Step One: Be open to reviewing existing operations to identify potential areas to optimize. Challenging the organization to look for ways to run a better business will enable you to identify various pragmatic approaches that help you bend your operating cost curve. Often during this review, you will create an actionable list of good ideas that will not break the capital expenditure bank or cause a multi-million dollar investment in a new infrastructure configuration. Remember, we are thinking about “bending” the cost curve at an already efficient operation. And we are thinking pragmatically about impacting the business with the realistically available resources that are potentially available.

Step Two: Challenge the status quo. Force the team to review and observe existing worker processes. The key word here is “observe.” You might be quite astonished with your current procedures when you simply observe and then document the steps in the core processes. When the professional services team at Vocollect (or one of our authorized partners) works with customers, the customer is often quite surprised by how many steps in their processes could be optimized or eliminated. It is recommended to engage a seasoned industry third-party person to help independently understand the rationale as to why certain procedures are followed. This may be especially helpful if you, as the manager, are the one who set up these processes. Otherwise, you may become defensive during the challenging of the status quo. Challenging the current situation will help you bend your cost curve one step at a time. At the end of the year, these little steps will add up to real business savings.

Step Three: Prioritize these observations and develop a list of no more than three areas of focus to impact. One of the biggest struggles I often see with organizations is that once they get their creative juices flowing, they make the effort too complex. A key is to keep thinking pragmatically around the realities of your world and your available resources. It’s important to transition your thinking effort into execution mode. If you do not get into an execution mindset, you might get lost in the analysis paralysis phase and never advance forward making the desired business enhancements and process refinements that make sense with the business.

For many businesses, changes in their multichannel distribution needs continue to evolve. It may make sense to initially focus on optimizing your world of eaches (and not full-pallet moves). The need to optimize the each and case movement of goods may be the best starting point to reduce operational costs.

Pragmatically bending the cost curve occurs when you challenge your existing status quo. Look for ways to achieve this without significant capital investments that might limit your business flexibility. Think how you can make your workers more effective. Bending your cost curve will help the business run better and help make you more valuable to the business.