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The Air Traffic Controller of Your Business: A Virtual BOM Keeping Everything on Course
Running a business can feel like managing a busy airport. You’ve got projects taking off, clients landing, teams asking for direction, and deadlines buzzing in from every angle. When you’re the founder, you often end up trying to control every “flight” yourself and that’s when things start slipping. Deadlines collide, messages get missed, and your days become a blur of firefighting instead of forward momentum.
That’s where a virtual business operations manager becomes a total game changer. Think of this person as the air traffic controller of your entire company. They watch the radar, guide the flow of activity, prevent collisions, and keep every part of your business flying in the right direction. And because they’re virtual, you can afford top-tier operational leadership without bringing on a full-time in-house hire.
Here’s how a virtual BOM keeps your skies clear and your business moving smoothly.
Flight Plan: What a Business Operations Manager Actually Does
A Business Operations Manager keeps an eye on your whole business at once, something most founders don’t have time (or brain space) to do anymore. While your teams focus on their individual work, the BOM is looking at how everything connects.
They handle things like:
• Coordinating work between marketing, sales, admin, and customer service
• Watching KPIs, due dates, and deliverables to catch issues early
• Streamlining workflows to make everything faster and more organized
• Assigning resources wisely people, tools, budget, priorities
• Tracking performance and suggesting improvements
If you already use support teams like your administrative assistants, digital marketers, or customer service specialists, a BOM becomes the person who connects everything together.
Their work is much more strategic than a basic admin role. Guides like Built In’s explanation of business operations, Indeed’s breakdown of operations managers, and Upwork’s operations manager job description all point to the same thing: this role is about leadership, clarity, and making the entire business run smoother.
Keeping the Skies Clear: Why Every Business Owner Needs a BOM
When you’re the one managing every decision, your business eventually hits a ceiling. Tasks pile up. Questions flood your inbox. Projects overlap. Deadlines slip. People wait on you for approval, files, guidance, next steps everything.
A virtual BOM takes that pressure off your plate by keeping operations moving without chaos.
They help you avoid:
• Bottlenecks that slow down projects
• Communication breakdowns between teams
• Repeated mistakes no one has time to catch
• Missed deadlines
• Constant context-switching that drains your energy
They also free up your time so you can focus on growth not micromanaging operations.
Hiring a virtual BOM is also far more cost-effective than hiring multiple full-time ops roles. And because they standardize processes, they help your team produce better work in less time.
If you’re curious about what ops success looks like, JWU Online’s operations KPIs and Indeed’s operations manager insights offer helpful examples.
Selecting Your Air Traffic Controller: Hiring a Virtual BOM
Not just anyone can run your “airport.” When looking for a virtual BOM, you want someone who has handled multi-department coordination and can stay calm in fast-moving situations.
Look for experience with:
• Overseeing operations across multiple areas
• Leading communication between teams
• Solving problems quickly and independently
• Using project dashboards, SOPs, and workflow systems
• Making smart decisions about time, people, and budgets
If you want to explore talent types before hiring, your categories like admin & operations and project management talent give a strong idea of what level of BOM would fit your needs.
You’ll also find helpful expectations in Upwork’s hiring guide for operations managers and Indeed’s role breakdown.
Integrating the Controller: How to Onboard Your BOM the Right Way
A great BOM becomes effective fast but only if they’re onboarded with clarity.
Make sure they get:
• Introductions to all department leaders
• Access to dashboards, SOPs, checklists, and tools
• A clear list of KPIs to monitor
• A communication rhythm (daily standups, weekly updates, monthly reviews)
This setup gives them the full “airport map,” so they can step confidently into the control tower.
For guidance on alignment, Indeed’s operations resources and Built In’s cross-team alignment insights help shape a predictable onboarding structure.
The Big Idea: Air Traffic Control for Your Business
This is the easiest way to picture the role of a virtual BOM:
Your business is a busy airport.
• Your teams are the planes
• Your projects are the flights
• Your deadlines are the landing times
• Your processes are the runways
• Your KPIs are the radar
• Your virtual BOM is the control tower
Now imagine running that airport without anyone watching the radar.
Flights land out of order.
Planes take off at the wrong times.
Two projects need the same person or tool.
You start seeing delays, confusion, and last-minute emergencies.
That’s what it looks like when a business runs without strong operations leadership.
A virtual BOM:
• Watches everything happening across the company
• Communicates with each team
• Prevents collisions
• Directs the next steps
• Keeps every project on time
• Helps your company scale in an organized way
This is why companies that hire a BOM see smoother workflows, cleaner communication, and far fewer fires to put out.
Measuring Success: How to Track the BOM’s Impact
The impact of a good BOM becomes obvious in the numbers.
Here are the metrics most companies monitor:
• On-time project delivery rate
• Team productivity
• Resource utilization
• Bottlenecks resolved
• Founder hours saved
• Reduced errors and miscommunication
• Process improvement and cost savings
If you like tracking performance with real KPIs, examples in JWU Online’s operations metrics and Indeed’s best practices for operations management show which numbers matter most.
Common Turbulence: Challenges & Solutions
Even with a great BOM, the transition may come with bumps. Here are the most common ones and the simple fixes:
Communication gaps
→ Add daily or weekly update check-ins
Unclear expectations
→ Set KPIs and review them monthly
System access issues
→ Give proper access during the first 48 hours
Over-delegation
→ Keep them focused on operations, not basic admin tasks
For more examples of operational risk, insights from Emeritus on ops risk management and Indeed on managing operations are useful references.
Take Off: A Simple Action Plan for Hiring Your Virtual BOM
Here’s a clear step-by-step plan:
- Audit your operations and identify pain points
- Outline the role, responsibilities, and KPIs
- Source candidates through referrals or an outsourcing consultation
- Onboard them with tools, SOPs, dashboards, and team introductions
- Run a 60–90 day pilot phase
- Measure results and adjust as needed
You can also explore categories inside hire by skill if you want to see which operational talent types match the role.
Conclusion
A virtual Business Operations Manager is the air traffic controller your business needs. They watch the radar, guide your teams, prevent collisions, and keep projects moving in the right direction. Once they’re in place, your business becomes smoother, more predictable, more organized and much easier to grow.
If your days are filled with bottlenecks, delays, and constant juggling, it might be time to bring in your own air traffic controller and give your business the control tower it needs to scale.
