Efficiency

When you are looking for ways to make your company more efficient, you have several choices available to you.

• You can purchase a solution (software or services)
• You can purchase a software solution and provide your own services
• You can build it in-house with your own resources
• You can avoid software and optimize manually
• You can do nothing

What you might not realize is that there is a cost associated with each of these alternatives, even the choice to do nothing.

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions

There is an inherent cost associated with inefficiency too. Most companies can complie these costs without external help and there are plenty of articles on return on investment (ROI) alternatives that can be found on the internet. You can also obtain one from us here at Ingenuus. The real goal is to balance the costs of inefficiency with the costs of efficiency.

Purchase a Solution (Software and Services)

You can get a quote from various suppliers for a complete solution - software and services. This total cost can be amoritized over a few years. This is done because typically the costs are so high, ROI is not normally reached in one year. Depending on your company's particular criteria, this rule applies - if the cost of inefficency (doing nothing) is greater than the cost of the solution, then you should purchase a total solution.

Purchase a Software Solution (Software only)

You can elect to only purchase the software and use internal resources to get the work done. In an already stressed work environment, this will likely lead to more inefficiency until the project is complete. It is also difficult to obtain internal resources, and to determine what the actual cost is to the company. Still, if you can determine the cost, and it is less than the cost of inefficiency, you should select this option. Be warned that you may have to "discount" the amount you are saving by using internal resources if your organization and people are already maxed out.

Build a Solution In-House (Custom)

This has been the de-facto standard for many companies for several years. Like in the example above, since all the resources are coming from your existing resources, if they are maxed or stressed this will adversely effect the accuracy of the evaluation, and increase the cost. Also, this is the most difficult type of project to cost out. In fact, there are "project portfolio management" software products available to help companies manage their internal projects! You should ask yourself, "Is this the best use of my company resources?" "Are we good at software development?" "What is the long term cost of supporting this product with changes, bug fixes, and upgrades?" If your company is not in the software development business, not matter how good your IT department is, this is probably not a good decision. Still, if the cost of inefficiency is greater than the cost of this option, you should select it.

Avoid Software (Manual)

Some companies avoid a software solution completely, relegating efficiency and optimization to manual methods such as Six Sigma, Total Quality Management, or Lean principles. Although significant efficiencies and optimization can be achieved using these techniques, due to the intensity of the manual effort involved, only processes deemed "critical" are optimized even though other non-critical processes can have an averse effect on the optimized process, reducing the efficiency gain. Because real time data is not available, determining costs and savings from manual optimization is difficult. The rule still applies - if the cost of inefficiency is greater than the cost of a manual system, then this is a viable option.

Do Nothing

Even if you persist with your current practices and do nothing believing that inefficiency is simply a "cost of doing business" and cannot be avoided, there is still a cost associated with that. Because you have not addressed it, then it is very likely that you don't know what you don't know, and you have no idea how much money you are wasting doing nothing.et’s define a front line process as a collection of related, structured activities [a chain of events] that produce a service or product. These are the kinds of processes that tend to get management’s attention. They are performed daily and their costs are not insignificant.

What’s in it for your Company?

Efficiency will always improve your company’s bottom line. A company that spends $250K for a solution that saves them $1 million annually, will see profit increase by $750k. There are costly inefficiencies hidden all over your organization hiding behind the belief that these inefficiencies are simply the cost of doing business and there is nothing that can be done about it. Well, that is simply not true. Ingenuus consultants can help you find inefficiencies in any business process and tell you how to improve, freeing up hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars that can fall directly to the bottom line. Efficiency, more often than not, results in improved quality. And, a Remarkable Return on Investment.