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Welcome to the Productivity Podcast . Today

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we're going to talk about Chapter One in

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the book , our book . Every Second Counts

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, which is around . Where is your money

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really going , sue , who is the main

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author , if I'm being honest , joins

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me yet again , hi , sue .

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Hello .

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So before we just kind of , at

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a high level , work through Chapter One , do you want to

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talk about the way the

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book was structured and your thoughts on how people

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should use it ?

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The book's intended as something

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that you dip in and out of to answer questions

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, and the chapters are actually based

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around sort of the 10

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questions that we get asked most

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often . So the intention

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was that if it's a question you're asking yourself about

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your operation , you can dip into that chapter

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. There's a bit of background and

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context around what's happening

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, kind of how you can find out more about

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it , how to think about it . There's

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also , then , some case studies that show

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how people in a range of industries and sectors

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have tackled a similar issue , and

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then there's also a quick win section . So

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, without you having to do bring experts

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like us in , without having to work with anybody

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else , then there's some suggestions for

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how you could make a start yourselves . So

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it's intended to be really practical . I'm

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facing this question challenge , right

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. Let's have a read of the chapter and see how

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it helps me .

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Okay . So for those that are old enough to remember

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, it's not going to be Jack and Ory . You're not going to be

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reading it , although audio books are

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a popular thing now , so maybe there is an option

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. If I'm reading

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it , probably you get to sleep quicker , but yeah

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, it's not designed to be that . So these are kind

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of synopses of each chapter . Let's

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dive in then chapter one . Where is your money really

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going ?

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So this is based on the question that we get asked

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that there'll

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be a lot of businesses where they allocate

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budget to you know

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, stores , restaurants , warehouses , shift

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time , whatever so but

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they don't actually know how they're spending

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the time . So they might know what the hours

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are , but they don't know within that how

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time is spent . So it's

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talking about the techniques that we use , which is

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efficiency study , to look at overall

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where time is spent . So what the portion

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of time is spent with customers , how

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much of a portion of time is spent

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on the core tasks that really drive a difference

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, how much is spent on things like

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admin or meetings , or things

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that are perhaps filling time but might

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not necessarily have value , depending on the

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role in the sector that you're looking at .

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So questions , key questions , it could

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help you answer . Then there's a few that I'll reel off

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. How much time are you spending with customers versus

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complete in head down tasks

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quite relevant at the moment in a rising

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cost challenge . How much admin does your

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team do ? What extra work

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do areas manage to give you , give your teams

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? How much down taxing

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is there when team , when

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the team numbers on shift , outstrip

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the work they do ? How

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long do you spend moving in counting stock ? Where

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is my ineffective time by time of day ? So

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lots of quite big Fundamental

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business questions that , in a world

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where everybody's striving for cost , I

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think I just , at the time of recording today

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, published a Guardian article

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on LinkedIn around Brewdog

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and some others , capital , I think , moving away

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from the real living wage Because

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they can't afford the differential anymore . So

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they're kind of moving back to national living wage

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or somewhere some greenest in the middle . So

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really relevant , any other

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good uses that it that it brings

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?

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Well , the other thing is it looks at kind of how you can use

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benchmarking and obviously We've

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got lots of benchmark dates that we can then share

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with people when we've done these studies . So

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it's really interesting to know that , if you're aware

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house what proportion of you

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tap your time you spend , for example , counting

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stock versus picking stock

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and and versus kind

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of how other people , similar businesses , would do , it

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is interesting you know customer time

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, food prep time if

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you're a restaurant

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, cafe .

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And the case study in this chapter is really interesting

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. So example one a business providing

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expert B2B service found that only 10%

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of total time was spent on the part of the

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service that their clients valued .

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Yeah .

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So 90% of the time doing

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stuff that either was non-value add

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or that their clients didn't didn't

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value . So Again , big

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figures on big payroll members . So

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small percentage shifts and changes in those

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. Some quick wins , easy

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to get at , which is explained in the book . Others

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clearly need more expert help and

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the benchmarking helps you align .

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But Well , the great thing about

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Understanding where your money spent

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, it allows you to really target

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and focus reference effectively , because

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we've all worked in businesses and know that actually

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having enough time and the internal

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capacity to drive change Is

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it's one of the things that limits your ability to do

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it . So you want to make sure , if you do it making

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changes , you focus in them where they

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have in the biggest impact . So , understanding

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, if this is something that's half a percent of

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my time versus 10% of my time

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, you're going to have to go to 10%

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one , because even if you totally

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eliminate half percent time one , you've

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only changed half percent , whereas if it's something

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that's taken up 10% of your time , you've

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got a much bigger scope to have an impact on

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your business .

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Yeah , I remember somebody once telling me that they were really

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proud . No , I felt a bit bad actually because it felt like

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a burst of bubble , but they were really proud that they

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cut it half an hour process

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in half so down to 15

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minutes . Great and great bit of work . You know

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, really solid analysis

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, really solid methodology , really solid new

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process . Then got to the

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kind of crunch of brilliant . So how often do you

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do it ? And the answer was once a month .

