Efficiency is an important goal of business, but it’s important to define what that means. You could define it in terms of time, that is, how much productivity you are able to summon based on the kind of output you need to meet, balanced within how long it takes to achieve such a result. You could also think of it in terms of an investment, that is, how much a particular staff member brings to the table and how much more they could do if you invested in their training.
But perhaps one of the most reliable indicators of efficiency is how much fat you’re able to cut from a process or protocol and still retain the same result. For instance, if your printers are already loaded with paper and ready to go, no staff member has to fill the machine with A4 paper before printing out their work materials, saving time. This minor example shows the spirit of how efficiency functions best. In this post, we’ll discuss a few measures for increasing that, year on year.
Lessening Dead Weight
You’d be surprised at how easily firms can accumulate dead weight. From unnecessary stock orders that seem to last forever in the storage room, serving as unnecessary inventory, to old office furniture sets kept and never sold, all the way up to certain staff that may not be improving their productivity despite thorough investment and training, all of this can be a real problem and be cause for concern. It’s important to get to the root of the issue and never just treat symptoms, as the underlying causes are often the most difficult to get to grips with.
Renegotiating Deals
It’s important to renegotiate deals where appropriate, be that supplier deals that may have become less competitive than what other entities can offer, or perhaps recalibrating the terms of an employment contract. As the market moves and your business changes with it, it can sometimes be easy to recognize that you’re operating in the situation of ten years ago rather than the one you require to be consistent for today. It might be that once again updating these terms where appropriate helps you make more pressing business decisions that help you now and into the mid-term future.
Optimizing Where Appropriate
Systems for business are often improved when implemented as a full necessity of what your business requires now, not what it could require. These systems, applied by computer programs that help automate some processes while also giving full authority to manage others, can help you look at your business as a series of interlocking efforts, synergizing as one, rather than a range of disparate measures seeking to keep your business afloat. These software management techniques have given firms the chance to unlock their capabilities, and constantly review outdated considerations.
With this advice, we hope you can see how firms become more efficient year on year, and what to do about them.