first one concentrates on short-term activities while Strategy for long-term activities

also, the first one is about the sub details of the strategy

Actually both of them. Operation without Strategy, and Strategy without Operation is meaningless.

In this way kindly have a look at the attached article which is related to your discussion.

Article Impact of "Energy Consumer's Behavior Management Process" on...

Designing and formulation the appropriate strategies is critical in determining the directions, vision and missions of organisations (business models, business-level strategy and corporate-level strategy). Once the direction is finalised then the internal assets (strengths) and external advantages (opportunities) will be mobilised and maximized to achieve organisational effectiveness and efficiencies.

You cannot do without either.

I would regard strategy a tad more important (finding new markets, products etc) while ops deals with "making things work" within the existing market (after Strategy opened it).

To discard either of them would be a certain route to cease business in the not so far future.

Kind Regards

Roland

Strategy, which relates to doing things differently, aims to enhance value/competitive advantage, whereas operational effectiveness relates to doing things better. Without a strategy, or the strategy is the same as the competitors, a business is unlikely to achieve very good/successful results. As operational effectiveness also refers to doing things in a way that is similar to/better than competitors, therefore, it is risky to focus on/prioritize operational effectiveness over strategy, as the business/result is simply betting on competitors’ incompetence (Porter, 1996; Magretta, 2002; Hammonds, 2001). 

• Hammonds, K. H. (2001). Michael Porter's big ideas. Fast Company, 44, pp. 150-155.
• Magretta, J. (2002). Why business models matter. Harvard Business Review, 80, 5, pp. 86-92.
• Porter, M. E. (1996). What is Strategy? Harvard Business Strategy, 74, 6, pp. 61-78. 

I agree with everything that Kenneth refers.

There is a hierarchy in strategy where the higher level is the corporate level strategy of which there are 3 (growth, stabilization or retrenchment) which basically represents the more "WHAT to DO" that is more on strategic intent. Whereas operational effectiveness is a key operand one of the two main business level strategy (of Productivity Excellence AND Revenue Growth Strategy) that represents  "HOW to" attain the overarching corporate strategy. As such, both are needed and must be aligned for the organization to succeed

In case of SMEs, strategy or intent is their business orientation. If its proactive they accelerate the business otherwise be like herd.

In term of operational effectiveness, they have to perform traditional practices in efficient manner but with such practices, how firms will achieve sustainable goals and compete with large firms.

For example: Snapdeal (e-commerce giant in India ) and Amazon-India. Amazon wins and snapdeal is on bid.   

I believe government consistent focus and facilitation should be there for the survival and success of small firms. 

Operational effectiveness and business strategy. Which is more important?

Merely based on the above question without knowing further background or other factors, business strategy is more important because business strategy is analogous to doing the right things & operational effectiveness is analogous to doing the things right.  E.g. without knowing the business strategy, various measures of operational effectiveness might not achieve the business goals.  Moreover, business strategy is at higher / strategic level whereas operational effectiveness is at lower / operational level which can be subset of business strategy.  Business strategy can be drilled drown further to include other operational strategies like quality control, risk mitigation, customer satisfaction etc beside operational effectiveness.

operational effectiveness is a short term measure of functional managers while strategy is a senior management game plan for the future of entire organization

A strategy is a high-level plan to achieve one or more goals under conditions of uncertainty; it may be fixed to begin but usually emerges in patterns of activity as an organization adapts to its environment or competes; therefore, operational effectiveness can only be rationalized in relation to a strategy. @Samaeizadeh said it well: there is no meaning in operation without strategy or in strategy without operation: in regard to this, From Strategy to Practice, available at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/266478186_From_Strategy_to_Practice, may be of interest: the article makes the point that strategic reversals are quite commonly failures of execution. In many cases, a strategy is abandoned out of impatience or because of pressure for an instant payoff before it has had a chance to take root and yield results. Or its focal point is allowed to drift over time. To navigate a strategy, one must maintain a balance between strategizing and learning modes of thinking.

Article From Strategy to Practice

As @Olivier Serrat and @Rahmon Saka have well said, both are necessaries and related, not only in businesses, but in everything what you want achieve in your life.

Strategy is the planning that arises of your vision (business, life, career, etc,), and feeds it with concrete actions (what must I do to achieve what I want?).

These actions need to be executed with the lower possible cost of resources and time (operational effectiveness), in order to guarantee enough resources to perform all the planning.

Maybe you can be interested in ambidexterity, or the capability of exploring and exploiting knowledge simultaneously in organizations. It is an approach related with your question, which can help you to understand better the difference between both concepts.

Operational Effectiveness is the Subset of Right Business Strategy. The Business Strategy, though signifies the goals to be achieved, this must include the Operational aspects too, to improve the efficiency and effectiveness. Requires certain investment towards this as part of Business strategy.

Both are important.

In my opinion, execution is the key and it is more related to operational effectiveness

Business-level strategy is the responsibility of top management, It provides direction and goals for the business. It defines how the business wants to win in the market. It is, therefore, the bedrock upon which Operations management takes off to define and design its own operations strategy. In order to be effective, the operations strategy must be crafted in a manner that will help the organization to achieve the business goal, For instance, if the winning strategy for the business is cost leadership in the industry, the operation strategy and the design of the operation must be to achieve lowest cost possible.

Excellence in operations is worthless if it produces products or services for which there is no demand in the market. A mistake often made with lean projects. A briljant strategy without effective execution is of no use. The point is that it is not either/or: management needs to think at these two levels simultaneously, in interaction, like the voices in a fuge of Bach.