Efficiency in Business Through Simplicity

Complexity can be a killer in business. Complexity requires many parts, lots of motion, and round about thinking. All of this activity caused waste in the business world. The opposite of complexity is simplicity and this is what business owners should strive for. The simpler the processes the easier it is to find efficiency and the easier it is to maintain a profit. Unfortunately, most businesses leaders don't understand the virtues of simple business models and simple processes. Instead they focus on creating grandiose things in order to prove their worthiness.

Imagine for a moment that you drive down a single street to get to your desired destination. The other option is to drive the scenic round which is nice, more educated, and more worthwhile but it takes much longer. It is kind of like the highway versus the state route. Certainly, the scenic rout is more worthwhile if you are so inclined but it is an awful waste of your time if you are running a business. You will be spending gas money, time, wages, and losing productivity.

People create complexity in operations because they want to show to the world and their colleagues their intelligence, whit and insight. If they can create something most people do not understand they believe that they have promoted their use to the organization. Even more important complex ideas help promotes their worthiness to themselves. It is a wonderful feeling to have people think you are something special.

In business, the ultimate goal is to make a profit and anything that draws away from this is a cardinal sin. Business requires efficiency and efficiency means simplicity of thinking and simplicity of operations. The less turns, movements, parts, and distance between stages the better off your business will be. You can either take the scenic route or take the highway. The choice is yours. However, you simply need to remember that profit is your ultimate goal.

Many years later when the business is in trouble and the competition is zooming ahead companies will need to cut out all the complexity in order to save money. Instead of waiting until this fateful day it makes much more sense to design the business in a way that actually runs well from the beginning. This means that businesses leaders will need to put down their egos and make tough decisions on how their business is going to run. A few percentage points of cost off of each product can mean many millions extra in corporate bank accounts.