Operating model

Operating model is an abstract and ideally visual representation (model) of how an organization delivers value to its customers or beneficiaries.

There are different ways of defining the elements that make up an operating model.

An organization is a complex system for delivering value. An operating model breaks this system into components, showing how it works. It can help different participants understand the whole. It can help those making changes check that they have thought through all elements and that the whole will still work. It can help those transforming an operation coordinate all the different changes that need to happen.

An operating model is like the blueprint for a building. It is more dynamic than a building blueprint, with changes occurring regularly. Also, an operating model is not usually just one blueprint. There are likely to be blueprints for each element: processes, organisation structure, decision making, software applications, locations and so on. There are also likely to be some integrating blueprints.

An operating model can describe the way an organization does business today – the as is. It can also communicate the vision of how an operation will work in the future – the to be. In this context it is often referred to as the target operating model. Most typically, an operating model is a living set of documents that are continually changing, like an organization chart.

An operating model describes how an organization delivers value, as such it is a subset of the larger concept 'business model'. A business model describes how an organization creates, delivers and captures value and sustains itself in the process. An operating model focuses on the delivery element of the business model. There are plenty of disagreements about the use of the words business model and operating model.

The term operating model may have been first used in corporate-level strategy (see History below) to describe the way in which an organization is structured into business divisions, what activities are centralized or decentralized and how much integration is required across business divisions. The term is most commonly used today when referring to the way a single business division or single function operates, as in 'the operating model of the exploration division' or 'the operating model of the HR function'. It can also be used at a much more micro level to describe how a department within a function works or how a factory is laid out. In the section below titled Business/IT dialogue, this article explores one framework for thinking about the IT implications of different corporate strategies.

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