December 15, 2024 • 11 mins
Sue and Simon discuss Chapter 9 - Is the projected saving real? from their book "Every Second Counts: How to Achieve Business Excellence, Transform Operational Productivity, and Deliver Extraordinary Results."
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Rethink Productivity podcast.
We're back today with EverySecond Counts and we're on
chapter nine.
Is the projected saving real?
So brings me out in a coldsweat.
Really one of those where we'llget into the detail of case
studies and quick wins.
But we've created a projectmaybe not even our function.
(00:20):
Somebody's come up with anamazing benefit that we're going
to save millions and millionsof pounds or we're going to add
millions and millions of poundsworth of sales, or we're going
to do both.
That all flows through lands onyour desk and somebody says
crack on, how do we get themoney out?
Sound familiar, sue.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Yep, it's always a challenge, isn't it?
Because once those costs, thosesavings are baked in then they
don't usually come out, do they?
Speaker 1 (00:52):
so once a project is in flow, it really needs to
deliver and there's a realbalance then between being the
voice of reason to being thenegative naysayer that all you
always say that we'veoverestimated, or you always say
we can't go there.
And some of that comes back toprevious chapters around the
business understanding how youbudget, if you use use cost of
sale, if you use a bottom-upmetric with some top-down
principles.
But ultimately, for those thatunderstand labour models and run
(01:12):
them, there's alwaysintricacies of minimum manning,
of base levels, of ways that thehours are calculated.
That means it's not as simpleas if we spend a thousand hours
on this process and we can dosome tech or some new machinery.
That means we can make it 50%quicker, that we can actually
(01:34):
take those hours and bank themas savings.
There's lots of other factorsand influences.
That sometimes means you canaccess all of it, none of it, a
proportion of it, which peopledon't quite want to hear.
When there's a certain ratiothey need of saving to make sure
they can spend the money on thetech or the process.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Yeah, and what this chapter is really inspired by is
the work that we've done withpeople where they've kind of got
a project that they'veimplemented and then we've gone
in to measure what's the impactof it implemented and then we've
gone in to measure what's theimpact of it.
So in an ideal world thatprobably happens in a in an
early phase of the the projectrollout, because it can help you
refine it and get it better.
But actually in some instancesit's been when it's been all
(02:15):
done, all rolled out, andactually when we've then gone to
look, it's often when peopleare kind of not sure they're
getting the benefits and we'vethen gone to look and do some
measurement and we're able togive them some really granular
detail about what's not working,where there's best practice.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
uh, you know the best way to do things and some of
that means you need to knowwhat's happening in current
state.
So pre and post are reallypopular.
We're going to change thisprocess.
We've got no existingmeasurement or you did the
measurement for us before.
It was a while ago.
Can you come and refresh it?
Or actually it's up to date?
That's our benchmark, to startwith, our baseline.
We're going to put it in fortrial stores.
(02:53):
Can you come and understand theimpact?
And this isn't negative.
Sometimes the impact can be alot greater than they've
absolutely decided.
So do you take that benefit?
Do you save it for later?
Or back to chapter eight?
Is it something that goes onyour roadmap?
Sometimes it can be not as bigas first indicated.
Influencing factors tend to berollout.
(03:15):
So change, communication change.
As ever in any organization,lots of people process
compliance of people hanging onto the past, not not
implementing what they've beenasked to do.
Gremlins in the tech prettymuch always see that in the
first couple of weeks of a newprocess.
So not a great time to measure.
Let the tech get bedded in, letany gremlins get out of the
(03:37):
system.
But also the adverse thing ifwe're going to drive sales
actually is a really good thing,but then means you might need
extra labour because you startto sell more.
More things get delivered, morethings need making, more things
go through the self-checkout,all the scans.
So all these things are reallyinterrelated and tricky.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
And I really like doing these when we get called
in to do these, because wealways find some really
interesting insights.
Do these because we always findsome really interesting insights
.
And one of the things Iparticularly love about it is
you really get to know what'sthe opinion of the operators and
their view and you can feed allthat back.
And because we've got it in a,because it's by measurement,
(04:18):
you're not down to opinions,there's actually a fact base for
this bit's working really well.
