Have you ever wanted for a tool, only to find it after the job was done? Through the course of business, we forget! Preoccupied with a thousand and one issues to deal with we have a tendency to forget things that, if remembered, would make our lives much easier. What are these things? Forgotten assets! Hidden assets!
In almost any organization, certain assets are bound to be underutilized.
Perhaps it's an expensive piece of equipment that collects dust. Maybe it's a staff member who does not have enough work or is capable of doing much more. Regardless of the specifics, hard good or human resource, odds are you're sitting on an asset that is under performing. You just need to find it.
The beauty of leveraging underutilized resources is that it's almost pure upside!
You've made the expenditure, you've paid the wages: and yet, the item or staffing in question is not producing as expected. Rather than writing off these investments, or hiring more people to fill the gap, look at leveraging the resources you already have first.
How do you find underutilized resources? Here are some questions to ask yourself:
Do I have any expensive machinery or business capacity that I am not using effectively? Why?
Do I have any underutilized staff members? Why? How do we make better, more productive use of their time?
Do I have high performing people in the wrong positions?
Do I have any outdated or unnecessary gear I can sell?
Do I have any underutilized service contracts? Do I need those contracts to begin with?
Do I have idle real estate that could generate extra income?
Can we re-purpose our old computers?
Do we have any +10% situations, where a 10% incremental investment could pay a big gain? Sometimes you have to spend money to make money.
Of course, this list is very general; almost certainly, your industry, staffing makeup, organizational history and other factors will greatly impact the sorts of questions you should be asking. If you're a people heavy company, start there. If you're an asset heavy company, start there. If you have junk overflowing such that you can barely see the computer screen, start there.
Finding underutilized resources is time well spent. If you're successful, you'll reduce costs and improve efficiencies. You'll give equipment new life. You'll turn a scrap pile into cash. Ultimately, you'll make more money.
Go ahead: hunt for some gems, and don't be too surprised if you end up finding a big one.
Can we help?
At Wildwood Consulting, we help our clients succeed, by whatever means necessary. If we can help you with any of the above, please get in touch!
