Driving Towards Efficiency and Excellence in Business

Read any literature about business and you will most likely come across articles on continuous improvement, efficiency, quality, return on marketing efforts and other business concepts. These articles have one thing in common and that is to help the owner make money. If you aren't making money then none of these concepts really mean much.

Striving for excellence is a way of life and not some concept to be taken lightly. Thomas Edison once said, "Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration." Thomas believed that in order to have excellence you have to be able to do the work. Building great things is less about the idea and more about being persistent.

Excellence means that everything you do you try and do to the best of your ability. Even better you attempt to make the processes simpler and easier to complete. Thus doing well is not always about spending a lot of time. It is about putting forward the best quality work with the least amount of expense. This is called efficiency.

Excellence and efficiency go hand in hand. To have excellence without efficiency is to paint a beautiful picture on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. It is doubtful that you could ever repeat the beautiful work. However, such beautiful works will not function well in business environment if the cost is more than the market is willing to pay for the product. That would be a losing proposition.

Therefore efficiency and excellence must go together in order for businesses to effectively compete. Most people and businesses are not doing well on both fronts at the same time. For example a Chinese manufacturer of widgets might work efficiency but their products are not excellent (i.e. their quality is poor). If the Chinese could keep the same efficiency and improve their excellence they would dominate the market.

Sir Walter Scott says, "It is more than probable that the average man could, with no injury to his health, increase his efficiency fifty percent."

Most people and companies are not efficient. Time is wasted through the deliver of parts, the human drama that revolves around the workplace as well as in every nock and cranny of the manufacturing plant. Therefore designing processes that ensure quality and efficiency are necessary. American manufacturers are currently being hit hard by competition that is more efficient.

The ability to produce the best products at the best price is what will save American businesses from global decline. This will require a new of thinking that may be new to many business and industry owners. To be efficient is no good without excellence and to be excellent without efficiency is to produce a produce that can't be marketed. Learn to balance the two.