The Biggest Cost of Business (Part 1 of 7)

"Great is the man that complicate the simple, but greater is the man that simplifies the complicated. That's why the foundation of an atom bomb is only "E=MC2" - WindyG In any business, you would find this universal cost. It's a cost even the big conglomerate cannot escape from. This cost is known as plainly as time. For any business to be profitable, the management of this cost is critical. Time is an "unlimited" resource that businesses have the privilege of "buying", if it can afford its price. When time is paid for, businesses have to keenly manage it with a mindset that it is priceless. Probably worth more than a thousand million times the price it is bought for. That is if you really need to tag it with a price. Simply by leveraging with strategic management and executing common sense decisions (most of the time they are unpopular or even painful) on this valuable resource, a business could be resurrected "overnight" from the "dead". Let's find out how. I wish to simply share my thoughts about how I would manage this priceless resource in seven parts. This is only part one. Do have the patience to walk with me. Processing Engineering (Simplify the Simple) Having a first hand view of many businesses' processes, I was amused by many processes that were created for policies and not for productivity sake. This help many departments justify their costs and why they cannot do more. Systems and processes are meant to serve. They are not meant to be served. So the solitary question that is to be urgently asked is, "Are you being served or you are serving the systems?" Though the well circulated phrase of "K.I.S.S' (Keep It Simple Stupid) may sound vulgar or disrespectful; it encompasses all the techniques which all processes engineers must keep in mind. Sadly though, many focus how to look busier, rather than how to do things faster or better. Recently I had the privilege of reviewing some online office/sales management applications on behalf of a client. With a mindset of a macho male, I was more intrigue by the applications that gave me all whistles and bells (though most unproductive), instead on the ones that is really simple and highly productive. Realizing that, I urged and beseech my client to go for the simple application that gives him the results faster, over the complicated application that gave him the results too but not before going around the world 30 times. To sum it up, all projects has to keep in mind only three detailed objectives and discard the rest that WILL slow its achievement. It's really all very simple. So let's not complicate it. Simply yours, Michael Kuan