This bit's not working quite sowell and this is what you can
do to improve it.
So I think they're reallyuseful studies to do.
They're not usually huge,they're not usually expensive,
because we're not in there verylong.
You'll go to a couple of sitesand do a bit of pre and post
(04:38):
measurement and the, the levelof insight that you get from it,
I think, is a is, you know,considerable give outlay on the
on the study time so, as GrahamWilson said at our forum in
September and he will bespeaking again in 2025, which is
good news um, sometimes youneed to go a little slower.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
to go faster and by that I think it was referencing
slow down at the start make sureeverything's in a row, make
sure everybody's aligned, makesure all the tech works, and
actually then that may mean youcan roll out faster in these
instances and speed up.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
And there's been some really interesting things in
terms of case studies when wehave gone out to measure these
sorts of things.
One company had changed from areally heavy paper-based system
to a digital system, which wasbrilliant and people were using
it.
However, there was some extrafunctionality, which was really
useful, and we knew because wewere going in to measure them
(05:33):
using that functionality, andthe teams were saying, oh, we
didn't know, it did that.
Oh, that's good, isn't it?
So actually we were doing aneducation piece.
So the bit that went back tothe team was actually some of
this hasn't landed as well, sothere's probably extra benefit
you could get out of it bylanding it.
There was a business that werelooking at should they put in
top stock shelves above theirnormal shelves, and we went to
(05:57):
three different places and thethree stores that were trialling
it for them were all doing itdifferently, were trialling it
for them, were all doing itdifferently.
One was doing it really well andit sounds obvious, but they
made sure that they were usingthe shelves for bulky things and
made sure things were directlyabove the space.
There was another team that hadjust put as much as they could
(06:18):
on the shelves and they just putit wherever there was a space.
So actually if you then came tofind it or count it or do any
replenishment, you were thenwalking around the whole shop to
try and find where somebody hadput the stock.
So there's some really simplethings that we see, and I think
one of the classic ones that wetalk about was a business that
(06:40):
introduced automatic coffeemachines and they weren't seeing
the extra throughput that theythought they would by automating
part of the process.
They were going from kind of ahand making a shot to somebody
pressing the button, and when wewent in we realized that what
they hadn't done was kind oforchestrate the rest of the
movements around it.
So what was happening?
(07:00):
The colleague was working theway they always used to, so they
were just pressing the buttonand standing there rather than
pressing the button and thengetting on with doing the milk
or whatever it is that theycould do alongside.
So some really fundamentalthings that can transform the
delivery of the benefit can comeout of these sorts of studies.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Yeah, one of the ones that probably sticks with me
was the big Multi-global companyputting in a new HR SAP system.
Clearly some savings.
One of the biggest ones wasaround removing paper.
But what they'd failed tounderstand was that in various
different markets across theworld and as humans, this is
fact it takes us longer to typesomething than write something.
(07:42):
So all their benefits have beenbaked in in terms of automation
, digitizing, no pieces of paper, which was great, but what they
hadn't factored in that itwould take people longer to
actually do the process becausethey were typing Now over time.
That scales and is a cost, butactually there's all the
benefits that come with it interms of having accurate data in
(08:03):
systems, removing the paper,lots of legislation in various
countries about things beingsigned.
But the feedback from thestores when it went in was this
takes us longer and theycouldn't square off why.
Because they were looking at apiece of paper with all the
benefits and a plan that saidbut all these things should save
you.
So sometimes back to goingslower to go quicker,
(08:24):
understanding that really helped.
Then future rollout, to say, inthe first instances, this
probably is going to take youmore time, but actually these
are the benefits.
As customers come back, we'vegot all their details
electronically.
We can pull data through todifferent systems.
So benefits were there, justshaped in a slightly different
way over a slightly differentperiod.
So again, watch out.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
But good to understand that, because that
really shaped the future roleand another good thing about
doing this is it kind of, whenpeople have called in us, us in
to have a look is we can thenoften help them identify and
here's the next step that youcould take.
So again it is going back tochapter eight, where we're
talking about having aproductivity.
