Kevin Winters asked:
As an entrepreneur and owner of 3 companies (Payroll Associates, Sparkle Pool Service and CompanyMileage.com) I have invested in both my own businesses and the stock market.
The reality is those of us in small businesses are able to cut cost quickly..as my father taught me early on in business “you can’t control your revenue but you can control your costs”. In my 13 years of owning Payroll Associates we dealt only with small businesses and learned how they were able to adapt to changes in more ways than just layoffs. With my new venture, CompanyMileage.com we are selling a cost cutting services called MileageTracker to larger organizations, and there is a huge learning curve.
A great example is a division of a Fortune 1000 company that by utilizing our MileageTracker solution is going to save them over 1.5 million dollars a year..Great news for us right? Not really, the sales cycle to earn their business even during these trying times is over 6 months.
It is not the fault of the decision makers, it is the system. It is time for large organizations to act like small businesses, and cut all costs before layoffs vs. the other way around.
• Layoffs damage a company’s foundation and slow their ability to grow when the economy turns around (which it will).
• Layoffs create a disloyal environment
• Layoffs create a fear in the workplace
How to fix? Well let’s get big businesses to quickly react the way those of us in the small business community. My ideas are simple.
• Each team submits fast tract cost cutting measures with cost / benefit analysis
• Each division prioritizes these cost cutting measures
• Financial team prioritizes and implements
• Any cost cutting measures that are that are below a certain threshold can be implemented directly by a team
• Bonuses paid to creators and owners of the measures
• Set a short time frames
Though our service may only cut 1.5 million (its a lot to most of us, but a rounding error for large organizations)..What if there were 20 measures like this that all took a year to implement.
This company could cut 30 million in a year (or prevent 600 layoffs).
By the way at our pool company we (easily) cut over 50K in expenses and continue to be fully staffed and ready for the upcoming summer..In my 13 years at the payroll company we never once had a layoff.
Helpful links
CNNMoney.com – Layoffs aren’t the answerhttp://money.cnn.com/2009/01/27/markets/thebuzz/
NYTimes – More Companies Are Cutting Labor Costs Without Layoffs
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/22/business/22layoffs.html
As an entrepreneur and owner of 3 companies (Payroll Associates, Sparkle Pool Service and CompanyMileage.com) I have invested in both my own businesses and the stock market.
The reality is those of us in small businesses are able to cut cost quickly..as my father taught me early on in business “you can’t control your revenue but you can control your costs”. In my 13 years of owning Payroll Associates we dealt only with small businesses and learned how they were able to adapt to changes in more ways than just layoffs. With my new venture, CompanyMileage.com we are selling a cost cutting services called MileageTracker to larger organizations, and there is a huge learning curve.
A great example is a division of a Fortune 1000 company that by utilizing our MileageTracker solution is going to save them over 1.5 million dollars a year..Great news for us right? Not really, the sales cycle to earn their business even during these trying times is over 6 months.
It is not the fault of the decision makers, it is the system. It is time for large organizations to act like small businesses, and cut all costs before layoffs vs. the other way around.
• Layoffs damage a company’s foundation and slow their ability to grow when the economy turns around (which it will).
• Layoffs create a disloyal environment
• Layoffs create a fear in the workplace
How to fix? Well let’s get big businesses to quickly react the way those of us in the small business community. My ideas are simple.
• Each team submits fast tract cost cutting measures with cost / benefit analysis
• Each division prioritizes these cost cutting measures
• Financial team prioritizes and implements
• Any cost cutting measures that are that are below a certain threshold can be implemented directly by a team
• Bonuses paid to creators and owners of the measures
• Set a short time frames
Though our service may only cut 1.5 million (its a lot to most of us, but a rounding error for large organizations)..What if there were 20 measures like this that all took a year to implement.
This company could cut 30 million in a year (or prevent 600 layoffs).
By the way at our pool company we (easily) cut over 50K in expenses and continue to be fully staffed and ready for the upcoming summer..In my 13 years at the payroll company we never once had a layoff.
Helpful links
CNNMoney.com – Layoffs aren’t the answerhttp://money.cnn.com/2009/01/27/markets/thebuzz/
NYTimes – More Companies Are Cutting Labor Costs Without Layoffs
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/22/business/22layoffs.html