Successful companies commit significant resources to the relentless task of staying competitive, streamlined and innovative. Unfortunately, the ‘most advanced’ production technologies are not always the most economical. To mitigate the risk of being caught in a spiral of escalating and unproductive expense, consider the following ways to manage organizational cost.
Identify Processes That Don’t Process!
Although few of us give much thought to the processes that run our companies, the fact is that almost every company has inefficient, or completely unnecessary processes. These processes don’t actually support the business, but they certainly consume resources and generate costs. Sometimes the most complex process challenges, can be evaluated with the simplest approach, such as physically walking through the process to identify what actually happens at each stage. You can perform effective health checks on business processes using four simple assessment metrics: cycle time, defect rate, cost and value.
Lower Taxes with Green Technology
Increasingly, Governments are taking a harder line on reducing carbon emissions and backing legislation with substantial penalties. Many organizations launch energy efficiency mandates, but a high percentage of these initiatives tend to stall due to complexity, expense or simply not knowing where to start! There are energy efficiency solutions, which don’t often grab the headlines, but whose cost benefit is amazing. EcoCOOL® is an engineered synthetic catalyst, designed specifically to improve operational performance and restore lost efficiency to refrigeration and air conditioning systems. In many parts of the world, refrigeration and air conditioning can represent 60%+ of your utility bill; for large organizations that is a very big number, but more importantly, it’s regarded as a number that has to be accepted. With technologies such as EcoCOOL® you can improve energy efficiency by 20% or more and that has a direct and positive impact on your utility costs. Because EcoCOOL® is installed once and lasts for the life of your refrigeration and air conditioning equipment, this unique product generates free cash-flow year after year, (the average life of well maintained HVAC equipment is over 20 years).EcoCOOL® is delivering energy efficiency benefits in 41+ countries, across every type of business and organization. It also happens to be a ‘green’ technology, so it checks the boxes for reducing both carbon emissions and operating cost.
Under-utilized Space? Eliminate It…
Studies have shown that about 40% of the space occupied by businesses, is rarely used. Right sizing your space in-line with the real needs of the business, will have an immediate impact on overhead costs. Be realistic about how much space your business actually needs. On the other hand, if you are dealing with business expansion, you might discover that you already have that extra room; it was never noticed, because it was never used.
Opt for Virtual Meetings
This is an obvious cost saver! It’s a lot more expensive to fly your employees to a meeting than having them attend a virtual conference. With recent improvements in the accessibility of virtual collaboration technologies, you can now rely on software and communications equipment from top brands (Microsoft, GoToMeeting, and WebEx), to help your meetings proceed smoothly.
Negotiate For What You Use Most
Whether you are an established organization, or a shiny new start-up, it can be extremely valuable to identify which products your organization uses most; it’s also likely, that your organization will have a high dependency on those products. Consider strategies such as negotiating pricing discounts, or other benefits, with the product providers. Companies have achieved significant savings through joining with other organizations to form buying cooperatives; enhanced buying power is great formula for winning group discounts.
Successful organizations are in a state of constant change, or preparation for change. The status quo must evolve constantly in-tune with market demand and legislation. We hope these thoughts have been helpful in encouraging you to take a fresh look at reducing costs, improving energy efficiency and turning green!
