Entrepreneurial Yeast

·April 24, 2024 09:21

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Fake actions cannot solve real problems.

Will your company use the slogan of "reducing costs and increasing efficiency" to create a bunch of ineffective but disgusting fake actions?

Nowadays, many enterprises are striving to reduce costs and increase efficiency.

However, they only know how to cut salaries, lay off employees, and cut projects, which makes people feel anxious.

In fact, to truly reduce costs and increase efficiency, three standards must be met: true cost reduction, true efficiency improvement, and improving customer satisfaction.

The biggest problem for many companies in the process of reducing costs and increasing efficiency is that they have resorted to a series of "fake actions".

So, what are the fake actions? We have summarized the following 6 points. Share with you.

01 Malignant cost reduction

Some companies, in order to so-called reduce costs, use malicious means to force employees to resign.

For example, when he wants to deal with someone, he sends HR to monitor attendance, being late counts as absenteeism, and dismissing them.

Or transfer someone from their original position, assign a new person to take over all of their customer relationships, leave them there, and then criticize them for poor performance, indirectly causing employees to resign.

Anyway, there are many tricks, there is always one that can drive people away.

The most bizarre thing is a company in Xi'an that, in order to lay off employees without compensation, exaggeratedly moved its office from CBD to the Qinling Mountains, and demanded that it clock in at 9am in the morning, maliciously forcing people to leave.

Such malicious cost reduction may even make them feel smart and HR proud.

Not to mention whether it is illegal or not, cost reduction and efficiency improvement will definitely not be achieved because other employees can see it and will feel cold, treating the company in a worse state.

02 Invalid cost reduction

Some companies, when facing difficulties, their first reaction is panic.

In a panic, he resorted to various fake actions, cut some irrelevant expenses, and seek peace of mind.

For example, canceling benefits, cutting holidays, canceling shuttle buses, even controlling air conditioning temperature, stopping tissue supply

These are all ineffective cost reductions, visible small coins. Finally, if all the employees are offended, the benefits cannot be improved.

In fact, while companies reduce employee welfare costs, they often increase "invisible" management costs.

If you cut off transportation subsidies, sales will reduce the frequency of visiting customers, and when reimbursing transportation expenses, there will be layers of approval, which will also increase a lot of management costs.

For example, many companies hold meetings to discuss whether to dismiss their cleaning staff in order to reduce costs. All staff take turns cleaning, and the meetings are held ten or eight times alone.

Ineffective meetings and ineffective labor lead to an extreme increase in various costs, let alone efficiency.

You should know that running in winter is definitely helpful for the body, but to resist the cold winter, it cannot be solved by running.

03 Share costs equally among departments

Some companies engage in cost reduction and efficiency improvement by determining a cost reduction figure and then sharing the costs equally among various departments.

For example, if we want to reduce costs by 500000 this month, then the sales department will decrease by 100000, the operations department will decrease by 100000, the technical department will decrease by 100000, the online department will decrease by 100000, and the human resources and administrative departments will decrease by 100000.

Turn cost reduction into a task, with each department fighting independently under KPI guidance. If you lay off employees, I will lower my salary. If you find outsourcing, I will purchase tools and consumables at a low price

Seemingly reducing costs, but in reality, it's a big deal to save money.

Reducing costs and increasing efficiency is a top priority project that requires a global perspective rather than equal distribution among departments.

Without a comprehensive plan by the leader to promote transformative cost reduction and efficiency improvement, relying solely on each department to showcase their strengths, such cost reduction and efficiency improvement will eventually become a joke.

04 only knows how to reduce costs, but cannot see waste

In fact, what enterprises should reduce the most is not costs, but waste.

So, what is the difference between "cost" and "waste"?

Cost refers to the financial and material resources that must be wasted in order to carry out production and business activities or achieve certain goals, which is called cost.

For example, when you develop a product, the cost of raw materials, transportation, operation, and paying employees are all costs.

Costs can be reduced, but not easily.

