It is a fact that in recent times many companies have been growing in a disorganized and unstructured way. Without worrying too much about efficiency. This resulted in swelling and increased sundries structures.
Everyone was elated by the pursuit of realizing business opportunities that seemed unmissable and popped every time. How many of these opportunities were indeed realized, efficiency has been overlooked.
And often consciously.
I have an example that depicts this well. A company (can not reveal the name) had launched a very innovative development. I bet on an idea and moved on. It worked. The margin on the sale of the products were very high, even compared to other successful enterprises in the market it worked. But this euphoria neglect of "production". Budgets blew frequently.
The problem is to "clean house" at that time, it was necessary to invest in systems to avoid rework and increase control of what was happening. Furthermore I needed to do an organizational restructuring and investing in the training of people.
But that takes time. It requires energy, dedication. And the decision was to continue acting that way.
If the decision was right or not, only time will tell.
The fact is that the time is now another! In times of uncertainty, hidden costs that were perceived not begin to be controlled at the tip of the pencil. Policies of travel expenses and transportation became more rigid.
This is the result of a new economic cycle, associated with political instability.Now it is much more evident the need to make adjustments before even we realized. Margins decreased. People were cut. Those that were are having to produce more, Work more hours per day.
Companies and their employees will have to face many new challenges to achieve achieve the agreed results.
And the big question now is do it intelligently. Go beyond "just fire people."
How to make a smart cost reduction? Will I have to invest in systems? Review processes? Restructure all the current management model?
Not always!
The solution may already be in "home". A focused and driven and work with the leaders and company managers can help in the identification and definition of unconventional ways to increase efficiency and intelligent cost reduction. A pragmatic, simple plan, which has concrete targets and results, measurable and is accompanied by clear implementation actions can be the solution.