Posted by: Todd Larsen, CEO of Limitless Technology~Cost Reduction Specialists
Wouldn’t you agree…?
…Most organizations have wonderful personnel that each and every day go to work giving their absolute best effort to ensure a company is working efficiently.
Whether you agree or not, I believe understanding efficiency is knowing exactly what that word or term means. Let’s look at the dictionary definition:
ef·fi·cien·cy
// Show Spelled [ih-fish–uh n-see] Show IPA
noun, plural ef·fi·cien·cies.
1. the state or quality of being efficient; competency in performance
2. accomplishment of or ability to accomplish a job with a minimum expenditure of time and effort: The assembly line increased industry’s efficiency.
3. the ratio of the work done or energy developed by a machine, engine, etc., to the energy supplied to it, usually expressed as a percentage.
So now we know what the definition of efficiency is…so let’s look at the most important key to the definition as it is defined, and according to what I will call employed expectation.
Most Companies believe their employees should know near everything about their job function. And while this is an incredible ideal, would you say it is realistic? Most Companies believe their employees have a deep level of knowledge, which in truth, is difficult to obtain or is unavailable to them. In telecom it would be in some areas such as:
- constantly changing pricing
- competitive pricing
- new product and services
- vendor margin modeling
- vendor cost allocations
- affimity discount programs
- vertical discount programs
- taxation differentiations
- tariff rates
- USOC codes
- USF rate charges
- CSR reports
- CDR reports
- Utilization Reports
Then if they made available to them how do they decipher the information, and how long will a Company give the employee to not only learn, but perform this function when they have multiple other job duties which may be considered to have higher priorities. Most often learning of his kind is not in the employees training, mentoring or readily available to them. Yet it is expected by many Companies the employee(s) deliver on an ongoing basis, effective and efficient procured services which are optimized. So wouldn’t this contradict the first belief?
And…often times Companies burden their employees with the fear of failure in these types of disciplines, because the employees feel they should have their “Companies best interest in mind at all times”. What is not realized, is that employees do have best interests in mind. So the struggle remains between levels of expertise, capabilities and what is most important to accomplish that day. This often detracts from an employee being able to provide additional efficiencies and effectiveness for Company’s billings regarding their products or services.
Highlighted above is the key to efficiency ” to accomplish a job with a minimum expenditure of time and effort”. If a capability does not inherently exist within a Company, and is not already a part of the process and being performed in a machine like manner….Wouldn’t it go to say that some services are much better off being outsourced than in-sourced?
Remember…when you are making the decisions that impact the profitability, effectiveness and efficiency within your business unit or for your entire Company, find the expertise that will ensure efficiency in what you are trying to accomplish.
