A Model for Aligning Operation Strategy and Business Strategy in The Iranian Industrial Organizations

Strategy is defined in three levels: corporate level, business level and functional level. Aligning these three levels is important for the success of organization. Operation is one of the functional units which respond to produce products. The main question research is how to make alignment between operation and business strategy. In order to answer this question, representing a model is requisite. The model consists of business strategy, competitive priorities and operation strategic decision area constructs. For explaining alignment model, the first question is: according to kind of business strategy, which competitive priority is selected and then according to selected competitive priorities, which operation strategies are suitable? To answer these questions, the data was collected from 160 companies in food and chemical industries were selected and were studied. With regard to aim, this article is applied. For analyzing of data, by using a descriptive-survey method the kind of business strategy, competitive priorities and operation strategy was determined, then by descriptive-correlation method, the relation between them was determined. For obtaining the alignment relation a methodology were generated and based on an alignment code for per company and also 25 alignment types were identified. Results show that company's performance is different which considers their performance. In another word alignment is differ between successful and unsuccessful companies. Which after considering their performance, seven types of alignment were distinguished as being suitable. These types were used to develop the operational alignment model. This study also supports the trade-offs approach to competitive priorities.