Amid an economic downturn, we begin to experience a lot of uncertainty. Our natural inclination is to spend less and save more and reevaluate our priorities personally. In business, it should be no different. Efficiency and optimization are essential during this time, and companies need to act swiftly to minimize risk and utilize best practices. The first course of action is to evaluate three key components within the organization: Practices, Talent, and Technology.

Practices

One of the most critical parts of attaining optimization is evaluating the daily practices of the organization. Many methods become inefficient over time due to advances in technology, size of staff, and available products in the market. Reviewing process workflows to analyze how you may increase efficiency can potentially increase productivity. There are a few simple questions you can ask yourself when evaluating these practices:

• Why are we doing this?
• Is there a better way?
• Can we minimize the steps?

It is incredibly common for a task to be assigned and continue for years without anyone considering why they are doing it, if there is a better way to get to the desired outcome, or if it is even necessary.

Talent

When organizations begin the process of optimization, many only consider one thing: Their job may be at risk. Which, more times than not, is simply not the case. Many times, the issue in business is not understaffing, but that the staff is underutilized. Are you utilizing your talent that lines up with their abilities and driving value for the organization? Work smarter, not harder! Consider the teams throughout the lines of business. Are there areas that seem to be struggling to keep their heads above water while other areas are grappling to find work? Sometimes silos create inefficiencies. Take a step back and look at your organization at an enterprise level to see how you might best optimize and strategically reposition talent.

Technology

After an initial software launch, organizations may fall victim to inefficient strategies that can cost more time and money than planned if not appropriately managed. In many cases, there will be different solutions between lines of business for the same problems, and this is a critical place to look. Consider the software packages your organization may be using today. Do you have various packages that attain the same goal? Keeping a concise list of software throughout the enterprise, and what issue they solve, can ensure your organization maintains efficiency and optimization. Paramount to this, would be to have a strategic vendor relationship strategy that can coordinate the needs and deployments across the organization, and ensure you are up to date with offerings in the marketplace.

The time is now to own your economic destiny!  Evaluate your risk and determine which changes you need to make to optimize your business.