Chief Operating Officer COO:

The senior manager who is responsible for managing the company’s day-to-day operations and reporting them to the Chief Executive Officer (CEO). This is one of the highest-ranking members of an organization’s senior management.

He reports to the board of directors and CEO about the daily operating of the company.

The Chief Operating Officer (COO) looks after issues related to marketing, sales, production and personnel. More hands-on than the CEO, the COO looks after day-to-day activities while providing feedback to the CEO. The COO is often referred to as a Senior Vice President.

The Chief Operating Officer would be the right hand man of the Chief Executive Officer, as he needs to monitor quotas and other factors on a daily basis as the CEO would usually be too busy for this.  The COO may, or may not be on the board of directors.

The Chief Operating Officer generally focuses on operation management which means he focuses on:

• Development: Develops the organizations strategy/mission statement to the lower ranking staff, and implements appropriate rewards/recognition and coaching/corrective practices to align personnel with company goals. Develops and administers revenue generation activities, including fundraising, business development and grants applications.
• Operation: Oversees limited resources as set out by the chief executive officer and the board of directors to the most productive uses with the aim of creating maximum value for the company’s stakeholders.
• Planning: Plans by prioritizing customer, employee and organizational requirements
• Organizational requirements: Maintains and monitors staffing, Knowledge-Skills-Attributes expectations and motivates to fulfil organizational requirements
• Drives performance: He does this through certain measures and consideration of efficiency versus effectiveness, often in the form of dashboards convenient for review of high level key indicators.
• Training: Encourage employees to continuously acquire and improve knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) through targeted training courses, management development programs, and professional certifications.
• Improvement: Generally of the systems that create and deliver the firm’s products/services. Link employee rewards, bonuses, and promotions to employees’ true performance and tangible results, and empower employees.
• Standards: Build standardized, transparent, and repeatable production and service processes to provide the stable, consistent, and quality products and services that both internal and external customers expect. Adhere to professional and ethical standards established by the relevant professional bodies.
• Management: Proper management of resources and processes.
• Profit: Lower total expenses and service costs in order to lower selling prices, increase sales volume, and increase profits. Innovate new production and service techniques and processes by leveraging technology to improve quality and to reduce costs.
• Eliminate non-value-added activities in production/manufacturing/ service, to trim waste and lower costs.
• Monitors and ensures: Distribution of goods, services to customers, and a healthy organisation.
• Compliance: Ensure compliance with any and all requirements for funders and regulatory bodies. Develops and administers operational and administrative policies, standards and practices.
• Communications: Leads internal communications efforts through active communications to all staff including meetings, announcements, reports and bulletins. He would establish a solid and sustainable chain of knowledge linked through the entire management hierarchy to ensure core knowledge competencies for all levels of employees in the organization.
• Budget: Regarding financial systems, he will develop and administer effective internal controls including budget, setting and tracking, expenditure approvals processes, record-keeping and reporting. The Chief Operational Officer will prepare accurate and timely monthly financial statements. Assures safeguarding of assets. Leads capital planning and budgetary activities. Ensures preparation for quarterly financial audits. Review all receipts and disbursements.
• Risk: Manages associated risks, supervises cash management activities, execute capital-raising strategies to support a firm’s expansion, and deals with mergers and acquisitions. Identify key drivers of cost, quality, risks, expenses, revenues, profits, business growth, competition, and performance. Focus on the root causes of these drivers and understand why these drivers go up and down.

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