100 Great
Cost-Cutting Ideas
Anne Hawkins
ISBN: 978-981-4276-92-4
IDEA 1: A drop in the ocean
Just like other utility bills, you need to monitor and manage your
water bill.
Do your meter readings make sense?
Check the serial number on the meter – does it match the
one on
your bill?
Check where the meter has been fitted.
There are plenty of horror
stories out there of people fi nding they have been paying not
just for
their own water but those of their neighbours … and even
the leak in
the pipe that was not their responsibility. The idea
Even if you’ve checked that you’ve been billed
correctly, you can’t
manage the cost of water if you don’t know where it
is being used.
Envirowise* claims that businesses can save around 30% of
their
water costs through implementing simple and inexpensive water
minimisation measures such as fixing dripping taps and installing
water-saving devices.
Bring it home
Encourage everyone to question the quality and the quantity
of the
water being used and look for opportunities to save. You
may find
that people with unmetered water supplies at home are less
wateraware
than those used to watching how much money they pour
(or flush) down the drain. Losing mains water for several
weeks as I did
and having to carry water from an erratically-filled bowser
stationed
some distance away down the road (while not recommended),
can
literally bring it home just how much water you use.
Keep
checking
Read your meter on a regular basis so that you pick up
on and investigate
abnormal usage (e.g. from a leaking pipe) in a timely
manner.
Quality
costs
Remember that you usually get charged twice – once
for the water
supplied and then again to have it taken away.
Could you use alternatives to mains water?
How about using rainwater or reusing grey water?
Measure how much water is being used for different purposes
and
then start thinking of ways to reduce usage. Flush out savings
You will be
using water in your restrooms. While you may not want
to follow Australian guidance**, if you work out approximately
how
many restroom visits are made by your total workforce
in a day you
might decide to reconsider the way water is used there.
Sensors on
urinals and tap aerators are just some of the ideas that
can generate
substantial savings with rapid paybacks in these areas. Where
else do you use water in your business?
•
Cleaning vehicles?
•
Washing components?
•
Offi ce cleaning?
•
In the canteen?
•
Watering plants?
What about the water you drink? Water water everywhere...
Opinions vary on how much water humans need a day – whatever
the amount, there’s no need for it to cost you
an arm and a leg … Looking
through the pile of suggestions made by employees, this
one
caught the manager’s eye – and his imagination.
It was suggested that
plastic cups for use at water-coolers could be eliminated
by providing
everyone with a water-bottle. This started him thinking.
Everywhere
you looked there was a water-cooler. People seemed
to believe they
needed cooled water at arm’s length wherever
they went.
Rather than using expensive bottled
water, coolers are now connected
to the mains wherever possible. By removing half the
coolers on site,
the company has saved £10,000 per year in contract
charges. (The
manager commented that after a few days of anger and
frustration, people realised that having a short walk
to get their water
wasn’t
such a bad thing as it gave them the opportunity for
a bit of exercise
and allowed then to stretch their stiff bodies.) And
once they are at
the water machine they now fill up their water bottles
rather than
using plastic cups – even better!
[Even if you’re
not too keen on the water-bottle idea, consider the
size of the cups you use. If they’re too big, people
just pour away
tepid remains (water that you’ve paid for and paid
to chill) and refill
again with more water that you’ve paid for…]
Of
course with cost improvement there’s always something
more to
do. This particular client achieved some stunning cost
improvements
in recent years in many different aspects of the business.
Yet when
I went into the cloakroom, I noticed the hot tap was running.
When
I walked over to turn it off and found that I couldn’t
a friendly voice
called over, “Don’t worry, it’s been
like that for ages…” When you
consider that one dripping tap can cost more than £900
per year in
water and waste treatment charges* (and this was hot water)… there
was an awful lot of money going down that drain.
In practice
•
Treat water as a valuable commodity.
•
Take a look at each water-consuming activity you carry
out in
your business and considering how you would re-engineer
it if
you had to carry the water from a well 5 miles away.
•
Check your invoices! The 99 other ideas featured in
this book:
2 A fresh set of eyes
3 A healthy bottom line
4 A powerful argument
5 A question of respect
6 A risky business
7 A shared vision
8 A taxing question
9 An offer you can’t accept
10 Be careful what you wish for!
11 Be resourceful!
12 Be vigilant
13 Buyer aware!
14 Can I speak to…?
15 Capitalising on your investment
16 Cheaper by default
17 Check-out assistants are supposed to check
18 Choose your partners
19 Coded messages
20 Complexity breeds cost
21 Cupcakes, champagne and murder
22 Do you have a hockey stick?
23 Does anyone use this?
24 Does everyone know what caused the fire?
25 Does size matter?
26 Don’t believe everything you read!
27 Don’t just put out the fire
28 Don’t stop before you’ve arrived at your
destination!
29 Don’t try to do everything!
30 Excessive behaviour
31 Finding gems
32 Get it invoiced!
33 Getting help… and helping others
34 Go forth and multiply
35 How are you doing?
36 I could do something with that!
37 If inventory is an asset...
38 Interesting thoughts
39 Involve everyone
40 Is your Working Capital working?
41 It fell off the back of a lorry
42 It’s all a bit of a muddle...
43 Just what they want – and no more!
44 Keep your eye on the till
45 Keeping everyone fed and watered
46 Keeping up standards
47 Keeping your dogs under control
48 Killer watts
49 Make sure you’re not inadvertently increasing
costs!
50 Managing expectations
51 Mavericks and other challenging personalities
52 Milk those cows!
53 Not that again!
54 Now you’re rolling!
55 Poetry in motion!
56 Printing money
57 Processes not parishes
58 Producing rubbish
59 Read carefully
60 Single point failure
61 Spare a thought
62 Spending time...
63 Staring into space
64 Stars, cows and dogs
65 Storing up trouble
66 Straight to the bottom line!
67 Taken to the cleaners
68 Taking stock
69 Targeting resources
70 TBA – To be avoided
71 Tell people what things cost
72 That’s what you ordered
73 The death spiral
74 The smell of money
75 To keep or not to keep
76 Too successful to survive!
77 Trained to perfection
78 Trouble in stores
79 Under pressure
80 Understand what you’re giving away
81 Understanding the market
82 Unlikely partners
83 Waste not want not
84 We’ll put that right later...
85 What a difference a day makes
86 What did Big Ben say to the Leaning Tower of Pisa?
87 What’s this worth to you?
88 When things go wrong
89 Where should we make this?
90 Where there’s a problem there’s cost
91 Whet appetites!
92 Who is your cost czar?
93 Who pays the ferryman?
94 Who sets the selling price?
95 Why don’t they just pay up?
96 Why is that inventory here?
97 You can read it in the stars
98 You may have saved time...
99 You tell me what we need to do!
100 You’re not stopping are you?e
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