While touring a company in the San Gabriel Valley recently, I saw a goldmine of improvement opportunities. When I shared some ideas for a proposal of services, the managers responded that they “had things under control” and an internal resource would work on some ideas.
Their hesitation was obvious… “Doesn’t hiring a Consultant mean we’re not doing our job?”
Naturally I followed up thirty days later and saw that no action had taken place. This is typical since managers so often get sucked into the Day-to-Day Whirlwind of managing the business and don’t have time to look at Longer-Term Improvements.
It also reminded me of the classic cartoon about the machine gun salesman knocking on the backdoor of the castle engaged in a fierce battle and being told… “we don’t have time!”
This bothered me so much that I made a deal they couldn’t refuse…let me come in and just be a “fly on the wall” and observe one department for 2 hours.
Wow!! The inefficiency I discovered and opportunities for improvement were much greater than I expected. Only 10% of the work the staff were doing was Value-Added… everything else was WASTE!
The resulting project identified eight times (8X) my proposed fees in:
- Inventory Reduction/Cashflow Improvement
- Reduced Space
- Increased Operator Efficiency/Decreased Manhours
- Increased Productivity
Are there opportunities to improve your operations and generate some substantial savings? What if someone was able to identify savings that could generate an 8X Return on Investment for you? At minimum, wouldn’t that be worth an initial conversation?
Working with a Consultant doesn’t mean managers are not doing their job… it is a realization that a fresh set of trained eyes can often uncover huge hidden potential. While we don’t always generate 8x in savings for Clients, achieving 3x to 5x is very common. I look forward to hearing your feedback and scheduling a meeting to further discuss your business.
What is your hidden potential?