If a company sacrifices product quality and uses inferior raw materials and simpler processes in order to reduce costs, it will inevitably harm the user experience and ultimately shake the foundation of the company's existence.

So, what is waste? The parts of the cost you pay that do not create value for customers and they will not pay are considered waste.

For example, communication waste caused by information asymmetry, efficiency waste caused by cumbersome systems and processes, and so on. These wastes not only consume the company, but also the employees and customers.

So, in order to improve efficiency and reduce costs, we need to discover and eliminate waste.

05 only knows how to reduce personnel, but disregards the value of harming customers

The biggest waste of a company is undoubtedly the waste of talent.

Placing talents in inappropriate positions, reducing the use of large talents, and preventing thousands of miles of horses from galloping on the battlefield, while letting them push and grind, are all wastes of talents.

The hidden costs generated by talent waste are very significant and are also the most easily overlooked. Because people are more concerned about explicit costs such as employee salaries and bonuses.

So, once costs are reduced, the first people to be laid off are those with higher costs, such as technical backbone, high P talents, and so on.

But by doing so, it is very likely to lay off truly valuable people, fail to keep up with the quality of products and services, harm customer value, reduce costs and increase efficiency, and turn it into a laughing matter of reducing costs and increasing efficiency.

For example, some bosses find that the commission they receive from selling COVID-19 products is too high, and they follow the trend to reduce costs and increase efficiency, cutting off those who receive the most money.

But he never expected that the more they took, the more value they contributed to the company. He cut down with one blow, and even the customer relationship was cut off along with the sales crown.

Do you still remember last year when Didi Taxi crashed? Lost 10 million orders and 400 million sales in one day.

What is the reason? Mainly lies in vigorously promoting cost reduction and efficiency improvement.

The old employees who are familiar with the code have been laid off, the system investment has decreased, the operation and maintenance personnel are insufficient, and people's minds have fluctuated. It is inevitable that they will neglect their work.

You see, on the surface, HR feels that I have cut a huge labor cost, but in reality, it has caused great harm to the company and even damaged customer value.

Many companies, like ghosts and gods, are able to "precisely" cut off capable people every time.

In fact, the cost of employment is not judged by the amount of wages paid by the enterprise, but by the value that employees contribute to the enterprise.

Human resources are capital, not cost. Do not lay off employees easily unless absolutely necessary. The more we reduce costs and increase efficiency, the more we need to focus on our core competitiveness.

Never pour the child and water together while pouring the shower water.

06 Efficiency enhancement of formalism

Some companies have turned cost reduction and efficiency increase into a "mobile war".

Usually at the end of the year, when accounting is done and costs increase and profits decrease, they start shouting for cost reduction and efficiency improvement, and occasionally engage in sports activities. When the exercise came, it was grand and exciting, but after the exercise, there were no feathers on the ground.

The people below do not have a deep understanding of cost reduction and efficiency improvement. They do whatever they say and gradually become formalism, showing it to the people above.

For example, if the boss says he wants to improve efficiency, he will work overtime and demand that everyone work overtime regardless of whether the work is completed or not.

As a result, everyone started performing overtime, the boss didn't leave and I didn't leave. Everyone was slacking off, looking busy, but there was no fundamental improvement in efficiency.

In addition to time, there is also workload involved. Busy every day, seemingly doing a lot of things with high efficiency, but doing a lot of small things, not doing a single big thing, or doing a mess.

An increase in action but no change in result is called a false action, which is formalism.

Focusing on "form" rather than "actual results" can only increase internal friction within the organization, posing a huge threat to the company.

In short, the biggest problem with cost reduction and efficiency improvement is the implementation of a series of fake actions. Fake actions cannot solve real problems. To truly overcome difficulties, enterprises must truly reduce costs and increase efficiency.

This article is from the WeChat official account "Chuangyejiaomu" (ID: chuangyejiaomu), the author: Yeast Research Institute, 36 krypton is authorized to release.

The viewpoint of this article only represents the author himself, and the 36Kr platform only provides information storage space services.

降本增效最大的问题，是搞了一堆“假动作”