If you listen to some financial talking heads and political pundits, things in the economic world are much better, and the path ahead is clear (if you believe Vice-President Joe Biden). If you listen to some folks on the other side of the spectrum, we’re all doomed and you’d better stock up on ammunition and vegetable seeds for the post-apocalyptic world we are about to enter into. (Speaking of which, have you tuned in to radio and television personality Glenn Beck lately and heard some of the callers?)
The truth is somewhere in between those poles. And to a large degree, it depends upon which vertical you’re in and which markets you serve.
Regardless, it is never a bad idea to take advantage of lean times to fine tune your operations and business processes, assess your supply chain systems, and plan for the future – in this case, some level of financial recovery – by optimizing your supply chain and the information technology required to support it.
Many companies are in a budgetary "freeze" and have either set their 2010 budgets at 2009 actual spend levels or cut them back to some degree.
I saw a few projects delayed and/or scaled back last year, which unfortunately, puts those organizations at a competitive disadvantage – either because their competition is continuing to move forward with their improvement initiatives, or those companies are failing to gain momentum for an economic comeback, which is certain to happen.
So with all of that said, how are you freeing up capital to invest in operations consulting and improvement, as well as advancement of your technology capabilities?
Or have you found yourself in a dilemma where you can’t fund an improvement project, because your operation is performing sub-optimally, and/or you can’t perform optimally until you improve your supply chain operation?
In future posts, we’ll discuss how to free up capital. In the meantime, let me know what you are doing to get out of this catch-22.
-- David Meyers
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Tags: budgets, competitive advantage