Surface Ripples

Wasting Value

Occasionally, organisations and individuals looking to ‘do things better’ ask me to facilitate ‘Productivity Workshops’.  ‘Productivity’ means different things to different people: the way we use our time, how we carry out certain processes, the availability of certain services and others.  One concept that is frequently overlooked but comes within the ambit of ‘Productivity’ is ‘Value’.

The reason that many want to increase productivity is to increase actual value delivered to their customers.  ‘Value’ again can mean different things to different people.  Take, for example, a free meal on a 2-hour flight. For some, this has no value, for others, it’s part of the ‘in-flight experience’ that they’ve paid for.  Low-Cost Carriers (LCCs) have recognised that not everyone wants (or needs) a free meal and plenty of legroom on a 2-hour flight and have developed business models that deliver on-time, low-cost flights with quality service between destinations to travellers prepared to do without meals and legroom.  

One aspect of value that goes unnoticed is waiting – one of the single most common (apart from checking) occurrences.  We can spend considerable time waiting: in queues, in offices, at meetings.  Whilst we wait, our time is slipping away and, if we should be at work, our colleagues and office are also losing the benefit of the work we could be putting in there.  This costs our business money. 

The advance of technology is eroding (or even eliminating) waiting times in many cases.  With no end to the current coronavirus pandemic, it’s even more important now that we spend as little time as possible waiting in crowded areas.  

If we were to count the number of hours spent waiting in our day, it would come as a shock.  We need to eliminate as many processes as possible if they increase waiting times, especially if this is for no good reason (from the customer’s and operator’s point of view).

What can we eliminate from our processes?    What’s not adding value, or duplicates what’s been done before or will be done after?  How many cases have we seen where that extra step has actually resulted in catching an error, or are errors rare?  What would be the consequences of the error slipping through?  If it can be corrected easily and with little to no cost to customer and operator, why not remove that step?

Labels: Customer Care, Financial, Leadership, Productivity, Strategy, Teamwork

posted by William Martin @ 08:57