The Third of Twelve
Tips to improve
business in 2014
By Hank Kreutzinger, Expense Reduction Analysts
Elkhart
Thursday March 27
11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Lerner Theatre
A unique event aimed at
Inspiring community involvment
and creating the change you
want to see in Elkhart.
Speakers include:
Steve Germani - Ideas to reality: Create
what you want to see in Elkhart
Amish Shah - Entrepreneurial spirit
Brian Boehler - Robotics
Charrise McCrorey - Life coach
Bill Firstenberger - Culture and history
Nicole Bauman - Community space
Steve Gruber - Arts in Elkhart
Jonathon Geels - 100 Ideas Project
Flavor 574 Team - Foodie happenings
Each has three minutes to tell their story
and Inspire Elkhart.
Register at Elkhart.org
Cost cutting continues to be a necessity
for most organizations, and often the attention
turns first to reducing internal staff. While
effective in lowering costs, this solution leads to
a new set of challenges.
All too often, the work effort from many
becomes the workload of a few. Executives
begin to look for ways to make certain fewer
people are doing all the right things, often
resulting in non-core – albeit a large volume
of essential – activities becoming tomorrow’s
business. These activities will receive less
attention and may become unintentionally idle,
abandoned or postponed until tomorrow.
The challenge is often stated as, “We lack the
time, the tools, and the talent to address all the
In short, they are embracing a non-labor,
contingency-based approach to cost reduction
as a key component in strategic financial plans
going forward.
Once an organization is committed
to this process, they are often hamstrung
with how and where to begin. Are there
relationships, possibly unstated, that potentially
impact making a change or even exploring
improvement? Can the organization afford to
undertake this effort?
Experience has shown that typically the
organization cannot afford to not undertake
this approach. Again, “we don’t know what
we do not know,” but we are seeing on average
savings of 18.5 percent against the client’s
All too often, the work effort from many becomes the workload of a few. Executives begin
to look for ways to make certain fewer people are doing all the right things, often resulting in
non-core – albeit a large volume of essential – activities becoming tomorrow’s business.
things we need to accomplish.” Developing an
internal team with specific industry experience
to address the limitless numbers of potential
categories becomes a daunting task, as well.
This leads many business executives to ask
new questions. Are there alternatives to further
reducing labor in order to reduce costs? Are
there new approaches to address the growing
number of non-core expenses in order to
reduce operating costs?
Many are discovering the answers are
“yes,” and they are deploying new approaches
to getting more work done inside smaller
organizations with fewer burdens and
disruptions to the budget and operations.
existing baseline expense costs of today.
While numerous non-labor cost categories
can be addressed, it is not uncommon for the
organization to address those that are less
obtrusive to daily operations. Energy, taxes and
insurance all come to mind as good categories
in which to begin this process, but it should
and cannot be limited to these.
This comprehensive approach should be
part of your organization’s strategic financial
plan. Analyzing and managing non-core
activities is a practical, reasonable approach to
reducing costs — an approach that works for
virtually every business and industry in today’s
fast changing environment.
Profit Improvment Workshop
Tuesday March 18 | 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. | Elkhart Chamber | Register at Elkhart.org