| |DECEMBER 20199Consultants Reviewform of so called potential costs savings which are nothing but wast-ages which we had simply become used to ! Perhaps a simpler exercise would be to ensure that these hi-fi MBAs can be given a specific task force of department wise submitting a report directly to top management about which of the areas in each depart-ment can costs be saved and brought down by 15 percent. And then imple-ment the top 3-5 ideas. Since they are freshers, they have no egss to grind, nor are accustomed to the work-ing of the routine. Hence they can take a more objective call on what is being wasted. Capex is the most abusive word today for most CFO's. In this day and age of `Asset Light' which is the fancy of all investors. All the more the fo-cus on the wastages that may not be producing any value. I'm reminded of Benjamin Franklins quote It is easier to build two chimneys than to keep one in fuel- Benjamin FranklinBecause keeping anything go-ing profitably is always the main challenge (well unless your one of the new age so called startups or so called tech companies, who are ap-parently mandated to lose money!) So if your not one of those start-ups and/or tech companies, then you Some need to manage that chimney. Focus on the wastages within the business big and small. of the areas that are commonly looked at nowa-days is `Digitization' and while i'm for digitization and so called paperless, both are not always a good thing. For many applications, Paper or low tech options are far better. Not only because of the other cost of digitiza-tion. I mean think of all the power consumption by the computers, serv-ers and subsequent air-conditioning. How many phones and chargers and extra batteries do we need and carry. I have found it better to have areas like marketing materials and samples its always easier to browse in hard copy than going through vast number of files on the computer. Think of the cost of licenses and the cost of AMC being paid to each vendor. While im certainly not advocating to avoid or stop any of it. I feel that many areas costs can be reduced by focusing on whats really required. Every so often I cross many build-ings in BKC Mumbai while going for dinner and see whole host of build-ings with their lights on. Only so that the house keeping guys can clean. As can be seen cleaning through the glass windows. But irrespective of which location they are working in the lights are on in the entire build-ing including the glamorous confer-ence rooms. Maybe while cleaning all that's needed is 50 percent of the lights. That saved everyday for the entire building is direct profit and potential money that can be used elsewhere. Simple things of wastage like this can be identified throughout the orga-nization and must be done on a con-tinuous basis. Just like deep breath-ing, wastage reduction is something we all know but we all need remind-ing constantly. Because like breath-ing in the hectic busy issues that keep attacking us we forget to find where we can stop wastage from happening. That benefits us all. Vikram Kamat, Managing DirectorDisruptive changes not because of innovation by some start up or competition, but rather disruption to the ultimate controller of the Economy i.e. the government
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