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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Business Operations Specialist

💰 $60,000 - $95,000

OperationsBusinessAnalyticsProcess ImprovementProject Management

🎯 Role Definition

The Business Operations Specialist is a hands-on operator and analyst who partners with cross-functional teams to optimize processes, implement scalable operational frameworks, maintain performance metrics and dashboards, and deliver data-driven recommendations to improve business outcomes. This role blends analytics, project management, and process design to ensure reliable day‑to‑day operations and enable strategic initiatives across finance, sales, product, and customer success.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Operations Coordinator / Operations Assistant
  • Business Analyst / Data Analyst
  • Customer Success Associate or Sales Operations Associate

Advancement To:

  • Senior Business Operations Specialist
  • Operations Manager / Program Manager
  • Business Operations Lead or Head of Operations
  • Finance Business Partner or Strategy Manager

Lateral Moves:

  • Product Operations
  • Revenue Operations (RevOps)
  • Sales Operations
  • Program or Project Management

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Own end-to-end operational processes for assigned programs or business units, documenting standard operating procedures (SOPs), playbooks, and escalation paths to ensure consistent, repeatable execution across teams.
  • Design, build, and maintain operational dashboards and KPI reporting (daily, weekly, monthly) using BI tools (Tableau, Looker, Power BI) to track performance against SLA, revenue, retention, and efficiency targets.
  • Partner with finance to support monthly financial close activities, including reconciliations, variance analysis, expense tracking, and forecasting to provide accurate operational insights for budgeting and planning.
  • Lead cross-functional projects to launch new programs or product features, coordinate timelines, manage risks, and ensure on-time delivery by aligning engineering, product, sales, and support stakeholders.
  • Analyze operational data (transaction logs, CRM, ERP) to identify root cause of process breakdowns, quantify impact, and recommend prioritized remediation plans with measurable outcomes.
  • Develop and implement process improvement initiatives (Lean/Six Sigma concepts) that reduce cycle time, lower costs, or increase throughput; measure ROI and iterate on changes.
  • Manage and optimize workflows within CRM and operations tooling (Salesforce, Zendesk, Gainsight) including configuration, automation rules, data hygiene routines, and user permissions.
  • Conduct regular stakeholder reviews and business reviews to translate data into narrative insights, highlight trends, and drive decisions with executive summaries and action items.
  • Build and maintain data pipelines for operational reporting: validate data sources, ensure data integrity, and collaborate with data engineering to scope ETL requirements or metric definitions.
  • Execute capacity planning and resource allocation models to ensure teams are appropriately staffed and SLAs are achievable under growth scenarios or seasonal demand.
  • Coordinate third-party vendor relationships and manage vendor performance, contract deliverables, and billing reconciliations to ensure operational continuity and value delivery.
  • Create and run A/B tests and experiment analysis for operational changes or new programs, documenting hypotheses, success metrics, and statistical significance to inform scale decisions.
  • Drive onboarding and enablement for operations processes and tools: create training materials, run workshops, and serve as subject matter expert for new hires and ongoing training.
  • Support incident management and post-mortem analysis for operational disruptions, owning the timeline, corrective action items, and stakeholder communication until closure.
  • Standardize and automate reporting processes (scripting, macros, and dashboard templates) to reduce manual effort, increase consistency, and accelerate decision-making cycles.
  • Maintain compliance and quality controls across operational processes, ensuring internal and external audit readiness and adherence to company policies and regulatory requirements where applicable.
  • Monitor customer and product health signals to identify churn risk, upsell opportunities, and operational bottlenecks; partner with customer success and product teams on targeted interventions.
  • Evaluate and recommend operational tooling and software improvements, build business cases for platform investments, and manage implementation timelines and adoption metrics.
  • Prepare executive-level summaries of operational performance, presenting key trends, risks, and recommended actions to leadership in a concise, data-driven format.
  • Conduct ad-hoc analyses to support strategic initiatives such as pricing changes, go-to-market campaigns, or product launches, providing scenario modeling and sensitivity analysis.
  • Track and improve cycle times for core operational processes (order-to-fulfillment, invoice reconciliation, case resolution), implementing SLAs and continuous monitoring to sustain improvements.
  • Champion cross-functional communication cadences (weekly syncs, RACI matrices, project plans) that clarify ownership, reduce dependencies, and accelerate resolution of blockers.

Secondary Functions

  • Support ad-hoc data requests and exploratory data analysis.
  • Contribute to the organization's data strategy and roadmap.
  • Collaborate with business units to translate data needs into engineering requirements.
  • Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies within the data engineering team.
  • Assist with special projects such as mergers, integrations, or new market launches by providing operational analysis and implementation support.
  • Facilitate knowledge transfer and maintain a central repository of operational documentation and templates for scale.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Advanced Excel skills (VLOOKUP/XLOOKUP, pivot tables, complex formulas, Power Query) for financial modeling and operational analysis.
  • Proficiency with SQL for querying transactional data, building ad-hoc reports, and validating data models.
  • Experience with BI and dashboarding tools (Tableau, Looker, Power BI) to build actionable dashboards and automated reports.
  • Familiarity with CRM and support platforms (Salesforce, Zendesk, HubSpot, Gainsight) including data model understanding and admin-level configuration.
  • Experience with project management tools and methodologies (Asana, Jira, Trello, Smartsheet; Agile/Scrum basics).
  • Basic scripting or automation skills (Python, R, Google Apps Script) for process automation and data manipulation.
  • Strong understanding of financial processes: reconciliations, forecasting, budget variance analysis, and cost control.
  • Knowledge of process improvement frameworks (Lean, Six Sigma, Kaizen) and ability to lead continuous improvement projects.
  • Experience working with ETL/data engineering teams and understanding of data pipelines and metric governance.
  • Familiarity with reporting governance, KPI definition, and data quality best practices.

Soft Skills

  • Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with a bias toward structured, measurable recommendations.
  • Excellent written and verbal communication; able to present complex data simply to non-technical stakeholders and executives.
  • Exceptional project management and organizational skills; ability to manage multiple concurrent initiatives with shifting priorities.
  • High collaboration and stakeholder management skills; proven ability to influence across cross-functional teams.
  • Detail-oriented with strong process discipline and documentation habits.
  • Adaptability and resilience in fast-paced, changing environments.
  • Customer-centric mindset and service orientation when supporting Sales, CS, and Product teams.
  • Strategic thinking and the ability to connect tactical activities to broader business outcomes.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Bachelor’s degree in Business, Finance, Economics, Operations Research, Data Analytics, Industrial Engineering, or a related field.

Preferred Education:

  • Bachelor’s degree plus relevant certifications (Six Sigma, Lean, PMP, CBIP) or a Master’s degree (MBA or MS in Analytics/Operations).

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Business Administration
  • Finance / Accounting
  • Operations Management / Industrial Engineering
  • Data Analytics / Applied Statistics
  • Computer Science (with analytics focus)

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

  • 2–5 years in operations, business operations, sales operations, or related analytical roles.

Preferred:

  • 3–7+ years of progressive experience in business operations or operational analytics, with demonstrated ownership of cross-functional programs, reporting, and process improvement initiatives. Experience in SaaS, technology, or high-growth companies preferred.
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