the company) is some baseline knowledge of SQL and databases so you can query your own data.
Some tips for success are:
Develop a deep understanding of the company: To be effective in this role, you need to have a thorough understanding of the company's products, customers, industry, and overall strategy. Take the time to learn as much as you can about the company and its operations.
Analytical skills: Strategy and operations associates need to be skilled in analyzing large amounts of data, identifying trends, and drawing conclusions from that data. You should be comfortable working with data and be proficient in Excel and other data analysis tools.
Strategic thinking: You need to have a strategic mindset and be able to think critically about the company's goals and how to achieve them. This requires you to have a broad perspective and be able to see the big picture, but also requires you to be able to logical explain why you are recommending a specific action.
Strong communication skills: Strategy and operations associates need to be able to communicate effectively with stakeholders at all levels of the organization. This includes being able to present complex information in a clear and concise manner. Depending on the specific company/org you might have to work with product, sales and some times even engineering.
Collaborative skills: To be effective in this role, you need to be able to work collaboratively with other teams and stakeholders in the organization. This includes being able to build strong relationships, being a good listener, and being open to feedback.
Continuous learning: To be successful in this role, you should always be learning and expanding your knowledge. Stay up-to-date with industry trends, attend conferences and workshops, and take courses to develop new skills.
Strategies & Operations teams usually possess a wide range of backgrounds, with degrees in Engineering, Data Analytics, Business, Economics and sometimes even liberal arts. The most common industry Strategy & Operations team members come from is management consulting (Big 4/MBB/Tier 2). Other common backgrounds are Investment Banking, technology consulting, business operations, marketing or some specific business function related to the industry the company is in (e.g. if you were a business analyst in the logistics industry you transition over to a strategy position in a logistic-tech company since you have background industry knowledge).
Strategies & Operations teams usually possess a wide range of backgrounds, with degrees in Engineering, Data Analytics, Business, Economics and sometimes even liberal arts. The most common industry Strategy & Operations team members come from is management consulting (Big 4/MBB/Tier 2). Other common backgrounds are Investment Banking, technology consulting, business operations, marketing or some specific business function related to the industry the company is in (e.g. if you were a business analyst in the logistics industry you transition over to a strategy position in a logistic-tech company since you have background industry knowledge).
The “Strategy” role is broad umbrella for multiple types of roles at Technology companies. Every role at each company is going to be different but here are some key indicators to look for that might give you a sense of what the role looks like. Generally speaking the more on the “Strategy” side of Strategy & Operations you are the better, a little bit of ops here and there is fine but you want to avoid roles that are completely operations but they bat & switch you with a strategy title.
Some General rules of thumb:
Start-Ups vs. Big Tech
The smaller the company is the more likely the role is closer to “pure strategy”. Strategy roles at smaller start-ups are generally great creative roles as nothing has yet been defined, you will typically have a large amount of whitespace to explore with fewer of the mundane tasks .
At bigger tech companies that are more mature, the “scope” of your strategy work will be quite narrow (only exception is if you are in a new vertical arm of a tech company). Even if there is some creative strategy work to be done it will largely be within the constraints of moving xyz KPI that leadership has set up for that business unit.
“Real/Pure Tech” vs. Tech Enabler/Adjacent
Real/Pure Tech is defined as a company whose product is something that is more innovative and technical, such as AI or something Data Science related. Good examples are Snowflake and Google. Tech Enabler/Adjacent in this context refers to a Tech company that is also in a different specific submarket as well, where the technology product is disrupting some existing paradigm in that industry. Examples are Uber, DoorDash, WayFair all of which are creating a marketplace to disrupt an already existing industry.
(I have the quotation marks up because this is a categorization by some people in the industry, it’s also stupid as all companies we are talking about here are tech companies, some are just have deeper tech than others.)
“Pure Tech” companies will typically have more pure strategy work while those companies that are also straddling another industry will likely have a higher share of operations work. This is especially true for the logistics-tech industry as it’s in the nature of the business.
An easy comparison to paint this picture is an S&O role at an AI startup vs. an S&O role at a food delivery start up. The first role is going to have a lot more pure strategy work while the second is going to have a fair share or operations related work to ensure systems runs smoothly.
The salary of a Strategy & Operations roles in Tier 1 cities are as follows:
3 - 5 YOE: $120K to $150K Base, 20% to 30% bonus, + equity. TC (not including equity) = ~ $140K to $200K
5 - 9 YOE: $170K to $250K Base, 25% to 40% bonus, + equity. TC (not including equity) = ~ $200K to $300K
9+ YOE: $200K to $300K Base, 25% to 40% bonus, + equity. TC (not including equity) = ~ $270K to $450K
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