This is a great question, because the operations department of companies get overlooked very easily. It is not the most glamorous department, especially compared to departments like marketing and sales. However, operational management is one of the most important departments, because the operations department run the nuts and bolts of the company in terms of physical goods.

For example, in companies that have actual physical goods, the the operational management team gets the goods from the ports, counts them to make sure that the right amount has been shipped, deals with the international shipping, maintains the inventory, and finally sends the goods to the proper places. They may even deal with returns. As you can imagine, operations is very important. Moreover, if the people in operations are good, then they will be able to do all of this economically and the company can save lots of money.