(Published Online: 28th Feb. 2007)
Which Is Better: To Make MONEY
or PROFITS?
Do you run or manage a business? If YES,
here's a question for you:- Which is better - To make money?
...OR to make PROFITS? I prefer the latter. Think about it
a little bit, and I'm sure the reason I chose the latter will
become obvious. :-)
As a Performance Enhancement Specialist,
my focus on making profits is what makes me ask business owners
this other question: "If You're Making Money, Does
That Mean You Should Not Try To Make Even MORE Money, In Less
Time, With Less Effort, At Less Cost, And Using Less Resources...So
As To Make More Profits?"
It is also the years of measurable benefits
derived from thinking as stated above, that makes me certain
of the accuracy of the following statement: "The
Best Way To Make More Money In Less Time, At Less Cost, And
Using Less Resources - So As To Make More Profits - Is To
Adopt And Implement Best Practice/Continuous Improvement Initiatives
In All Aspects Of Your Business".
What Does "Best Practice"
Mean(In Simple English)?
Best Practice is about continually striving
to do better than you did the last time - in any area of endeavour
you may be engaged in. It's about never resting on your oars
- in other words, you understand that success is a never ending
journey in the pursuit of excellence.
I like to refer to Best Practice as "Self-Development
for Organisations or Businesses". This is because
it is through the pursuit of best practice, that an organisation
tries to arrive at reliable ways to do what it does better
(i.e. continuous improvement) in a way that is sustainable,
cost-effective and also ensures its products and services
are delivered right first time, every time.
Do You Operate Best Practice Systems
In Your Business?
Do you know just how well your business
is dong now compared to 6 months ago? What about your PEOPLE
- your staff, employees, team members etc? Could they do better?
What are the standards against which you measure their performance?
Are they the right standards? Do you know how to derive the
appropriate standards or benchmarks for your employees and/or
business performance?
To do it right, you will need to think
through the process, examine your existing systems, and develop
solutions aimed at making you better able to achieve your
set goals. If you lack the necessary know-how or do not have
the time to LEARN how to do it right, PLEASE endeavour to
look for and engage the services of a competent specialist
to help you undertake this important activity.
Signs And Symptoms Of A Business
That Needs To Adopt Best Practice Systems
To get you started, I have complied a
generic listing(which is definitely NOT exhaustive) of sure
signs and symptoms that, if found in your business or organisation
strongly suggest a need for you to adopt and implement Best
Practice(Continuous Improvement and Workplace Organisation)
initiatives.
1. Your
employees/staff believe they do not get paid well for the
amount of work and effort they put in. This reflects in their
level of commitment, and the quality of work they turn out.
2.
Every now and then, when things go wrong in the workplace,
no one seems to have idea of how to go about resolving it.
Frequently a trial and error approach is adopted, sometimes
with considerable loss of money, time, resources - and even
customers/clients.
3.
You have certain individuals in your organisation who when
they are at work seem to have a knack for making things go
smoothly, but when they leave, others who work with them never
seem to get things right, and things tends to go badly - sometimes
too badly for the progress of the business.
4. You
have some individuals who when they are on duty or in charge
of certain key operations always tend to mess things up(or
so it would appear).
5. Serious
problems(like that described above) that have occurred, and
took major effort to resolve in the past, tend to re-occur
with the same devastating effects.
6.
Many of your staff grumble and complain about the work, even
though you've tried patiently and repeatedly to improve things,
and also to make them see why things are the way they are.
7.
Sometimes, key tools, items or resources crucial for ensuring
work goes smoothly get misplaced and everyone gets involved
in searching for them for long periods of time, before they
are found in a most unexpected place. By that time, avoidable
loss of paid time and output would have been incurred.
8.
Easily retrievable, comprehensive and reliable records of
daily operations, Key Performance Indicators and daily lost
time data are not available. Your records in fact are scattered
in various notebooks or other media that if you were to ask
for them might take a while to locate. And even then, they
would not be up-to-date.
9.
You do not have benchmarks/expected standards or targets for
your critical operations i.e. those which if not kept on schedule
and functioning optimally, would cause big problems that could
affect your organisation's ability to produce and deliver
products and/or services to customers to the RIGHT quality
and at the RIGHT time.
If you find even ONE of the above nine
signs/symptoms occurs in any shape or form in your business
operations/processes, KNOW that you NEED to do something to
make them ALL go away, IF you want your business to make better
progress. I offer a few suggestions in the rest of this article.
Examples Of Best Practice Concepts
You Can Apply
Best Practice(BP) is really a huge field.
There are all sorts of BP techniques and strategies that businesses
of all sizes and types favour. The large blue-chip multinational
I worked in for seven(7) years adopted a model that involved
the use of many Japanese Quality Control/Improvement techniques
and concepts e.g. "5S
Workplace Organisation". You can choose,
like I often do, to go about it using the KISS(Keep It
Simple, Stupid) philosophy. Just stick to the basics.
For instance the "5S" slogan is "A Place
For Everything. Everything In It's Place". For "Formal
Problem Solving" in the workplace, we were taught
to use the "Ishikawa" (aka "Fish Bone")
diagram - which was simply a sketch that allowed us to track
down the MAIN contributing factor(s) - aka "Root Caus(es)"
- to a problem in the workplace. This way little if anything
was missed in "analysing" the problem - so that
the solution arrived at tended to "work" more often(meaning
we found the problem's TRUE "root cause").
How Do You Get Started?
I suggest using search tools available
on the web to locate learning resources you can adapt for
your purposes. For instance, to learn about "Five(5)S
and Workplace Organisation" you can "google"
THAT string! Same applies to "Total Productive Maintenance(TPM)"
for your engineering or machine/manufacturing process related
operations; Statistical Process Control(SPC) for
your manufacturing or factory batch production operations
etc. Next, gradually apply what you learn to relevant aspects
of your business that you identified as having a need for
it. It's quite simple - and many times the websites and other
learning resources you find will provide step-by step guidance
to help you get up and running. Then your search results should
also turn up links to a few books you can purchase online
on these subjects.
Summary
Regardless of the environment in which
a business operates, the constant search for cost-effective
improved or alternative ways of getting the desired results
or products will always yield increased returns in financial
and/or operational terms.
Therefore any organisation that wants
to remain increasingly profitable and ahead of the competition,
will need to CONTINUALLY explore best practice ways of doing
whatever it does better. "Better" in the foregoing
context means using LESS effort, LESS time, at LOWER cost,
with FEWER resources, even as the product or service quality
delivered remains constant or gets better. Start doing the
necessary groundwork and research to get your business operating
on best practice principles, and sooner than you expect, you'll
be reaping the rewards in more ways than you can keep count
of!
Read my article titled "Business
Best Practice Ideas(4): Use Simple Statistics/Logical Reasoning
For Performance Measurement & Process Control".
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