Bucket With a Hole...

Imagine yourself trying to fill up a bucket with water flowing continuously from the tap for hours but the bucket does not fill up. You increase the flow by further opening the tap hoping to see the bucket full but to your surprise, while the water level rises initially, it again starts going down.

Confused, you seek advice from your buddy who helps you realize that bucket has few holes at bottom and sides from where water leaks out !!!

Now you realize that how much of water you put, that bucket with hole would never fill up to the brim. Hence, you promptly change the bucket !!!

Replace Bucket with Business, Water with Funds and Holes with Process gaps/ Casual Approach of employees towards budget and spends and re-imagine the scene.

Does this not lead to conclusion that no amount of funds are enough if the business has "Holes" in the form of Process Gaps and Casual Approach of employees?

If the answer is Yes, then we understood the concept of Cost Consciousness already.

This awareness of constantly checking that there should not be any "Holes" around our area of work is nothing but Cost Consciousness.

Cost Consciousness helps us differentiate between Good Cost and Bad Cost and their respective impacts.

While Good Costs make business Sustainable, Bad Costs do just the opposite.

Good Costs are like a vaccine that helps businesses and organizations to stay healthy and growing. Bad costs are like parasites that take away the resources of an organization without any value being added back.

Spends which have a positive and measurable impact on Customer Experience, Revenues/ Profits, Brand or People Motivation of a business or organization can broadly be classified as Good Cost and hence should be supported.

Hopefully, by now, you have already started thinking about your Buckets (read business) and if they any holes, how are you going to deal with those !!!

All the Best,

Vikram