A recent Industry Week article outlined a recipe for post-recession market leadership in manufacturing that will work for your industry too. After all, the real key to a quick recovery is good execution. So what’s the secret to turn-around success?
- Leverage Your Human Capital
Your people should be the biggest asset you have. Use them. Solicit their ideas, get them on board, and let them take ownership. - Benchmark the Gap Between Reported, Actual, and Potential Efficiency
You’re never as efficient as you think you are, and you probably don’t know how efficient you could be. - Take Action
Identify the efficiency improvements that will give you the biggest bang for your buck and go for them.
For many of you, you’ll start with step 2 and hire a consultant who is an expert in efficiency in each of the areas that offer the greatest opportunities for savings. She’ll help you understand how well you’re really doing against how well you think you’re doing, how well you could be doing, and some general directions to get there. Then you’ll use your people to select the roads that are likely to work best for your company and the modes of transportation to get there. Then you’ll take the trip.
With respect to (your) sourcing and procurement (department), this means that you will:
- Hire a data analysis and category expert to analyze your spending and operations and identify your best cost reduction opportunities.
- Use your people to evaluate systems that will help you capture the cost reduction potential and manage the opportunities you have identified.
- Decide on the categories to attack and the systems to use and empower your team to take action.