While every company aims to grow, most leaders view product development and growth as separate functions. This gap leads to a disconnect between the business and its users, making it more difficult to create a cohesive customer experience.
From start-ups to Fortune 500s, all organizations can benefit from an integrated approach to developing products and meeting customer needs. Whether you’re looking to reduce customer churn or optimize your sales funnel, having a dedicated team that understands business operations and growth strategies is essential to success.
Enter BizOps and Growth roles. These terms are sometimes used interchangeably, but they are actually two distinct functions. Let’s dive into the key differences between BizOps and Growth roles and how someone with growth experience could transition to BizOps.
What Does a BizOps Professional Do?
BizOps is an emerging field that focuses on streamlining the behind-the-scenes processes and systems of a business. It combines elements of business intelligence, process improvement, and project management to ensure that an organization is running as efficiently as possible.
Brian Sze, the former Head of BizOps at Stripe, describes BizOps practitioners as individual team members you can rely “on to run your most important initiatives since they have unimpeachable credibility to get things done.”Â
Within that domain, a BizOps professional is responsible for understanding the current state of a business, predicting future trends, and developing strategies and systems to optimize operations. Among these are processes such as inventory management, financial forecasting, supply chain optimization, data analysis, and customer service automation.
BizOps teams work hand in hand with product and marketing teams to ensure that projects are completed on time, within budget, and to a high standard.
Common tasks include optimizing customer segmentation and personalization efforts, developing automated systems for customer service, and tracking key performance indicators.
What Does a Growth Manager Do?
Working closely with product and marketing teams, growth teams are responsible for driving revenue growth through customer acquisition, user engagement, and retention using analytics, experimentation, and data-driven insights.
Growth Managers are well-versed in the latest digital marketing strategies and tools, such as SEO optimization, email campaigns, social media management, customer segmentation, automation tools, and more.
They use structured methods to understand user behavior, leverage data, and extract key insights to create actionable strategies and drive decision-making.
Technical skills like UX/UI design principles can help create an intuitive experience that encourages conversions, while experience in A/B testing methods can help understand customer preference and support marketing and product development efforts.
Ultimately, growth teams aim to attract new customers, retain existing ones, and optimize performance across multiple channels by taking advantage of data-driven insights.
What is The Difference Between a BizOps Professional and a Growth Manager?
While both roles require deep knowledge of the business and its operations, as well as proficiency in analyzing data and making decisions based on the findings, there are three key differences between a BizOps professional and a Growth Manager.
Optimization vs. Expansion
BizOps professionals focus on optimizing the existing operations of an organization to maximize its potential. They use data analysis and insights to measure performance and ensure that processes are as efficient as possible. BizOps teams often work with various departments, including engineering, sales, and marketing, to ensure that the entire organization runs smoothly and as planned.
Growth Managers have a different priority: finding ways for an organization to grow the value of the customer base by deploying new acquisition strategies, expanding into new markets or launching new products and services. They also use data-driven strategies and customer insights to explore innovative solutions and develop campaigns that target specific audiences to scale up the company’s products and services.
Unlike BizOps professionals who optimize existing operations, Growth Managers help organizations find opportunities for growth through innovation and experimentation.
Execution vs. Strategy
For BizOps professionals, success is measured by their ability to execute tasks and activities required to run a business. This includes setting up and managing systems and processes that enable teams to work at maximum efficiency using automation and data analytics tools.
Conversely, Growth Managers are more focused on exploring new opportunities for growth, capturing market share, and increasing revenue. They must be able to think strategically and develop comprehensive plans for growth that are based on data, insights, and experiments.
“Growth has a direct relation to go-to-market (GTM) strategy—activating new markets and segments and unlocking revenue. BizOps is all the operational rigor that facilitates execution,” shares Sujay Seetharaman, Chief of Staff at PipeCandy.
Process vs. Product
Regardless of where they work, BizOps professionals are typically focused on the process and operations side of the business. They need a good understanding of how different systems interact with each other within the organization and how they can optimize them.
In contrast, Growth Manages are focused on product growth, which may include activities such as user acquisition, engagement initiatives, and experimentation with different marketing channels and strategies. They need to think outside the box and develop solutions that leverage market trends and customer needs to capture and capitalize on new opportunities.
“A growth role is responsible for selling a product or service of a company. Business Operations, whether as a part of the sales or general company operations team, will support the processes and technologies that help move the sale throughout the deal cycle,” explains Alyssa Higgins, VP of Business Operations at CipherHealth.
Are Growth Skills Transferable To BizOps?
Even though BizOps emphasizes streamlining operational processes and Growth focuses on strategic initiatives for expansion, the two roles do overlap.
Individuals with growth experience are used to experimenting and finding creative solutions, which can be beneficial for optimizing operational processes.Â
Some of the Growth skills and competencies that may apply to BizOps are:
- Project management
- Data analysis and interpretation
- Strategic and creative thinking
- Knowledge of marketing
- Cross-functional management
- Experimental mindset
Most growth roles are highly experienced in using data analytics tools, which can be beneficial to a BizOps professional looking for ways to improve organizational performance. Analyzing data quickly and accurately is essential when making decisions about operations and the general direction of the business.
Start Your Career In BizOps By Joining The BizOps NetworkÂ
With the increasing complexity of business operations, the need for BizOps professionals with extensive experience in growth-related activities is also growing. Among the growth skills applicable to BizOps are data analysis, marketing, experimentation, and project management.
With its expansive network of members from various industries, the BizOps Network  makes it easy to find peers with similar interests and goals that can help you grow your skill set and advance your career as a BizOps professional.
The private community provides access to specialized training, resources, experienced professionals, and industry experts from around the world, so you can stay up-to-date with the latest trends in business operations.
Whether you’re looking for an entry point into a career in BizOps or want to expand your existing field knowledge, choose the easier path with the BizOps Network!
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