Business Management - Productivity/Process Improvement

Working on an RFP for a prospective customer last week, I had an interesting experience. The company asked that I provide my pricing model by completing a grid of cost drivers. I declined to take part in the exercise.

Things were fine as long as I was personally overseeing a job, but as our company grew, I found day-to-day operations were more than I could handle. It occurred to me, it would be great if I could CLONE about three of me.

As an Association Professional, I am dealing with business owners and their employees every day. I hear their hopes and fears, triumphs and woes. I am often asked how belonging to the association will bring them more business.

Could you imagine turning on ESPN and watching a game in which the players and coaches had no idea what the score is? Now how about operating a printing company without metrics to measure if it is successful or not?

I have been working with my son Paul on our annual Ratio Reports/Studies for the printing industry. It’s a very tedious process, to say the least. However, I believe it’s a very important exercise for print shop owners and managers.

According to a Fox Business Network poll, 36 percent of all new hires said they were not made to understand what was actually expected of them from the outset. A large number of employees are frustrated—even depressed—over their jobs because of the “confusion” in the workplace, and would not recommend their employers to others.

Don Johnson won a total of $15 million playing Blackjack at three Atlantic City casinos. In the casinos’ desperation to get him in the door, they essentially gave him 50/50 odds. I know an empty press schedule is scary, but like the casinos, we printers need to keep track of the numbers and verify them for ourselves before we, like the casino managers, walk off the cliff like lemmings.

People I meet in my travels as a systems guy are generally shocked to learn I was once an arguably well-known rock ’n’ roll singer, at least regionally. Everything our band did had to be voted on, even where we stopped to eat, what songs to play, who got to sing first, etc.

Michelle told us she’d been summoned to the human resources office and informed of her layoff “effective immediately.” She asked the manager, “How is the company going to service the remaining customers that have relied on me and my department?”

Many small businesses do a pretty good job of producing financial statements, but in my experience, few really use them to the fullest advantage. Often what’s missing are meaningful benchmarks by which to judge financial results.