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So say 15 minutes a quarter .

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They couldn't realize the benefit of . And then , when you

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actually looked at the data in terms of what

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chapter one's all about , if they

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made a 10 second change on

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one of the highly repetitious processes , it had

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been off the scale . So again

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, big Savings in

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time don't necessarily correlate to

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an actual realizable saving or

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something that at scale gives you anything that's

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tangible . And yeah

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, that kind of sticks with me that one of you know I

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kind of I did burst the bubble a little bit and they probably

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walked off a little bit . The flake would . But

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the theory was good , the the process

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, the implementation was brilliant . Just the

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scale wasn't worth the effort they put

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in . And actually this was a retail

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example . The store team didn't

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really value it because it was half

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an hour once a month and it just got done . It

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being 15 minutes , one for a month , just got blended

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into all the other stuff that had to happen

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. So sorry I won't name

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names , but if I did burst your bubble on that

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one I apologize profusely , but

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hopefully it kind of sharpened the focus .

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It's also interesting to look at if your

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business that handles stocks

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there's a retailer , say that stock coming

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in , how much time you spend putting

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stock to the shelf , versus

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the proportion of how much time

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you spend kind of in replenishment , which

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is then a function of how much stock

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you then have to push the back shop

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, which is double handling . So

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obviously if all your stock goes in just

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in time direct shelf which is the

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holy grail , that kind of it's tricky to get

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to then

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you only touch , ideally you touch things

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. You take it from the back door onto the shelf and wouldn't

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touch it again until the customer moved it and

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took it away and paid for it . The

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more your kind of bringing stock

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backwards and forwards , the more stock you've got in the back

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, the more your accounts are awkward , the more

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your stock figures are tricky . But actually

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the amount of work involved in double

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handling , those can really increase

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your massively increase your cost to sell

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that particular item .

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Again , I suppose , caveated in a world where people

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are looking for cost efficiencies . So again

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, some people are going to more deliveries

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, less quantity . Others , where they're trying

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to reduce transport costs , will be going to less deliveries

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, more quantity , which has

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a massive impact on that in terms of your touches

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. You're replaying your overstock shelves

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, however that works for you . So again

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, no right

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or answer . Sometimes the savings have

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unintended consequences , upstream or downstream

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in the cycle . So

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that's a good synopsis of chapter

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one . We'll be back to talk about chapter

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two . I think you just want to mention the productivity

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forum before we close .

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See , yes , so we

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. I don't know how many we'll have run this time .

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I think this is number nine , is it or is it ? Might

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even be number ten . Look , kind of lockdown . Got in

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the way a little bit , but I'll do them us .

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Yeah , so there's um , we

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have once a year we get together

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clients and people

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that want to join us to discuss

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all things productivity , really . So

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I know from my time having worked

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in kind of what can feel like

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quite a niche area in in

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an operation , that you're the person that's trying to

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find the opportunities for doing things

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differently . To be in a room full

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of other people that are all doing the same

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thing as you , just in other organisations great

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way to share ideas , great way

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to find out some yeah , I tried that

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, if you're going to do it , don't do this those

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sorts of learnings and case

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studies , presentations . So that's

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back where we've been for

9:30

the past few years at the

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conference centre in Birmingham , which is

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next to the Motorcycle Museum , just

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by Birmingham International , and

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the date is September the

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12th this

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year , so hopefully

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people want to come along to that . We've already

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got quite a few registered over a hundred

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over a hundred , so it's near

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incapacity and we always have a good

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turnout and if

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you want to register , there's a link to it on

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our website yeah , we'll

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publish a link in the show notes as well to make it even easier

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for you .

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But , yeah , get , get registering if you want to attend

10:04

. We don't allow kind of independent

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contractors , we don't allow software vendors

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, so it is very much the people doing

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the jobs . Loads of

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time for networking . We have

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people like Dan Whirl you've

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seen talking about footfall

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. Dan's coming back this year to give us kind of a state

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of the nation in terms of how we're spending our money

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, where we're spending our money retail

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parks , shopping centres , grocery , fashion

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, online so that's always great context

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to kick the day off . And

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another couple of speakers that we're not announcing yet . So

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, really exciting . Lots of case studies

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and again , we had some

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great speakers last year from the likes of Poundland

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BP Restore that

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shared their journeys and their stories

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and they're probably the most powerful ones because

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, you know , it's not a sales pitch , it's

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about sharing best practice , learning

10:54

everybody identifying opportunities

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. I think one of the biggest bits of feedback

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we get is I feel comforted that I'm

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in roughly the same place as others . You know , I've

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not . I've not missed something , but actually I've learned something

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today at the same time . So , yeah

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, do register . Places are limited . We're nearing

11:10

capacity . It feels like a long way

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away , but at the time we're recording we're kind

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of nearing the second week of

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fed and before we know it will be through Easter , then

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in the summer , and then we'll be there . So

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look forward to seeing you and we

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will be back soon . Soon for chapter two

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yes , see you soon .