So, yeah, you've introducedthis bit and made this process
(09:07):
change and and that's good.
And have you thought here'syour next bit.
So often they'll have thoseideas themselves, but again,
having a third party come in andshare ideas can be really
useful.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Yeah, I mean in terms of quick wins around this.
I think lean on your vendors,your suppliers.
They've got the experience,They've got the support network.
They might bring us in to helpvalidate that piece of thing,
but they might be using to helpvalidate that piece of thing,
but also they'll have theadditional functionality that
you might have not chosen to useat this point, that you could
use in the future.
Or actually, is it configuredthe best way?
Which customers have they gotthat you can go and speak to?
Speaker 2 (09:38):
It's always really useful going and speaking to
other people that have beenthrough that journey and I think
it's one of the things peoplesay they really enjoy about
coming to our sort of annualconferences.
You get a chance to speak topeople that have gone through
these things the same and I knowwhen I was kind of in retail
operations talking to otherpeople, there was instances
where I saved a whole lot oftime of that first steps of
(09:59):
learning.
You can avoid all that bytalking to somebody else who's
been through it and I'll sharekind of.
These are the things to avoidand use your network.
Clearly any vendor's going toset you up with somebody who's
going to tell you it's great,what you kind of.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
These are the things to avoid and use your network.
Clearly, any vendor is going toset you up with somebody who's
going to tell you it's great,what you kind of want is the
perfect.
That's what we want to hearbecause we want it to be great
for us.
But what are the bits you dodifferently if you were starting
again?
What are the bits you didn'tknow that you know now.
Those are all the kind ofsilver bullets, golden bullets
that can make a real difference.
Yeah, um, use data.
So if you've got pre-data thatyou've measured, track it down.
(10:30):
If not, get it measured so youcan accurately understand
cross-functional as well.
Is it an it project?
Is it hr project, ops project,people project, whatever it
might be, be realistic withthose people.
I think we talked about it inchapter eight.
You can potentially be thenaysayer as well if you're not
careful.
But educate and help themunderstand and manage those
(10:51):
stakeholders so they're notdisgruntled later in the project
.
We'll stop there.
The next chapter is chapter 10.
How can I budget better?
Thanks, sue, thanks, bye.
Welcome to the Rethink Productivity podcast.
We're back today with EverySecond Counts and we're on
chapter nine.
Is the projected saving real?
So brings me out in a coldsweat.
Really one of those where we'llget into the detail of case
studies and quick wins.
But we've created a projectmaybe not even our function.
(00:20):
Somebody's come up with anamazing benefit that we're going
to save millions and millionsof pounds or we're going to add
millions and millions of poundsworth of sales, or we're going
to do both.
That all flows through lands onyour desk and somebody says
crack on, how do we get themoney out?
Sound familiar, sue.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Yep, it's always a challenge, isn't it?
Because once those costs, thosesavings are baked in then they
don't usually come out, do they?
Speaker 1 (00:52):
so once a project is in flow, it really needs to
deliver and there's a realbalance then between being the
voice of reason to being thenegative naysayer that all you
always say that we'veoverestimated, or you always say
we can't go there.
And some of that comes back toprevious chapters around the
business understanding how youbudget, if you use use cost of
sale, if you use a bottom-upmetric with some top-down
principles.
But ultimately, for those thatunderstand labour models and run
(01:12):
them, there's alwaysintricacies of minimum manning,
of base levels, of ways that thehours are calculated.
That means it's not as simpleas if we spend a thousand hours
on this process and we can dosome tech or some new machinery.
That means we can make it 50%quicker, that we can actually
(01:34):
take those hours and bank themas savings.
There's lots of other factorsand influences.
That sometimes means you canaccess all of it, none of it, a
proportion of it, which peopledon't quite want to hear.
When there's a certain ratiothey need of saving to make sure
they can spend the money on thetech or the process.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Yeah, and what this chapter is really inspired by is
the work that we've done withpeople where they've kind of got
a project that they'veimplemented and then we've gone
in to measure what's the impactof it implemented and then we've
gone in to measure what's theimpact of it.
So in an ideal world thatprobably happens in a in an
early phase of the the projectrollout, because it can help you
refine it and get it better.
