My family is busy working today as business has been good and they have plenty of orders to prepare for the week ahead. Ever since the business model changed from supplying to retail to supplying retail and online they have changed into a total different business.
This morning I have been fielding phone calls as they are not sure about certain things. When I was running my parts of the business I was hands on as I know you cannot take your eye off the basics. What may be straight forward is not always the case as you are relying on staff to think like you. The only way they will know is to copy what you do by being involved.
Something stupid which I should have warned them about was the use of consumables. They have 3000 Bicycles to get out for one order and I ordered them the sellotape for the boxes. I over ordered by more than double and did warn them that 1.2 m per box is sufficient.
According to my calculations with what they still need to complete the team is using nearly 250% more per pox. Being a Sunday the wholesalers are closed and that job will have to wait until the morning. I hope this is a lesson well learned as unfortunately you have to be hands on and involved.
I ran the warehouse operations for over 10 years and if you are not careful expenses can run away with you. Stupid things like packaging are not cheap and wastage adds up very quickly. I think this is where the knack of knowing figures helped as I could pick up problems very quickly. I could tell just by looking at stock on order what was required to complete the order and never ran out of things that others don't think about.
It is always the cheapest thing that can hold you up and a $50 000 order can now be at risk due to $20 off sellotape. My brother in law used to complain about the expenses as he never worked out the hidden costs involved. Once it was explained to him he understood and built it into the costs, but up until that point hadn't. If he had been hands on then he would have known, but then he had me who he knew he could trust.
I wasn't planning on working today but it looks like I will have to pop out and help them as 3000 bikes should have been completed within one day and not on day 3. The staff they have helping them are part of my old team and they should know better and possibly are stretching the job out to earn some extra money. Actually that is not "possibly" and is a most definite as I know exactly how they think. This is one of the reasons why I broke away on my own as I couldn't deal with this type of thing anymore. Staff can make or break a business and they need to be managed properly.
For me it sounds crazy as if you do a good job then the business does well and then you are looked after. Dragging something to earn extra overtime with meals included is tempting I am sure, but not sustainable if the costs rise too much. At the peak I had nearly 200 staff and if you are not careful they will bleed you dry.
