THE BASIC ‘BUILDING BLOCK OF VALUE’: EFFICIENCY.

It’s been a bit over a week or so since I’ve written, so it’s definitely time to get back to it.  Sorry, if you have been wondering where I went.

A while ago, I wrote about the need to be focussed on what the customer wants – to be responsive to their needs.  Today, I want to talk about why it is also important to be efficient in everything that you do – and it’s not just about saving money!

The reason that you are in business,or you are thinking about gettting into business, is to create value for your customer.  

I know, I know…  the ‘real’ reason that you are in business is to ‘make-a-heap-of-cash-and-to-quit-working-for-the-man-and-live-a-life-of-luxury-on-the-French-Riviera’ right?

Wrong.

Unless you come up with the next big thing chances are it’s going to be a lot harder than you think to get to that life of luxury. The good news, though, is that there are few things that you can do in order to do well.

Being efficient in everything that you do can be a really good way to gain an advantage over your competitors – but it can be short lived if your competition notices what you are doing and tries to copy your methods.  That doesn’t mean that seeking to be efficient is a bad thing, or a waste of time:  it isn’t.

Consider this:  You are manufacturing widgets (or some other thing that your customers value) and you find a way to be more efficient in the process.  Let’s say that you find a way to re-organise your office so that information flows more evenly through the office and there is less chance of important messages being lost.  Because you are getting messages more quickly, you are able to deal with problems faster.  Recovery from mistakes is faster; and you can improve your communication with your important suppliers, customers and others.  Since you are now able to get in contact with your customers in a more timely manner, they like you more – and feel more comfortable with either keeping their business with you, or maybe even recommending you to their contacts, friends and family.

It can work for service organisations as well.  I recently instituted a policy where I only look at my email twice a day – at 11am and 4pm.  Since I get to work at 8am, I have three hours of uninterrupted time to get the most important things in my day out of the way – the things that I absolutely need to do in order to get me closer to my goals.  At 11am, I fire up my email client and I answer ALL of the emails that are there.   Normally I have about 25 or 30 emails waiting for me, and I can burn through them fairly quickly – typically in less than 1/2 an hour.  If there is one there that requires a lot more work, I shoot an email off to whoever wrote to me to tell them that I’m working on it offline and that I’ll get back to them later. I then schedule that task into my day and I close own my email client.  

I now have another 4 1/2 hours before I get interrupted again.  With such a big chunk of time, I can get a lot of work done.

The results have been astounding.  I am getting a lot more done in my day and I am focussing on each task individually which means that each task gets done to a higher quality.  My customers (the people who are paying the bills) like it more.  They enjoy the fact that things are getting done.  Progress.

It hasn’t been easy, but my colleagues (those that have noticed anyway) have come to learn that if they email me after 4pm that they won’t get an answer before 11am the next day.  My students, similarly so.  In fact, it has been such a success that I have set up an autoresponder to inform anyone who emails me on a Friday that I won’t get back to them until Monday at 11am.  I don’t even check my emails on Friday or over the weekend and since I don’t physically have to be present in my office to do my job, I often work from home on Fridays where I can get complete uninterrupted time to focus on my research.  I get so much more done this way.

The result?  Research gets done.  Work gets done.  Everyone knows that they will get an answer from me as soon as it turns 11am or 4pm and they are happy.

Competitive advantage through being efficient.

What efficiency measures do you put in place to ensure that you have a competitive edge?