Assessing the Cost of Inefficient Workflows

Nonprofits aren’t as efficient as they think and it’s costing them big. Nonprofits waste 10–15% of their budgets on inefficiencies, but 60% have never conducted an operational audit. Why? Because many nonprofits equate “lean budgets” with “lean operations.” That’s not how it works. A quick example: Let’s say a nonprofit team spends 2 hours every week manually logging donor data into a spreadsheet. That’s 8 hours/month. Over a year, that’s 96 hours, gone. Now imagine there are 5 processes like this happening across the organization. That’s hundreds of hours (and thousands of dollars) being wasted on tasks that could be automated or streamlined. The solution? A simple time and motion study. It’s not fancy, but it works. Here’s how to do it: 1. Pick one week to track workflows. 2. Ask every team member to record: What they’re working on. How long each task takes. Any bottlenecks or repetitive steps they notice. 3. Identify at least one redundant process to eliminate or improve. Nonprofits are built to maximize impact, not waste resources. And yet, inefficiencies often go unnoticed because no one’s looking for them. But here’s the kicker: Every dollar saved on operations is a dollar that can go toward your mission. Want to get started? Audit your workflows this week. Identify one task to streamline. Free up time and money for what really matters: your cause. Efficiency isn’t just for startups. Nonprofits need it too. With purpose and impact, Mario

Two PMs presented the same feature. One got killed in committee. One got $2M budget. The only difference: how they counted: Monday: PM #1 presents. "This integration improves workflow efficiency by 40%." "User satisfaction scores increased 25%." "Time-on-task dropped 8 minutes." CFO: "What's that worth?" PM: "It's... hard to quantify." CFO: "Next." Wednesday: PM #2 presents the EXACT same feature. "This integration saves users 8 minutes per workflow. At 500 workflows daily, that's 67 hours. At $75/hour, we save clients $5,000 daily. That's $1.3M annually they're not spending elsewhere. Which means they have $1.3M more to spend with us." CFO: "Continue." Same feature. Same data. Different story. PM #2 learned this after losing 5 straight budget battles. Finally asked the CFO: "What do you need to see?" "I need to know if spending $X returns >$X. Everything else is poetry." So she built a simple translation guide: Time saved = Money saved = Budget to spend with us Efficiency gained = Headcount avoided = Expansion opportunity Satisfaction increased = Churn prevented = Revenue protected Now she tracks both: - What Product measures (usage, satisfaction, efficiency) - What Finance hears (revenue, cost, ROI) Same spreadsheet. Two tabs. One for her. One for them. The CFO pulled her aside last week: "You're the only PM who speaks our language. Your projects always get funded. That's not coincidence." She shared her approach with the PM team. Now they all track both metrics. Product metrics for building. Financial metrics for funding. Turns out everyone already knew the secret: Features don't get funded. Financial outcomes do. The translation takes 5 minutes. The funding follows immediately. Your best feature sitting in backlog? It's probably worth millions. You just haven't done the math.

Material unavailability in manufacturing bleeds time and money. How these costs add up will surprise you. Consider this: → A production line halts because a key material is delayed. → Teams are diverted, schedules are upended. → When the material finally arrives, the scramble to return to pace only worsens the impact. This isn't just a minor setback. The inefficiencies drive up the cost per unit in ways that aren't always immediately obvious. Let's look at a 3-day material delay: 1. Realizing the material is unavailable, production switches to another product, taking 1 hour. A subsequent switch back takes another hour once materials are available. 2. Switching gears costs a total switch time of 2 hours. The cost of these switches is 2 hours × $500/hour = $1,000. 3. Efficiency drops 20% in the first day of resuming work, adding an extra 20% × 8 hours × $500/hour = $800. 4. Production inefficiency cost now totals $1,000 (switch cost) + $800 (efficiency loss) = $1,800. That's $18 extra per unit. 5. If such disruptions occur frequently, say 20 times a year, the annual cost of inefficiency would be 20 × $1,800 = $36,000. 6. When the material finally arrives, catching up means overtime. Overtime pay is at a higher rate, making it a significant cost. In reality, material unavailability occurs much more than 20 times a year. And when the math adds up across hundreds of components, the cost of manufacturing due to material unavailability is crippling. This is why Post PO management systems are critical for manufacturers in 2024. A Post PO management system can prevent production scheduling delays (and shutdowns) and expensive revenue leakage.