
There are very few organisations large or small that can genuinely claim that their businesses are functioning at their optimum performance, so is yours?
Some areas of business are regarded as boring or insignificant and therefore immaterial, subsequently they are ignored or put on the infamous "Back Burner" and costs and operational processes spiral out of control.
Areas that often fall into this category are:
• The Purchase arrangements for stationery, office supplies and computer consumables.
• Marketing material.
• Internal mail distribution.
• Waste Management.
• Management of the issue and return of staff uniforms.
• Vehicle/Fleet Management.
• Management of Temporary Staff.
• Mobile Telephone Management.
• Etc, Etc, Etc.
The reasons often given for projects going onto the "Back Burner" include:
We do not have enough time to deal with this at the moment -
Which translates as "Laziness"
We do not have the resources to deal with this -
Which translates as "I am too important to deal with it"
It is not the flavour of the month at the moment. Which translates as "Nobody has thought of it yet"
It cannot cost us much really -
Which translates as "Lethargy"
We completed a project for a company where the MD believed that his groups' annual expenditure on stationery and office supplies was in the region of a seventh of what it actually was.
After completing an initial health check we identified significant opportunities to make radical operational improvements that streamlined the entire Head office work stream and improved efficiency. In addition we achieved annual on going cost savings in excess of twice the original estimate of the total spend.
He would have had to sell an awful lot of products to make that sort of profit.
During a subsequent conversation when asked why he had not referred us to his business colleagues, his response was, "I could never have admitted that I had let it get that bad" On a positive note we were engaged to carry out another project in one of his other companies within 2 weeks of that conversation!

If you have a project on the "Back Burner" no matter how small or apparently insignificant, why not let us become the flavour of your month!






