Steve Downton, Downton Service Management Consultants Ltd, Noventum Group
Service operations are coming under increasing pressure. Customer expectations are rising, revenues are falling faster than costs and the need to reduce logistics costs and Inventory levels is heightening.
Holding profitability steady is tough and the need for proactive action has now become a real necessity not just an option. But knee jerk reactions can be very dangerous - they force a business into taking action without arming itself with the right information. While most people like to bet on the horses occasionally, apart from the bookies, only those that study the form have any real chance of winning. So further inhibited by a perceived need for consistency, many companies plump for what appears to be the safe option of maintaining business as usual.
Recently the Service Director of a start-up company observed to me that while his company wanted to improve their Service Operation, the board felt that their operation was doing just fine, relative to the rest of the business. Quite often, he said, Board members are less confident dealing with service than with the other parts of the business. Consequently the Board considers investing in the Service Operation, as fixing something that is not broken, particularly when they have a better understanding of the challenges facing the more familiar areas in the business and so “need” their attention more urgently.
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