At the same time that you are looking at how to create new value for customers, you must find how to execute in the most efficient way. Information technology is an important enabler in this quest and how you use technology can also change what you offer to customers—as Shutterfly and Sonicbids demonstrate.
But getting more efficient is not just a short-term objective. In order to compete in the long term, companies must be one their industry’s low-cost producers. It’s the other edge of global markets—where everyone has new competitors, many of which operate with lower costs and where technology is driving efficiencies. A company’s mantra needs to be “more value for customers, delivered at less cost”.
Don’t forget your people.
But that didn’t mean people in these companies were treated like commodities, easily exchangeable or discarded. Quite the contrary: people in the Outsmart companies were not only part of the operations, they were important links in the development of strategies—on the front line, seeing what worked and what didn’t. When I walked the factory floor at Smith & Wesson, the fabled gun manufacturer that I also write about in Outsmart, the line workers spoke to me with great enthusiasm about how they were perfecting their work processes to improve the company’s performance.
In choppy times, everyone’s idea must be heard and the full force of the work force experienced. Growth takes using all of your available smarts.
Jim Champy, chairman of Perot Systems' consulting practice, is recognized throughout the world for his work on leadership and management issues and on organizational change and business reengineering. His first book, Reengineering the Corporation: A Manifesto for Business Revolution, sold more than three million copies and spent more than a year on The New York Times best seller list.
