Purpose – The purpose of this paper here is to present an operational model that establishes the necessary relationship between business strategy and operations strategy. Accordingly, managers are enabled to define strategic business elements in the operations unit and align it with the business strategies.Design/methodology/approach – Data were collected from 160 companies using a combination of structured interviews and closed questionnaire. In developing the alignment model, descriptive‐survey and correlation methods were used. For selecting the codes and types of alignments, a heuristic data analysis method was developed and applied.Findings – This paper concludes that alignment is significantly different in successful and unsuccessful companies. Considering their performance, 25 alignment types have been identified out of which seven types have been found appropriate for the case.Practical implications – The recommended model here is easy to use and helps managers to improve the performance of their ...