But actually in some instancesit's been when it's been all
(02:15):
done, all rolled out, andactually when we've then gone to
look, it's often when peopleare kind of not sure they're
getting the benefits and we'vethen gone to look and do some
measurement and we're able togive them some really granular
detail about what's not working,where there's best practice.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
uh, you know the best way to do things and some of
that means you need to knowwhat's happening in current
state.
So pre and post are reallypopular.
We're going to change thisprocess.
We've got no existingmeasurement or you did the
measurement for us before.
It was a while ago.
Can you come and refresh it?
Or actually it's up to date?
That's our benchmark, to startwith, our baseline.
We're going to put it in fortrial stores.
(02:53):
Can you come and understand theimpact?
And this isn't negative.
Sometimes the impact can be alot greater than they've
absolutely decided.
So do you take that benefit?
Do you save it for later?
Or back to chapter eight?
Is it something that goes onyour roadmap?
Sometimes it can be not as bigas first indicated.
Influencing factors tend to berollout.
(03:15):
So change, communication change.
As ever in any organization,lots of people process
compliance of people hanging onto the past, not not
implementing what they've beenasked to do.
Gremlins in the tech prettymuch always see that in the
first couple of weeks of a newprocess.
So not a great time to measure.
Let the tech get bedded in, letany gremlins get out of the
(03:37):
system.
But also the adverse thing ifwe're going to drive sales
actually is a really good thing,but then means you might need
extra labour because you startto sell more.
More things get delivered, morethings need making, more things
go through the self-checkout,all the scans.
So all these things are reallyinterrelated and tricky.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
And I really like doing these when we get called
in to do these, because wealways find some really
interesting insights.
Do these because we always findsome really interesting insights
.
And one of the things Iparticularly love about it is
you really get to know what'sthe opinion of the operators and
their view and you can feed allthat back.
And because we've got it in a,because it's by measurement,
(04:18):
you're not down to opinions,there's actually a fact base for
this bit's working really well.
This bit's not working quite sowell and this is what you can
do to improve it.
So I think they're reallyuseful studies to do.
They're not usually huge,they're not usually expensive,
because we're not in there verylong.
You'll go to a couple of sitesand do a bit of pre and post
(04:38):
measurement and the, the levelof insight that you get from it,
I think, is a is, you know,considerable give outlay on the
on the study time so, as GrahamWilson said at our forum in
September and he will bespeaking again in 2025, which is
good news um, sometimes youneed to go a little slower.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
to go faster and by that I think it was referencing
slow down at the start make sureeverything's in a row, make
sure everybody's aligned, makesure all the tech works, and
actually then that may mean youcan roll out faster in these
instances and speed up.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
And there's been some really interesting things in
terms of case studies when wehave gone out to measure these
sorts of things.
One company had changed from areally heavy paper-based system
to a digital system, which wasbrilliant and people were using
it.
However, there was some extrafunctionality, which was really
useful, and we knew because wewere going in to measure them
(05:33):
using that functionality, andthe teams were saying, oh, we
didn't know, it did that.
Oh, that's good, isn't it?
So actually we were doing aneducation piece.
So the bit that went back tothe team was actually some of
this hasn't landed as well, sothere's probably extra benefit
you could get out of it bylanding it.
There was a business that werelooking at should they put in
top stock shelves above theirnormal shelves, and we went to
(05:57):
three different places and thethree stores that were trialling
it for them were all doing itdifferently, were trialling it
for them, were all doing itdifferently.
One was doing it really well andit sounds obvious, but they
made sure that they were usingthe shelves for bulky things and
made sure things were directlyabove the space.
There was another team that hadjust put as much as they could
(06:18):
on the shelves and they just putit wherever there was a space.
So actually if you then came tofind it or count it or do any
replenishment, you were thenwalking around the whole shop to
try and find where somebody hadput the stock.
So there's some really simplethings that we see, and I think
one of the classic ones that wetalk about was a business that
(06:40):
introduced automatic coffeemachines and they weren't seeing
the extra throughput that theythought they would by automating
part of the process.
They were going from kind of ahand making a shot to somebody
pressing the button, and when wewent in we realized that what
they hadn't done was kind oforchestrate the rest of the
movements around it.
So what was happening?
(07:00):
The colleague was working theway they always used to, so they
were just pressing the buttonand standing there rather than
pressing the button and thengetting on with doing the milk
or whatever it is that theycould do alongside.
So some really fundamentalthings that can transform the
delivery of the benefit can comeout of these sorts of studies.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Yeah, one of the ones that probably sticks with me
was the big Multi-global companyputting in a new HR SAP system.
Clearly some savings.
One of the biggest ones wasaround removing paper.
But what they'd failed tounderstand was that in various
different markets across theworld and as humans, this is
fact it takes us longer to typesomething than write something.
(07:42):
So all their benefits have beenbaked in in terms of automation
, digitizing, no pieces of paper, which was great, but what they
hadn't factored in that itwould take people longer to
actually do the process becausethey were typing Now over time.
That scales and is a cost, butactually there's all the
benefits that come with it interms of having accurate data in
(08:03):
systems, removing the paper,lots of legislation in various
countries about things beingsigned.
But the feedback from thestores when it went in was this
takes us longer and theycouldn't square off why.
Because they were looking at apiece of paper with all the
benefits and a plan that saidbut all these things should save
you.
So sometimes back to goingslower to go quicker,
(08:24):
understanding that really helped.
Then future rollout, to say, inthe first instances, this
probably is going to take youmore time, but actually these
are the benefits.
As customers come back, we'vegot all their details
electronically.
We can pull data through todifferent systems.
So benefits were there, justshaped in a slightly different
way over a slightly differentperiod.
So again, watch out.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
But good to understand that, because that
really shaped the future roleand another good thing about
doing this is it kind of, whenpeople have called in us, us in
to have a look is we can thenoften help them identify and
here's the next step that youcould take.
So again it is going back tochapter eight, where we're
talking about having aproductivity.
So, yeah, you've introducedthis bit and made this process
(09:07):
change and and that's good.
And have you thought here'syour next bit.
So often they'll have thoseideas themselves, but again,
having a third party come in andshare ideas can be really
useful.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Yeah, I mean in terms of quick wins around this.
I think lean on your vendors,your suppliers.
They've got the experience,They've got the support network.
They might bring us in to helpvalidate that piece of thing,
but they might be using to helpvalidate that piece of thing,
but also they'll have theadditional functionality that
you might have not chosen to useat this point, that you could
use in the future.
Or actually, is it configuredthe best way?
Which customers have they gotthat you can go and speak to?
Speaker 2 (09:38):
It's always really useful going and speaking to
other people that have beenthrough that journey and I think
it's one of the things peoplesay they really enjoy about
coming to our sort of annualconferences.
You get a chance to speak topeople that have gone through
these things the same and I knowwhen I was kind of in retail
operations talking to otherpeople, there was instances
where I saved a whole lot oftime of that first steps of
(09:59):
learning.
You can avoid all that bytalking to somebody else who's
been through it and I'll sharekind of.
These are the things to avoidand use your network.
Clearly any vendor's going toset you up with somebody who's
going to tell you it's great,what you kind of.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
These are the things to avoid and use your network.
Clearly, any vendor is going toset you up with somebody who's
going to tell you it's great,what you kind of want is the
perfect.
That's what we want to hearbecause we want it to be great
for us.
But what are the bits you dodifferently if you were starting
again?
What are the bits you didn'tknow that you know now.
Those are all the kind ofsilver bullets, golden bullets
that can make a real difference.
Yeah, um, use data.
So if you've got pre-data thatyou've measured, track it down.
(10:30):
If not, get it measured so youcan accurately understand
cross-functional as well.
Is it an it project?
Is it hr project, ops project,people project, whatever it
might be, be realistic withthose people.
I think we talked about it inchapter eight.
You can potentially be thenaysayer as well if you're not
careful.
But educate and help themunderstand and manage those
(10:51):
stakeholders so they're notdisgruntled later in the project
.
We'll stop there.
The next chapter is chapter 10.
How can I budget better?
Thanks, sue, thanks, bye.
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